2006/5/26, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com:
A couple more thousand per month would have a very minimal impact on a multi-million dollar per year budget. There is a significant opportunity cost of having to set up meetings way in advance because all the key people need to fly into one place vs simply having key people already on the ground where we know contacts are already located.
I don't see how moving the office would diminish that problem. As far as I see it, the office would not be the "key people", and as far as they are, they are so by being who they are, not by their function.
What key non-Wikimedia contacts are in St Pete? None outside the tourist industry and Scientology AFAIK. What key non-Wikimedia contacts are in D.C. and NYC? Representatives from just about every nation on earth along with hundreds of like-minded organizations that share different parts of our goals. If we had an office near D.C. or NYC, then meeting with any one of those key contacts could be done casually, often, and without much notice beforehand.
If we have people near D.C. or NYC, they could do that without the office being there physically. If we have no people there, then it would in my opinion be stupiditiy to move our office there.