Review WordCamp Guidelines Committee Update
We’ve taken a few weeks to get into the swing of things. We’ve been tasked with:
- looking at the current WordCamp guidelines to go over pain points and come up with a list
- reaching out to organizers to solicite feedback
- taking a look at any guidelines issues and comparing the issues to the reasons behind the guidelines
- putting together our recommendations
Here’s an update of what we’ve done so far:
- Divided guidelines into 4 main topics: tickets and finances, venue, sponsors, vetting
- Reviewed current guidelines in those sections
- Complied a list of WordCamp organizers to send surveys to
We’re in the process of:
- compiling a short survey that fits into the main topics: tickets and finances, venue, sponsors, vetting
In the coming weeks we will be sending an initial survey to our list of WC organizers.
We’ll put the results together from this first survey, analyze the feedback, and work on a more detailed survey to dig into the pain points that we discover.
David Bisset 12:40 pm on January 21, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Sounds great. As a WC organizer, looking forward to the survey.
John Saddington 3:53 pm on January 21, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
as am i david!
Brian Krogsgard 5:48 pm on January 22, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
We just had a meeting last night for our WordCamp. One thing that came up was identifying how to choose speakers, location-wise. It seems there is a strong preference for “local” speakers from WC Central, but not really a definition of local, or a set percentage of any kind.
So, maybe we don’t need strict definitions, but perhaps some official verbage on what we should strive for.
In our case, the city-wide WP folks is a fairly small bunch (in terms of potential speakers), so we’re trying to identify whether surrounding cities like Atlanta and Nashville, even though outside the state, are “local” enough.
Anyway, a relatively small issue, but something that came up – especially from one of our contributors that has been turned away from speaking at other camps because they were from outside of town.
David Bisset 5:55 pm on January 22, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Brian, speaking only for WordCamp Miami we consider local to be anywhere that doesn’t overlap with another WordCamp (a few hours driving distance is another way to look at it). So for us that could mean Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, or even up to Tampa.
Another way to look at local is how close together your meetups are, which are the building blocks of a successful WordCamp. If you need to look outside the “area” for speakers more than what your meetup as to offer, then it might be a good idea to beef up the meetups as a priority.
Average percentages for #wcmia are about 60%-70% “local”.
Jane Wells 7:16 pm on January 22, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply
There is verbiage on plan.wordcamp.org around percentages to shoot for. When there’s not a lot of choice locally, people usually extend to regionally for that part.