Call for Location

OpenOffice.org Conference (OOoCon 2008)

Call for Location

The OpenOffice.org Community is now accepting proposals for hosting its next annual international conference, OOoCon 2008. Since the first conference in 2003, OOoCon has been held in Germany, Slovenia, France, and Spain - could your local OpenOffice.org community rise to the challenge in 2008?

Hosting OOoCon is challenging, rewarding, exhilarating, exhausting ... and can provide a huge publicity boost for OpenOffice.org in the host country. There is no fixed date for OOoCon, although the past five conferences have been held in the autumn / fall.

Proposals should be submitted to the conference mailing list before midnight UTC on February 10th 2008 and must follow the following guidelines:

Key Question

In 400 words or less, answer this question

• Why is your location and the date you propose the best for OOoCon 2008?

Mandatory Information

Your proposal MUST include

• Location (country, city, conference center/university)
• Proposed Date(s)
• Team Lead (main contact person)
• Team Members (all members should be willing and able to commit at least 3 hours per day to planning the conference during the last two weeks before OOoCon 2008)
• Local events that are taking place in parallel (or right before/after)
• Special visa or entry requirements, e.g. vaccinations

Your proposal COULD include

• Large local OpenOffice.org deployments (for user keynotes and success stories)
• Names of local OpenOffice.org developers (for developer sessions)
• Names of local OpenOffice.org vendors/partners (potential sponsors)
• Travel costs (e.g. flight costs from the following cities: London, Paris, Rome, Beijing, Sydney, New York, Hamburg, Dublin, San Francisco, Cape Town, Tokyo)
• Accomodation costs (youth hostel, hotel)

Supplementary Information

User feedback from previous conferences suggest that the ideal location will:

• have a strong local OpenOffice.org community
• attract strong sponsor support
• have a low-cost/free conference centre with conference venues close together
• have facilities where people can pass the time, socialise, and mingle with other conference delegates close to the conference building(s)
• have a range of low-cost accomodation with easy/cheap transport to the conference location
• attract the largest number of community contributers
• facilitate the attendance of a large number of Sun's OpenOffice.org developers (who are in Hamburg, Germany)
• be accessible by cheap flight and train tickets
• be aligned with a large IT event (e.g. CeBIT, Systems, Comdex)
• provide low-cost broadband Internet access (e.g. wireless LAN in the rooms)
• allow for video and audio streaming (e.g. via the support of a company)

Submitting a Proposal

Proposals should be sent to the mailing list conference@marketing.openoffice.org.

The deadline for submissions is midnight UTC on February 10th 2008. Shortly after that date we will publish the applications and call for votes from community members.

Information about previous OpenOffice.org Conferences can be found at: the Conference Website

Thank you and good luck with your proposals!

The OpenOffice.org Conference Team