Difference between revisions of "How To Plan A Code4LibCon"

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* Apply to be a host
+
== General Process ==
 +
* Apply to be a host; see also the page on [http://code4lib.org/conference/hosting Conference Hosting] at [http://code4lib.org code4lib.org]
 +
** '''Identify venues''' for both the conference and the hotel (if different). Get some cost estimates from each. Make sure the hotel will give you a room block.
 +
*** 2006/Corvallis: the campus provided the conference space at a low cost, and this made running the conference much more affordable.
 +
*** 2016/Portland: we held everything in a single hotel and we had to acquire 2x the amount of sponsorship than what appears to be normal.
 +
** '''Prepare a sample / generalized budget'''
 +
*** Remember, your institution is taking the risk of covering any costs not covered by registrations and sponsorships. To this point, I believe the conference has always ended up in the black, but there is always a chance it won't in a given year. Drafting a rough budget before submitting a proposal is critical.
 +
*** Get data from previous years to estimate minimums and maximums, and fill in as much as you can ahead of time.
 +
*** Speaking of sponsorship, I believe we average around 20k per year in sponsorships to help run the conference and keep the registration low. Factor this into your budget.
 +
*** Also, when you get cost estimates, don't forget to include food costs.
 +
*** Wireless: If you are proposing to host the conference on a campus, check with your IT folks about any additional costs. If you are looking at a hotel or other venue, make sure you talk to them about bandwidth and costs.
 +
** '''Consider using a conference planner'''
 +
*** See if your institution has a conference planning services group or something similar - if it does, then I highly recommend using them. They'll handle registration, budgeting, contracts, etc, and really make life easy.
 +
*** Also consider using conference planning services from other entities. In 2013, Chicago used DLF services to handle registration. In 2014, NC used CONCENTRA services for all contract negotiation, fiscal activities, registration, and other conference planning and management services.
 
* Get approved by the community
 
* Get approved by the community
−
* Find a hotel, negotiate and sign a contract with them
+
* Find a hotel, negotiate and sign a contract with them. [[Sample RFI]]
−
* Invite the community to help with
+
* Invite the community to join committees
 
* Have a timeline
 
* Have a timeline
 +
*[[Useful information from 2012]]
  
−
 
+
== Important Public Resources ==
−
== Important Resources ==
+
 
* Past calls for host sites: [http://code4lib.org/node/275 2010] -  
 
* Past calls for host sites: [http://code4lib.org/node/275 2010] -  
 
* [http://dewey.library.nd.edu/mailing-lists/code4lib/ Code4Lib listserv]
 
* [http://dewey.library.nd.edu/mailing-lists/code4lib/ Code4Lib listserv]
 
* [http://groups.google.com/group/code4libcon Code4LibCon listserv]
 
* [http://groups.google.com/group/code4libcon Code4LibCon listserv]
 
* Sponsorship info (public)
 
* Sponsorship info (public)
 +
* [http://code4lib.org/logo/ Logos]
 +
* [http://code4lib.org/content/template-code4lib-20xx Template for the conference page on the main Code4Lib website] - This page is only visible to those who have a code4lib.org account. Once a host has been selected, please copy the template to a new page for that conference year.
 +
* [[Code4Lib Conference Lessons Learned]]
  
 
== Important Private Resources ==
 
== Important Private Resources ==
Line 16: Line 32:
 
* Budgets from previous years
 
* Budgets from previous years
 
* Sponsorship info (private)
 
