[wsfii-discuss] situation re sending invites?

Tue Aug 9 08:01:18 UTC 2005

On Mon, Aug 08, 2005 at 12:47:18PM -0700, Jo Walsh wrote:
> hello,
> 
> Where do we stand on the invite-list situation, post the positive
> flurry on this list last week? I liked Rufus' invite draft,
> especially the bit inviting people to set up their own WSFIIs: 
> http://okfn.org/wsfii/wiki/WsfiiProvisionalInvite  

yeah - I like this too. We should be sending it out asap to all invitees,
like today. 

> http://okfn.org/wsfii/wiki/ShouldInvite seems to partially encompass
> three overlapping sets of people:
> 
> 1. people we're hoping to sponsor travel expenses for
> 2. people we're inviting to speak
> 3. people we're inviting because we want them to be there
> 
> Is ShouldInvite intended to be comprehensive for set 1 but not 2 or 3?

Yes - ie. travel sponsorship has been hard-won... and last minute, so it
is intended to be comprehensive for those of us who have organised
support for people we want (or need) to invite. The list is extensible in
terms of 2 and 3 - we have an outline structure for the 'main hall' of
talks etc..: http://okfn.org/wsfii/wiki/WsfiiSchedule but we can
definitely arrange more sessions - break-out spaces, etc. as per your
last email.

> I've "sounded out" most of the people on the nominal geodata list,
> to find out if they're free and willing, but not made formal invites
> nor formal offers of expenses.  

We should do that today.

> - Should i as stream organiser send the WsfiiProvisionalInvite 
> to these people, with an extra header to people we want or need
> to fund travel for, asking them to reply ASAP if they will need
> travel expenses paid?

Yes.

> - Who's taking responsibility for inviting and contact-managing
>   people who don't "fit" in specific streams nor are speaking,
>   who are only in set 3? 

Right now, nobody. But we should do this for sure.

> There are a few people currently on the 'geodata' list who don't
> really know or care about geodata; they're second-wave community
> wireless people doing interesting things with captive portals.
> They won't necessarily be interested in or have experience relevant
> to the 'W4D' book sprint, either. 
> 
> A few of these people will have come thousands of miles, and it
> seems silly not to create space for an activity in which they want
> to participate during the workshop week. That's why we created the
> 'wsfii-dev' list, to try and engineer something technically, that
> represented the "crossing the streams, finding the edges" 
> drive of WSFII as an event; not just "workshopping new techniques"
> in their own domains, but specifically crossing over domains.

I think we should bring in 'bridge' people precisely because they are
what wsfii is about (as far as I'm concirned) - the connections between
free information infrastructures ... I still think we have time to do
this, don't worry if it seems too rigidly 'streamed' at the moment. I
think we can bring these people to segway between streams - which should
work nicely in the main programme, or in the workshops / breakout events.

> Finally I feel bound to mention this once, then hold my peace;
> i see a lamentable paucity of female names on this list. It would
> be good to think harder about attempting to counteract the prevailing
> cultural forces; the only way we can help fix balance issues, 
> in hacker culture, in ghetto policy culture, is by actually addressing them...

/me applauds but feels a bit lost about how to redress that balance...

I know lots of very cool women who hack free information
infrastructures.. kate rich from the bureau of inverse technology
(http://bureauit.org / http://feraltrade.org) is one (let's ask her -
she'll be in town anyway) - and then there's Sarah Ewen from Sony who was
project lead on PS2 Linux (corporate, but cool). Sarah Lewison has done
amazing stuff - but maybe more based on environmental hacks (early
biodiesel auto conversion how-tos). Any other ideas for really cool women
we should scramble around pathetically trying to invite at the last
minute... (hmm, this starts to look like the African music concert
hurridly organised in cornwall during the 'make poverty history'
debacle).

There seems to be a general need to clarify and update on a number of
issues - mostly relating to invitations. If anyone is available at 12noon
GMT today, we could have a skype conference about this... and other
issues. (skype.saulalbert). I'll try to keep minutes, or record it or
something and ping results back to this list.

X

S.