Thanks Cormac (and Gary - mate I see yu working so hard)
Glad to see you met John D, who, if you read between the OCW forum lines. is
having a hard time, like WM, with coming up with a form of governance that
assists global groups get their interests (and content) together, and find
ways to be sustainable.
Yes the venue is important, but build a better mousetrap and people'll flock
to it. The OU is a hub of (Uni) relationships who constantly run
conferences, so they know better than anyone which venue would be adequate.
National libraries are the same. So the British library would be another
possible approach, especially with the Alexandria Bibliotech hosting next
year. Librarians compete hugely, like all institutions (You know - me too!
me too!)
I used to wrap advertising/ sponsorships around content for a living, so
with the Wikipedia brand, being the most influential library(ies) in the IP
world, it's pretty easy to see who's a hit. Trouble is, if one thinks in
terms of just one event, for one year, the Wikimania brand becomes sooo
devalued = just one little group, in one little country, for a couple of
days, just like an ordinary uni. So tens of thousands of volunteers never
get the feeling that they are part of a new global institution.
It's not so much a matter of remote 'simultaneous conferences'. It's a
matter of having people like Tim Berners Lee being able to attend (virtually
if necessary), and then having a few (or lots of) global 'break out
sessions' - 'atelier' knowledge building as John Seely Brown would say. Am
just watching the dog's breakfast called Megaconference. Room for
improvement? You betcha.
http://digitalunion.osu.edu/megaconference/streaming.html
So forgive a grumpy old man for his incompetence with mail lists. I can see
that if we were to run some sessions on the OU flashmeeting, and have this
discussion on a couple of threads in their Labspace, and invite Mido to give
us an idea of what he has in mind for content next year, and ask our
Taiwanese friends to add their experience, along with others, then we won't
have to go out and sell this too hard. As IBM have said for a decade now, we
live in an on demand world. Trouble is no one seems to believe it.
Regards,
simonfj
-----Original Message-----
From: wikimediauk-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Cormac
Lawler
Sent: Wednesday, 7 November 2007 9:03 AM
To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] People to approach to help?
Thanks Simon - these are great points. I did in fact meet John Dehlin,
and he was very enthusiastic about collaborating - particularly with
Wikiversity. My major concern with regards Wikimania is with finding a
good venue that will be easy to get to for members of our community,
and comfortably host about 500 people, keeping accommodation and
activity centres within easy reach of each other (as we've had in the
past). The next thing would be to find sponsorship - so your ideas are
most appreciated. (Are you able/willing to help in this regard? :-))
Finally, remote participation is something we have been working on
thus far, but there's much room for improvement. However, I'm not sure
about simultaneous conferences, as it could dilute from the diversity
that has made each Wikimania so special. :-)
Thanks,
Cormac
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