* Sponsorship info (private)
 +
 +
== Committee List ==
 +
* Local Planning Committee
 +
* Accessibility Committee
 +
* [[BookGiveawayCommittee|Book Giveaway Committee]]
 +
* Childcare
 +
* Documentation
 +
* Keynote
 +
* Onsite Volunteer
 +
* Pre-conference
 +
* [[ProgramCommittee|Program Committee]]
 +
* [[ScholarshipCommittee|Gender Diversity & Minority Scholarship Committee]]
 +
* Slack/IRC
 +
* Social Activities
 +
* [[SponsorshipCommittee|Sponsorship Committee]]
 +
* Streaming Video
 +
* [[T-ShirtCommittee|T-Shirt Committee]]
 +
* [[Voting|Voting]]
 +
* Whatever
 +
* Wifi/Electrical
 +
* Duty Officers
 +
 +
== Planning ==
 +
 +
=== Budgeting ===
 +
* [[Conference_Financial_History_At_A_Glance]]
 +
* private conlist has budget info
 +
 +
=== Hotels ===
 +
* You will likely have to convince the conference hotel of the conference size and past room uptake as part of negotiating your contract. They may want to contact past conference hotels to get more info about actual uptake.
 +
* 2014 -- Raleigh Downtown Sheraton
 +
* IMHO, the two things that really need to be addressed each year are connectivity and food - everything else generally manages itself in terms of facilities.
 +
* Regarding conference hotel, you'll want to make sure that there are blocks of rooms available - not usually too bad an issue in larger towns, but in some college or smaller towns, hotel rooms may be limited.
 +
* prepare the hotel for deluge via web when announcement is made about hotel registration available.  We overwhelmed the Seattle hotel in 2012
 +
 +
TODO: get actual room uptake numbers into a chart here. (NB totals are only useful in the context of how many attendees there were.)
 +
 +
=== Wireless ===
 +
* make sure VPN is allowed
 +
 +
TODO: put actual concurrent connections and bandwidth usage data numbers in a chart here. Note when problems were occurring to give context on whether these numbers were sufficient of insufficient.
 +
 +
Aspiration Tech (an org doing unconference facilitation) has developed a [http://facilitation.aspirationtech.org/index.php?title=Logistics:Wireless_Best_Practices great list for assessing and negotiating event wifi].
 +
 +
=== Policies ===
 +
A record of [[Conference_Policies]] of all kinds!
 +
 +
== Shortly before the Conference ==
 +
 +
=== Keynotes ===
 +
# Contact speakers in advance to get a speaker bio, plus to ask if they need anything, arrange airport pickup, etc
 +
 +
 +
=== Email Boilerplates / templates ===
 +
* [[ConferenceOrientationEmail|Quick orientation email for newer folks]] - Send out at least a week in advance before conference...
 +
* [[FreenodeIrcConnection|Freenode IRC connection]]
 +
** Historically, conference attendees have had trouble maintaining persistent connections to the #code4lib IRC channel. We'd always assumed we were overwhelming the conference facility's Internet connection, but we were actually running into Freenode's IP-based connection limits. Freenode is supportive of the IRC-as-backchannel model, however, and they're happy to work with organizers to raise the connection limit.
 +
** Contact the conference facility in advance and see if you can find out what your ''public IP address range'' will be during the conference. (If it starts with 10.*, 192.168.*, or 172.16.*, ask again -- those are "private" IP ranges used for connection sharing.)
 +
** Once you have the IP address or range, send an email to [mailto:ilines@freenode.net ilines@freenode.net] containing a request to raise the connection limit. Include conference info, IP range(s), and the expected number of connections. For example:
 +
