Voting is now well underway to choose the team who will run the next OpenOffice.org Annual Conference (OOoCon). Eligible voters can cast their votes any time before the ballot closes at midnight UTC on February 29th. What makes it even more interesting is that our voting mechanism allows voters to change their minds at any time before then - only their last vote is counted. This makes the process uniquely open to lobbying and trying to persuade people right up to the last minute.

As I’ve said before, although I lead the OpenOffice.org Marketing Project, and the Marketing Project is responsible for OOoCon, I only have one vote like every other Community member. So, I’m happy to lobby for my preferred team, just like anyone else.

However, before doing that, I thought it would be more useful first to review all six proposals in turn. Why? well, in the process of processing the bids, I did actually have to read each one from start to finish - a few of them several times - to get them ready for publication. So I think that’s a good start

So, over the next week, I’ll be judging the proposals on completeness - how well did the team respond to the questions we asked in the Call for Location? is there evidence that this team done its homework? are there any gaps or omissions? how professional was their proposal? This is actually quite important, as organising an OOoCon is a huge piece of work, and if a team isn’t geared up to produce a good proposal then they may well struggle to produce a good OOoCon.

Awarding an OOoCon is also a great honour for a team - do they explain why they deserve it? Have they done something so special that it’s worth bringing people from all over the world to learn from their experience? Will they be able to use OOoCon to further embed OpenOffice.org in their country? Will the global OpenOffice.org community be stronger at the end of the conference?

Good organisation and strong local support are the foundations of a good OOoCon, but a great OOoCon requires something extra. A great OOoCon has character; it has the spirit of the country where it is held; it has community; it has warmth; it has the ability to break down barriers, to overcome animosities built up on mailing lists, to make lasting friendships across cultures and languages. So, when reading the proposals, I will be looking for evidence that the team has the magic ingredient which I will call the Koper effect, in honour of one OOoCon that I believe had the magic ingredient in truck loads.

So, if you have a choice over where you attend OOoCon, then please keep an eye on this blog over the next week and please feel free to throw rocks at anything I say, either here, or better on the Conference mailing lists. Remember, nothing is decided until the voting closes!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 10:17 pm and is filed under OpenOffice.org. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.