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[Luna Jernberg <droidbittin AT gmail.com>]

FSCons möte 17:00 på Torsdag 1:a Augusti

On Saturday, June 29, 2019,  <comotion AT delta9.pl> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> From the event in 2017 we learned that the conference is doable even when half the organizers fail and drop out, however it requires extraordinary effort from the remainder, and that attendance will suffer because to ensure growing attendence it is not enough to mail out to mailing lists and plaster up 100 posters.
>
> Meanwhile, the lack of event in 2018 should have taught us that the organization is not sufficiently strong that we can hope to succeed without a strong process and good communication.
>
> At this juncture I think it's important to call attention to how poor our progress towards organizing this years' conference has been these past 6 months.
>
> In particular, we have failed to invite enough speakers, market the conference and keep critical things like wiki and frab running.
>
> There is nobody to blame, and if anything I blame myself for thinking that a single communication channel ,shoring up meeting discipline and insisting on clear decisions would be enough for us to carry through on our decisions between meetings.
>
> We have a common set of goals and ideals as well as a broad contact base, but a woefully inadequate organization culture. If we are to change this we need to be willing to self-reflect on the negatives.
>
> We lack clear direction and division of labours, methods to keep each other accountable, marketing competence and IT admins that care about the uptime of organization-critical infrastructure. 
>
> The most important work required for a successful event falls between chairs and becomes noone's responsibility, and it is rooted in a kind of anti-leadership and a lack of institutional memory.
>
> We have 3.4 months left of the 12 months we set out to organize this conference on. We have 5 speakers booked, an unclear program comittee with no discernable decision structure, no wiki, no promotion of the event, and no frab to enrol speakers in.
>
> It is certainly possible to shore this situation up and land FSCONS in November. Indeed, most of the program in 2017 was booked August and finalized in September. I do not doubt our ability to have enough great volunteers for the actual event to run a smooth conference.
>
> However, most of the organizational work involved fell in 2017 on two people and despite a smoothly organized conference with in my opinion quality speakers, attendence wasn't stellar. 
>
> In the end, aren't we organizing this conference because we hope it will be relevant as a counterbalance in these times which have a dark outlook for democracy and freedom of _expression_?
>
> That relevance depends on attendence.
>
> As much as it pains me to suggest this, wouldn't it be better for us to postpone the event to a different year?
> This would allow us to reorganize ourselves and have a chance at success another time.
>
>
> -Kacper