** I received an automated reply with a ticket number almost instantly, but didn't hear back after that. I sent a quick followup early on the morning of the 22nd, and received a response (from a human) letting me know that it had been taken care of. (Follow-up, one year later: Same experience. Immediate automated reply, but with a need to follow up with Freenode staff in the #freenode channel to get the ticket resolved.)
 +
** Additional support is available from the helpful volunteer Freenode staff in the #freenode channel.
 +
 +
== At the Conference ==
 +
 +
===Keynotes===
 +
# Speaker gifts
 +
# Dinner plans
 +
 +
=== Timers ===
 +
* Sit in the front of the room
 +
* Have several people
 +
* You may want to use an extra machine
 +
* Here's what some of the software looks like: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schwartzray/4393891356/ (ask Ed Corrado for details)
 +
* Dan Chudnov says the best free timer app for OSX is http://www.apimac.com/timer/
 +
 +
=== Lightning Talks ===
 +
* Everybody lines up ahead of time (image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schwartzray/4393881044/ )
 +
 +
===PreConf===
 +
# make sure projector avail for each session
 +
# whiteboards or reasonable facsimile thereof
 +
# everyone wants a power outlet
 +
 +
=== Conference ===
 +
# power - everyone would like to plug in their laptop (and possibly their phone)
 +
# IRC Monitor for podium during speaker changes?
 +
 +
===Photography===
 +
 +
* Consider different colored lanyards to articulate personal photography preferences.
 +
** Portland/2015 had color-coded lanyards:
 +
*** Green = it's ok to take my picture
 +
*** Yellow = please ask before taking my picture
 +
*** Red = don't take my picture
 +
 +
=== Podium ===
 +
# Water at the podium
 +
# Provide height adjustable podium, if available. Otherwise:
 +
# Provide an apple box for presenters who would like to use one.
 +
 +
=== Video ===
 +
# Videos are streamed at https://youtube.com/code4lib
 +
# Presenters can opt out of having their likeness recorded and streamed. They may not opt out of having their voice and presentation (i.e. slides, etc.) recorded and streamed.
 +
# Presenters must not use unlicensed music in their presentation. Likewise, unlicensed music must not be used between presentations.
 +
# Video must be able to work with the house A/V crew and set up the day before the main con begins.
 +
# Lighting must be provided for the speakers.
 +
 +
=== Live Blogging ===
 +
Consider doing live blogging for 2014. You will have two people so they can switch off during each section of day.
 +
 +
=== Ask Anything===
 +
* Add to volunteer page to have a moderator or do a general call out
 +
* Need mics for people to line up at (image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schwartzray/4393838640/ )
 +
 +
===Book Raffle===
 +
See details here: https://wiki.code4lib.org/BookRaffle
 +
 +
* (image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schwartzray/4393619144/ with people for context: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schwartzray/4393623802/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/schwartzray/4384550127/ ), better if there's a table
 +
 +
=== Flipcharts ===
 +
Flipcharts can be useful, but it's important to decide what to put on the wiki/website and what to put on a flipchart:
 +
images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schwartzray/4392998501/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/47860563@N05/4388430079/
 +
 +
=== Hospitality Suite ===
 +
# having a few people with room keys, any of whom might need to be available to open up or close down the room at the beginning or end of the evening
 +
# making sure the mess left for cleaning staff is an appropriate mess
 +
# making sure the noise made near other hotel guests is an appropriate noise
 +
# having someone act as a point person to gather a gratuity for the housekeeping staff maintaining the suite
  
