[ale] [Fwd: [Fwd: ALE participation LISA]]

[Geoffrey]

Please find below a portion of a discussion with Peter Mui of USENIX
regarding the possibility of having a BoF and/or ALE booth at the
upcoming LISA con in Atlanta.  I love the idea of a booth, but we would
need some folks to commit to man it.  I'm in, who else?  I will be
forwarding the proper paper work to USENIX as soon as I get enough buy
in from other ALE folks.  What I'd like to do is replace the November
KSU meeting with the BoF at the con.

Any takers?

See the excerpts below for more info...

Also, anyone interested in attending any of the tutorials or techs?  We
can go together and get bulk discount.  Let me hear interest on this as
well?

Hi Geoffrey (and cc: to Chris, Tony, Sean, Dylan, and James) :

Thanks for your reply to my email, please see my replies in-line below.

On Oct 3, 2004, at 7:29 AM, Geoffrey wrote:

> Peter Mui wrote:
>> Hi Geoffrey, Chris, and Tony (and cc: to Sean, Dylan, and James) :
>> I've been "lurking" on the ALE mailing list in advance of our LISA 
>> conference next month, and I saw your postings about holding and ALE 
>> BoF at the conference.  We'd love for you to hold a BoF at LISA and 
>> will try to help you make it highly successful.  (I sent email to 
>> Michael Hirsch <mhirsch at nubridges.com> a few weeks ago along similar 
>> lines but haven't heard back yet.)
>> Besides holding a BoF may I also suggest:
>> o   having ALE host a "super-user-group" BoF meeting of all the local 
>> user groups
>
> As in all local Linux user groups, or user groups that would be 
> interested in LISA?  There's AUUG other UNIX or development groups in 
> the area.  I'm thinking it could get a bit confusing with too many 
> group types.


I trust you guys to decide what's best.  We had a "Super BoF" at our
Annual Technical Conference in Boston this summer hosted by the Greater
New Hampshire Linux User's Group and it went over very well, but that
was a general conference.  My only concern is that we don't seem
elitist or exclusionary in choosing who to invite.

If a a Super BoF doesn't work: maybe other local groups can hold their
own targeted BoFs in coordination with yours?  If you have contacts at
other local groups, can you please inquire with them and/or send their
contact information on to me?

>
>> o   a (complimentary) booth in the exhibits area to promote the group 
>> (I need to confirm this)
>
> Now this would be quite nice.  I can see devoting time to this.  How 
> many folks would be needed to man it?  When can you confirm this 
> possibility?


Confirmed!  Please fax in the form (available online), and write in
"Comp per Pmui and Cat" on the form before you fax it back.  Cat Allman
will assign you a booth number and get you in touch with the conference
department for logistics.

You need to decide what level of staffing you want.  The exhibits hours
are:

Wednesday, November 17, 12:00 noon?7:00 p.m.
  Thursday, November 18, 10:00 a.m.?4:00 p.m.

I've seen one person staff a booth it but it's pretty tiring. 3 or 4
people is better.

Another idea: do you think that new Fry's in Atlanta would be
interested in having some sort of presence in the exhibits?  Do you
know anyone there?


>> Any of these venues (BoF, Super BoF, and/or exhibits presence) would 
>> be free and open to the general public, so they can be publicized 
>> widely to people who otherwise don't register for the LISA technical 
>> sessions or tutorials.
>
> I'm hoping to catch a couple of the technical sessions.  I used to 
> make quite a few USENIX cons back when I was with AT&T, mostly the 
> technical and security ones.  A bit pricey now for a new startup with 
> one employee, so I've got to be a bit picky.


We have a bulk registration discount, I think it works like this:
If five or more people register together they get $100 off each,
regardless of the number of days each person registers for. In
practice, we're very loose about how the people are affiliated as long
as they register together at the same time; they can be co-workers,
user groups members, whatever.


> I assume the BoF/Super BoF would be in the evening.  Would the exhibit 
> be in the vendor exhibit area, or is this already locked down?

The exhibits are open Wednesday, November 17, 12:00 noon?7:00 p.m., so
depending on what time you want to start the BoF the exhibits may or
may not be open.  It might be nice to encourage BoF attendees to show
up early to walk the exhibits, then attend the BoF.


>> If you're going to hold a BoF or Super BoF, we suggest you do it on 
>> the evening of Wednesday, November 17 (the first of the three days of 
>> tech sessions), as the conference reception is Thursday night and by 
>> Friday night everyone's heading home.
>
> I've available that evening, and would be glad to assist with this 
> effort.  What we could do is replace our normal KSU ALE meeting with 
> the BoF.  The KSU meeting would be scheduled for Nov 18.

Great, let me know if you need anything from me to facilitate this.

>
>> I'm also open to anything else you can think of: we need help getting 
>> the word out in the Greater Atlanta area in general and are open to 
>> any and all ideas on how to do that.  For example, we've got 4-color 
>> flyers and brochures we can send along if you've got good places to 
>> distribute them.
>
> If you get me the brochures, I'll get them to other folks so we can 
> distribute them at the local colleges.  I'm thinking Emory, Gatech, 
> KSU, Polytech.  Anyone else have any other suggestions?


Please send me your US Postal mailing address and I'll send them along:
approximately how many do you think you can effectively distribute?

We'd particularly like strong Georgia Tech participation, as they've
always sent lots of people to our conferences and they're
geographically very close, but as of Friday there weren't that many
people registered from there. Do you know anyone there who can spread
the word?


Thanks for your interest and enthusiasm!


Cheers, -Peter

Peter Mui
USENIX Association
2560 9th Street STE 215
Berkeley, CA 94710
510 528 8649 ext. 28
pmui at usenix.org


-- 
Until later, Geoffrey       Registered Linux User #108567
                             AT&T Certified UNIX System Programmer - 1995


-- 
Until later, Geoffrey       Registered Linux User #108567
                             AT&T Certified UNIX System Programmer - 1995