Thread: Some thoughts about European PGDay 2008
Dear Postgres fans, As president of the Italian PostgreSQL Users Group and vice-president of PostgreSQL Europe, I am really proud to announce - without any doubt - that PGDay 2008 was an absolute success in all ways. First: for the community in Europe, its organisation and its maturity. The event has represented the first attempt at organising an international conference through the continuous cooperation between a national user group (ITPUG - Italian PostgreSQL Users Group) and PostgreSQL Europe, the European non profit organisation for the promotion of the project within the "Old Continent". Although things can improve, the results were excellent, and will provide a solid basis for the forthcoming years. Second: participation and promotion. Our main aim was the promotion of PostgreSQL on a wider scale. When we scheduled the event (PGDay 2008 dates were announced at FOSDEM, back in February), no other IT conference in Italy had been planned on October 17 and 18. Unfortunately, one of the biggest and most important ICT conferences in Italy (SMAU) clashed with PGDay, and so another important event for the public sector. These two events cut out several potential users. However, we still managed to get 171 attendees at the conference (193 were expected based on the online registration - and this is something we should reflect on). The peak was reached on the Friday, with 152 visitors. About 120 people were present during the Saturday sessions. Participants joined us from 20 different countries. We had 9 partners and 11 patrons. Four continents were represented by attendees (Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania), one lighting talk was pre-recorded in Africa, and a number of penguins were spotted on T-Shirts, presumably representing Antarctica. Simply put: a global event. Third: technical aspects. During the event, we had 26 talks grouped under 4 tracks, two in Italian and two in English. We had 4 rooms that could hold up to 250 people in total all for ourselves. We organised side events such as the ITPUG general assembly, a keysigning party and a cocktail party (the EnterpriseDB party). But, most importantly, we had a permanent developer room (thanks to Dalibo guys). Fourth: the future. We should know better than anyone that the past contains lots of information for the future. Based on last year's experience and this year experience, I am sure that we could improve things in the future and organise a much better event. The successes of this conference were many, without a doubt. But there were also things that did not go well or could have gone better, that we will learn from for next year. We should also keep in touch with the IT departments of two important Universities, namely the Università di Pisa in Italy and the Monash University in Australia - I would love to hear from people "Down Under" and from the core as well. I am sure we could get some interesting research projects to work on. In any case, good luck to the French guys and to PostgreSQLFr for PGDay 2009. It will be held in France, but we do not know when yet. My last words go to everyone who participated to the event. Volunteers from Italy and around the world. Organisers, speakers and visitors. Thank you all for travelling to Italy and being part of PGDay 2008. Ciao, Gabriele -- Gabriele Bartolini - Responsabile logistica PostgreSQL Day 2008 gabriele.bartolini@pgday.org - www.pgday.org - www.postgresql.org Associazione Culturale Italian PostgreSQL Users Group - www.itpug.org "PostgreSQL, the world's most advanced open-source database"
Gabriele, > However, we still managed to get 171 attendees at the conference (193 > were expected based on the online registration - and this is something > we should reflect on). Yaaaaaay! Great work, guys. > In any case, good luck to the French guys and to PostgreSQLFr for PGDay > 2009. It will be held in France, but we do not know when yet. Please please please coordinate with JPUG so that JPUG and PostgreSQL.EU are at least 2 weeks apart, since JPUG plans to have a large international conference this year. --Josh Berkus
On Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:50:08 -0700 Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: > Please please please coordinate with JPUG so that JPUG and > PostgreSQL.EU are at least 2 weeks apart, since JPUG plans to have a > large international conference this year. Is there any more information on this? It won't be very international if the wider community doesn't know anything about it. Joshua D. Drake -- The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/ PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/ United States PostgreSQL Association: http://www.postgresql.us/
(oops, meant to send this to everyone :) On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 8:29 AM, Gabriele Bartolini <gabriele.bartolini@gmail.com> wrote: > As president of the Italian PostgreSQL Users Group and vice-president of > PostgreSQL Europe, I am really proud to announce - without any doubt - > that PGDay 2008 was an absolute success in all ways. Amazing! Thank you so much for this conference. And thank you to the rest of the organizing committee. It always turns out to be a bit more work than anyone expects. My only regret is that I was unable to attend :) PDXPUG members have commented that it would be nice if we could just move Italy to Portland for the conference next year. But I guess we'll just have to just figure out how to get all of us over to France instead. Thank you so much for your effort - I heard wonderful things from everyone I talked to about their experiences there, and your hospitality. -selena -- Selena Deckelmann PDXPUG - http://pugs.postgresql.org/pdx Me - http://www.chesnok.com/daily
> Gabriele, > > > However, we still managed to get 171 attendees at the conference (193 > > were expected based on the online registration - and this is something > > we should reflect on). > > Yaaaaaay! Great work, guys. I have joined the conference and it was great experience! > > In any case, good luck to the French guys and to PostgreSQLFr for PGDay > > 2009. It will be held in France, but we do not know when yet. > > Please please please coordinate with JPUG so that JPUG and PostgreSQL.EU > are at least 2 weeks apart, since JPUG plans to have a large > international conference this year. Yes, JPUG is planning to have an international conference around November 20 to 21. -- Tatsuo Ishii SRA OSS, Inc. Japan
Hi Tatsuo,
On Tue, 2008-10-21 at 15:28 +0900, Tatsuo Ishii wrote:
> Yes, JPUG is planning to have an international conference around
> November 20 to 21.
Isn't it too close to announce now for an international conference?
Regards,
--
Devrim GÜNDÜZ, RHCE
devrim~gunduz.org, devrim~PostgreSQL.org, devrim.gunduz~linux.org.tr
http://www.gunduz.org
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> > Yes, JPUG is planning to have an international conference around > > November 20 to 21. > > Isn't it too close to announce now for an international conference? I thought we are taling about 2009. -- Tatsuo Ishii SRA OSS, Inc. Japan
Hi,
On Tue, 2008-10-21 at 15:55 +0900, Tatsuo Ishii wrote:
> I thought we are taling about 2009.
Josh wrote that the conference will be held this year -- sorry for the
noise :)
Regards,
--
Devrim GÜNDÜZ, RHCE
devrim~gunduz.org, devrim~PostgreSQL.org, devrim.gunduz~linux.org.tr
http://www.gunduz.org
Attachment
Hi, > As president of the Italian PostgreSQL Users Group and vice-president of > PostgreSQL Europe, I am really proud to announce - without any doubt - > that PGDay 2008 was an absolute success in all ways. Brilliant! Unfortunately I had some family issues and I couldn't join you nor help out with sponsoring, but I've heard great things from a friend who was there and told me that it was even better than the previous PgDay. I couldn't even imagine it was possible, but you guys did it... congrats to everyone involved! Hope to see you all in France next year ;) Cheers -- Matteo Beccati OpenX - http://www.openx.org