 
== Suggested Timeline ==
 
== Suggested Timeline ==
 
* See [[C4L2010planning]] for an example  
 
* See [[C4L2010planning]] for an example  
 +
* See [https://docs.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/document/d/1Ci_aeXlUOW_1XZ9isvwXfyt-FFyO7zsBxesenbFvCPI/edit Code4Lib 2014 planning schedule] planning schedule] for example, including dates for responsibilities for each volunteer committee. Note that we established schedule at the outset by counting weeks backwards from the desired conference dates.
 +
* Ideal to have program set before registration, including pre-conf
 +
** also allows clarity for how many spots are avail for non-presenters
 +
 +
===Calls for Hosting===
 +
No one has claimed responsibility for putting out the call and setting the deadline. Consider having this task as the host committee, the voting committee, or perhaps the whatever committee.
 +
 +
{| class="wikitable"
 +
! Year of proposal
 +
! Text of call
 +
! Call issued
 +
! Deadline for submission
 +
! Weeks to submit
 +
! Voting start
 +
! Voting end
 +
! Weeks to vote
 +
! Announcement
 +
|-
 +
|2010
 +
|[https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=CODE4LIB;tBeDRg;201002051132430800 Code4Lib 2011 Hosting Proposals Solicited]
 +
|5 Feb
 +
|5 Mar
 +
|4 weeks
 +
|
 +
|
 +
|
 +
|
 +
|-
 +
|2011
 +
|[https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=CODE4LIB;R8d%2FBw;20101210153936%2B0000 Code4Lib 2012 Call for Host Proposals]
 +
|10 Dec, 2010
 +
|23 Jan (Sun)
 +
|6 weeks + 3 days
 +
|25 Jan (Tue)
 +
|9 Feb (3rd day of conf)
 +
|2 weeks + 2 days
 +
|10 Feb (last day of conf)
 +
|-
 +
|2012
 +
|[https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=CODE4LIB;9k0n8A;20111201184554%2B0000 Code4Lib 2013 Call for Host Proposals]
 +
|1 Dec, 2011
 +
|22 Jan (Sun)
 +
|7 weeks + 4 days
 +
|25 Jan (Wed)
 +
|8 Feb (3rd day of conf)
 +
|2 weeks + 1 day
 +
|9 Feb (last day of conf)
 +
|-
 +
|2013
 +
|
 +
|
 +
|
 +
|
 +
|
 +
|
 +
|
 +
|15 April?
 +
|-
 +
|2014
 +
|[https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=CODE4LIB;f5d2e9cb.1401 Call for proposals to host Code4Lib Conference in 2015]
 +
|29 Jan
 +
|12 Mar (Wed)
 +
|6 weeks + 1 day
 +
|14 Mar (Fri)
 +
|26 Mar
 +
|1 week + 6 days
 +
|27 Mar (Thursday; last day of conf)
 +
|-
 +
|2015
 +
|[https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=CODE4LIB;1b38757a.1501 Call for proposals to host Code4Lib Conference in 2016]
 +
|8 Jan
 +
|20 Feb (Fri)
 +
|6 weeks + 2 days
 +
|23 Feb (Mon)
 +
|6 Mar
 +
|1 week + 5 days
 +
|9 Mar (Mon)
 +
|-
 +
|2016
 +
|
 +
|19 Jan (Tue)
 +
|1 Mar (Tue)
 +
|6 weeks
 +
|3 Mar (Thu)
 +
|15 Mar (Tue)
 +
|1 week + 5 days (note conf is Mar 7-10)
 +
|16 Mar (Fri)
 +
|}
 +
 +
== Some Suggested Readings ==
 +
[https://medium.com/@louisrosenfeld/how-to-organize-a-conference-567fb50ccdbd How To Organize a Conference] - Some excellent thoughts on conferences in general.
  
 
[[Category: Code4Lib2010]]
 
[[Category: Code4Lib2010]]
 +
[[Category: Code4Lib2011]]
 +
[[Category: Code4Lib2012]]
 +
[[Category: Code4Lib2013]]
 +
[[Category: Code4LibCon Planning]]

