Prioritize and budget for 2017 events

[chadwhitacre]

Okay, @gratipay, can we talk about how we want to use funds for events this year?

• I am interested in going to OSCON (Go to OSCON 2017 #948), because it's the most significant open source conference, and I / Gratipay have never been. If we're gonna play in open source, we can't have never gone to OSCON! Especially if we want to tap into corporate open source, which we do, because that's where the money is. I estimate I could do OSCON for $1,200.

• Then there's $ustain (Participate in Sustain #920), which I really think we need to participate in if we're going to stay relevant. For budgeting purposes that would come under Go to San Francisco #921. I'm putting that at $1,330. @clone1018 is also interested in attending—maybe we can split a room?

• EuroPython (Go to EuroPython 2017! #894) is @JessaWitzel. Do you want to make a proposal for using some Gratipay funds for that trip, @JessaWitzel? I think even a small amount would be good, to start branching out beyond me as the sole goer-out-there-er.

• Open (Go to Open #940)—I will bump that to see if there is any travel assistance available. Not sure we can get there otherwise.

• And then there's the Retreat ( Gratipay Retreat 2017 #927). Do we still want to try to pull that off in February? Does it make more sense to bump to August? How much money do we want to use from Gratipay for that?

We have $2,800 in the bank right now, and are accumulating approximately $55 per week (150 - 95) after #928 (!m @nobodxbodon), which is about $230/mo and $2,900 per year. I'm willing to put up some personal cash for a May trip to Austin and SF for OSCON and $ustain. How much Gratipay cash do we want to allocate for each of these events?

[clone1018]

If Gratipay wants me to go to $ustain and representing Gratipay, I'd like to be compensated for any event costs, however I'm fine with the flight. Maybe I can sleep on a floor or a couch of someones?

Could we share a room for OSCON?

[chadwhitacre]

There may not be fixed event costs but it'd probably be good for us to chip in since our logo is apparently going on a poster. ;-)

[chadwhitacre]

Could we share a room for OSCON?

I'm game. Let's develop a budget/plan together on #948.

[nobodxbodon]

Trying to think of any potential additional costs, other than the fixed costs. Some things in mind:

• extra web traffic we need to handle if integrating npm takes off. I suppose the service handled heavy load before, so maybe we don't need to upgrade service plan on Heroku.
• any extra resources needed by performance project ?

[chadwhitacre]

@nobodxbodon Sounds like you're expanding the scope beyond events, ya? Not a bad thing to do but we may want to look at that in a dedicated ticket.

[nobodxbodon]

@whit537 I agree. Only reason is that I want to make sure we won't be short in the hard cost.

[nobodxbodon]

@whit537 some thoughts without taking budget into account. If N>1 contributors go to OSCON, there can be more exposure and feedback (closer to xN). Whilest $ustain sounds like a small round-table meeting, and I don't quite see much extra benefits to have more then 1 representitives.

That said, as far as we can afford it, the more people the merrier, for all events!

[chadwhitacre]

Whilest $ustain sounds like a small round-table meeting

But also highly focused on our domain:

Sustainer?

A sustainer is someone who evangelizes and passionately advocates for needs of open source contributors.

They educate the public through blog posts, talks & social media about the digital infrastructure that they use everyday and for the most part, take for granted.

They convince the companies that they work for to donate money, infrastructure, goods and/or services to the community at large. They also talk to the companies that they don’t work for about the benefits of doing the same things.

We definitely want to meet those people!

[chadwhitacre]

Alright, I'm ready to pull the trigger on @clone1018 and I going to both OSCON (#948) and $ustain (#920) together. Let's figure out what Gratipay can commit.

[chadwhitacre]

$2,800 in the bank. How about $750 or $1000 for May? We should be able to save up another $1,250 or so to use for EuroPython and the retreat come summertime.

[chadwhitacre]

Flight to London for #940 is only $540 right now!

[chadwhitacre]

Too good to be true. :-/

[chadwhitacre]

OSCON, Sustain: ✅
EuroPython, Open, Retreat: ❌

Latter half of 2017 I'm looking at All Things Open (#1106) and Open Source Summit (#1044). Both are roughly comparable to OSCON I think. More touchpoints with the corporate open source scene. ATO we've done before. I'm slated to speak this year ... could maybe go fishing for travel help? Summit is a Linux Foundation event, could stand to make more connections with them. They're the big fish in the small pond that is current value capture.

Both probably $1,200 each? Would have to invest into Gratipay to afford since cash is at about $1,600 and barely holding steady (cf. #1129).

[chadwhitacre]

I've put money down for #1044.

Since we're focusing on npm support we should probably think about JS conferences in 2018 vs. generalist enterprise-y ones (OSCON, OSSummit, ATO).

[chadwhitacre]

Last event is coming up, don't see any more this year.

[chadwhitacre]

Both probably $1,200 each?

Managed to clock in under $600 for #1044, on target for even less for #1106.