OpenOffice.org Conference 2011
Call for Location

About the OpenOffice.org Conference

The OpenOffice.org Community is now accepting proposals for hosting its annual international conference in 2011. Since the first conference in 2003, OOoCon has been held in Germany, Slovenia, France, Spain, China and Italy, and will be held in Hungary in the fall of 2010 - could your local OpenOffice.org community rise to the challenge in 2011?

Hosting OOoCon is challenging, rewarding, exhilarating, exhausting, and can provide a huge publicity boost for OpenOffice.org in your country. There is no fixed date for OOoCon, although we prefer an autumn date.

Submitting a proposal

Proposals should be submitted before midnight UTC on Sunday February 21^st 2010 and must follow the following guidelines:

Section 1 - Mandatory Information

Proposed date
There is no fixed date for OOoCon, although past conferences have been held in the autumn and winter; autumn is our preferred season.
Location with country and city
Special visa or entry requirements
like vaccinations
Conference venues
e.g., university campus or municipal buildings
Conference facilities
e.g., WiFi, video streaming and recording
Accommodation
especially any low cost hostels
External transport links
e.g., nearest airports or train stations
Internal transport links within city
Team lead
serves as the main contact person
Team members
all members should be willing and able to commit at least three hours per day to planning the conference during the last two weeks before OOoCon 2011
Team members will be responsible for legal and contractual arrangements with sponsors and supporters. If that should prove too difficult, clearly state so in the application, so that we can plan ahead.
Local events that are taking place in parallel, or immediately before/after

Section 2 - Your proposal

In 400 words or less, answer this question:
Why should the Community award OOoCon 2011 to your team?

Note: The team running 2011 would be expected to 'shadow' the 2010 team, to help them with the 2010 event, and prepare better for their own OOoCon the following year.

Note: It has been our observation that as the conferences grow in stature they demand more professional effort. This is especially the case when dealing with the complex logistics of working with not only hundreds of participants, including businesses and government officials, but also sponsors. We encourage any applicant group to consider professional assistance, as well as Community engagement.

Section 3 - Protecting the Environment & Hosting an Online Conference

In an effort to support a sustainable world, the OpenOffice.org project not only provides a sustainable product and file format ODF, but wants to be environmentally conscious and reduce our carbon footprint whenever possible. Therefore, we ask every team creating a proposal for the OOoCon Call for Locations to consider the following:

What aspects of the OOo Conference can be organized in keeping with the desire to be environmentally friendly?
Are there options like shared shuttle services and public transportation?
Catering might also be arranged to have less disposable containers, e.g., fruit on wooden sticks, glass bottles for water/drinks (and offer straws but no cups)
Consider arranging for carbon-offset services or fees.

We also look into the possibility of hosting a purely online conference, i.e. taking place using Internet conferencing systems. For example, by way of IRC, Skype, GizmoProject or SIP phone or video conferencing, webinars, or whatever technologies you know of that can help our community connect and exchange information in a real-time format.

As usual, the community will consider all proposals and vote to decide where the next OOoConference will be, whether or not it is a face to face meeting or an oline event.

Submitting a Proposal

Proposals should be sent to ooocon@openoffice.org. The deadline for submissions is midnight UTC on February 21^st 2010.

Shortly after that date we will publish the applications and start the selection process, during which Community members will be invited to make their preferences known through a community consultation process.

Information about previous OpenOffice.org Conferences can be found at the OOoCon website. The proposals submitted for OOoCon 2009 and 2010 are available here.

Thank you and good luck with your proposals!

The OpenOffice.org Conference Team.