Just throwing my two cents in as someone relatively new to Wikimania but not
unexperienced in conferences, I would make three points. Forgive me if
someone said these before in a better way.
1. Wikimania isn't actually that big. I agree with Harel when he points out
that the level of overhead involved in organizing is a barrier to strong
bids, but still, my understanding is that Wikimania tends to draw less than
a thousand people. That's about the size of a municipal or regional
technical conference in my experience.
2. Even if Wikimania is not relatively big when it comes to technology
conferences, the problem is growing a strong local team of volunteers in a
new place every year. That's very, very hard. We're not unique in having
that difficulty as a movement, but I don't think it means we should abandon
volunteer-based organization for the event.
3. Making Wikimania biannual will only serve to create more pressure on a
new local team to create a huge, unique event, not lessen it. If we think
Wikimania is too much to have as a rotating single yearly conference, I
would suggest (and this isn't a new idea or mine alone) that we pick one or
two semi-permanent locations on different continents and hold them regularly
in those places. Say, one in Bangalore, one in Berlin, one in San Francisco,
as examples, and hold them on a rotating basis.
However you do it, a greater number of smaller, distributed events is the
solution for easing the pressure of a single monolithic conference.
On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 7:02 AM, theo10011 <de10011(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 8:26 PM, Casey Brown <lists(a)caseybrown.org> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 9:48 AM, theo10011
<de10011(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Also, about what Dalton said above, about hiring
a single event
planner/manager in the chapter, I think it's still far from being able
to
manage a Wikimania style event professionally.
Unless they are
experienced
with International event planning, its still
going to be a very large
task
for any single chapter.
It's a large task for a single chapter to plan Wikimania with the help
of a paid event professional? Our Wikimanias have been planned by a
lot less -- usually just a group of hard-working Wikimedians, some
with the help of a chapter, some not. :-)
Allow me to reiterate, I meant its a demanding task for any group, let
alone an individual planner. :-)
Our Wikimanias have also been getting larger and more complicated, I think
thats one of the central issues. I only suggested, maybe its time to
consider outside/professional help?
Theo
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