Latest revision as of 19:08, 3 April 2020

General Process

  • Apply to be a host; see also the page on Conference Hosting at code4lib.org
    • Identify venues for both the conference and the hotel (if different). Get some cost estimates from each. Make sure the hotel will give you a room block.
      • 2006/Corvallis: the campus provided the conference space at a low cost, and this made running the conference much more affordable.
      • 2016/Portland: we held everything in a single hotel and we had to acquire 2x the amount of sponsorship than what appears to be normal.
    • Prepare a sample / generalized budget
      • Remember, your institution is taking the risk of covering any costs not covered by registrations and sponsorships. To this point, I believe the conference has always ended up in the black, but there is always a chance it won't in a given year. Drafting a rough budget before submitting a proposal is critical.
      • Get data from previous years to estimate minimums and maximums, and fill in as much as you can ahead of time.
      • Speaking of sponsorship, I believe we average around 20k per year in sponsorships to help run the conference and keep the registration low. Factor this into your budget.
      • Also, when you get cost estimates, don't forget to include food costs.
      • Wireless: If you are proposing to host the conference on a campus, check with your IT folks about any additional costs. If you are looking at a hotel or other venue, make sure you talk to them about bandwidth and costs.
    • Consider using a conference planner
      • See if your institution has a conference planning services group or something similar - if it does, then I highly recommend using them. They'll handle registration, budgeting, contracts, etc, and really make life easy.
      • Also consider using conference planning services from other entities. In 2013, Chicago used DLF services to handle registration. In 2014, NC used CONCENTRA services for all contract negotiation, fiscal activities, registration, and other conference planning and management services.
  • Get approved by the community
  • Find a hotel, negotiate and sign a contract with them. Sample RFI
  • Invite the community to join committees
  • Have a timeline
  • Useful information from 2012

Important Public Resources

Important Private Resources

  • Code4LibCon-hostsite listserv
  • Budgets from previous years
  • Sponsorship info (private)

Committee List

Planning

Budgeting

Hotels

  • You will likely have to convince the conference hotel of the conference size and past room uptake as part of negotiating your contract. They may want to contact past conference hotels to get more info about actual uptake.
  • 2014 -- Raleigh Downtown Sheraton
  • IMHO, the two things that really need to be addressed each year are connectivity and food - everything else generally manages itself in terms of facilities.
  • Regarding conference hotel, you'll want to make sure that there are blocks of rooms available - not usually too bad an issue in larger towns, but in some college or smaller towns, hotel rooms may be limited.
  • prepare the hotel for deluge via web when announcement is made about hotel registration available. We overwhelmed the Seattle hotel in 2012

TODO: get actual room uptake numbers into a chart here. (NB totals are only useful in the context of how many attendees there were.)

Wireless

  • make sure VPN is allowed

TODO: put actual concurrent connections and bandwidth usage data numbers in a chart here. Note when problems were occurring to give context on whether these numbers were sufficient of insufficient.

Aspiration Tech (an org doing unconference facilitation) has developed a great list for assessing and negotiating event wifi.

Policies

A record of Conference_Policies of all kinds!

Shortly before the Conference

Keynotes

  1. Contact speakers in advance to get a speaker bio, plus to ask if they need anything, arrange airport pickup, etc


Email Boilerplates / templates

  • Quick orientation email for newer folks - Send out at least a week in advance before conference...
  • Freenode IRC connection
    • Historically, conference attendees have had trouble maintaining persistent connections to the #code4lib IRC channel. We'd always assumed we were overwhelming the conference facility's Internet connection, but we were actually running into Freenode's IP-based connection limits. Freenode is supportive of the IRC-as-backchannel model, however, and they're happy to work with organizers to raise the connection limit.
    • Contact the conference facility in advance and see if you can find out what your public IP address range will be during the conference. (If it starts with 10.*, 192.168.*, or 172.16.*, ask again -- those are "private" IP ranges used for connection sharing.)
    • Once you have the IP address or range, send an email to ilines@freenode.net containing a request to raise the connection limit. Include conference info, IP range(s), and the expected number of connections. For example:
    • I received an automated reply with a ticket number almost instantly, but didn't hear back after that. I sent a quick followup early on the morning of the 22nd, and received a response (from a human) letting me know that it had been taken care of. (Follow-up, one year later: Same experience. Immediate automated reply, but with a need to follow up with Freenode staff in the #freenode channel to get the ticket resolved.)
    • Additional support is available from the helpful volunteer Freenode staff in the #freenode channel.

At the Conference

Keynotes

  1. Speaker gifts
  2. Dinner plans

Timers

Lightning Talks

PreConf

  1. make sure projector avail for each session
  2. whiteboards or reasonable facsimile thereof
  3. everyone wants a power outlet

Conference

  1. power - everyone would like to plug in their laptop (and possibly their phone)
  2. IRC Monitor for podium during speaker changes?

Photography

  • Consider different colored lanyards to articulate personal photography preferences.
    • Portland/2015 had color-coded lanyards:
      • Green = it's ok to take my picture
      • Yellow = please ask before taking my picture
      • Red = don't take my picture

Podium

  1. Water at the podium
  2. Provide height adjustable podium, if available. Otherwise:
  3. Provide an apple box for presenters who would like to use one.

Video

  1. Videos are streamed at https://youtube.com/code4lib
  2. Presenters can opt out of having their likeness recorded and streamed. They may not opt out of having their voice and presentation (i.e. slides, etc.) recorded and streamed.
  3. Presenters must not use unlicensed music in their presentation. Likewise, unlicensed music must not be used between presentations.
  4. Video must be able to work with the house A/V crew and set up the day before the main con begins.
  5. Lighting must be provided for the speakers.

Live Blogging

Consider doing live blogging for 2014. You will have two people so they can switch off during each section of day.

Ask Anything

Book Raffle

See details here: https://wiki.code4lib.org/BookRaffle

Flipcharts

Flipcharts can be useful, but it's important to decide what to put on the wiki/website and what to put on a flipchart: images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/schwartzray/4392998501/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/47860563@N05/4388430079/

Hospitality Suite

  1. having a few people with room keys, any of whom might need to be available to open up or close down the room at the beginning or end of the evening
  2. making sure the mess left for cleaning staff is an appropriate mess
  3. making sure the noise made near other hotel guests is an appropriate noise
  4. having someone act as a point person to gather a gratuity for the housekeeping staff maintaining the suite

Suggested Timeline

  • See C4L2010planning for an example
  • See Code4Lib 2014 planning schedule planning schedule] for example, including dates for responsibilities for each volunteer committee. Note that we established schedule at the outset by counting weeks backwards from the desired conference dates.
  • Ideal to have program set before registration, including pre-conf
    • also allows clarity for how many spots are avail for non-presenters

Calls for Hosting

No one has claimed responsibility for putting out the call and setting the deadline. Consider having this task as the host committee, the voting committee, or perhaps the whatever committee.

Year of proposal Text of call Call issued Deadline for submission Weeks to submit Voting start Voting end Weeks to vote Announcement
2010 Code4Lib 2011 Hosting Proposals Solicited 5 Feb 5 Mar 4 weeks
2011 Code4Lib 2012 Call for Host Proposals 10 Dec, 2010 23 Jan (Sun) 6 weeks + 3 days 25 Jan (Tue) 9 Feb (3rd day of conf) 2 weeks + 2 days 10 Feb (last day of conf)
2012 Code4Lib 2013 Call for Host Proposals 1 Dec, 2011 22 Jan (Sun) 7 weeks + 4 days 25 Jan (Wed) 8 Feb (3rd day of conf) 2 weeks + 1 day 9 Feb (last day of conf)
2013 15 April?
2014 Call for proposals to host Code4Lib Conference in 2015 29 Jan 12 Mar (Wed) 6 weeks + 1 day 14 Mar (Fri) 26 Mar 1 week + 6 days 27 Mar (Thursday; last day of conf)
2015 Call for proposals to host Code4Lib Conference in 2016 8 Jan 20 Feb (Fri) 6 weeks + 2 days 23 Feb (Mon) 6 Mar 1 week + 5 days 9 Mar (Mon)
2016 19 Jan (Tue) 1 Mar (Tue) 6 weeks 3 Mar (Thu) 15 Mar (Tue) 1 week + 5 days (note conf is Mar 7-10) 16 Mar (Fri)

Some Suggested Readings

How To Organize a Conference - Some excellent thoughts on conferences in general.

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