96 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
96 lines
3.9 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Advisory Board Meeting"
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meta_title: "Board's Meeting Notes"
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layout: "single"
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description: "Advisory Board Meeting Notes - 18 Mar 2025"
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draft: false
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---
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#### Meeting Notes - 18 Mar 2025
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**AGENDA**:
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No agenda set, first meeting
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---
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**DISCUSSION ITEMS**
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1. **Handmade Boston (HMB): Aug 1-2 (Fri-Sat)**
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- Sister conference to Seattle
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- Return to original technical lectures format
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- No more online track: No more online tickets or Twitch stream for Boston
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- Goal is to be the "fully offline" conference
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- Boston should have job booth rentals just like Seattle
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**2025 Target:** Two-hundred in-person attendees. We're still in the growth and experimentation stage. It wasn't until the third HMS that we found the perfect business model. This will now be our third HMB, following same trajectory.
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2. **Handmade Seattle (HMS): Dec 5-7 (Fri-Sun)**
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- Flagship Conference
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- Fully-Hybrid: Physical track and online track like always
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- The formula's already perfected, just need to focus on ticket sales
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**2025 Target:** Four-hundred in-person attendees. The closest we got to selling all in-person tickets was Fall 2023, with 97% of all tickets sold (right before mass layoffs hit hard.)
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**Founder's note:** A general phenomenon is that once you pack a venue (typically a 400-seat theater) you'll see exponential growth the following year, exploding to say one thousand ticket holders, then an order of magnitude after that. See PyCon, VidCon, etc.
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3. **Ticket Sales**
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- Early bird sale begins sometime in the Spring (with 20% discount)
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- Once we start ticket sales we will use the [newsletter](/news) to request community submissions
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**Q: Are board members allowed to submit their own talks or demos?**
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*A: We've decided no, but we'll revisit the question (and its ethics) next year.*
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4. **Weekend Conferences**
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Board agreed hosting conferences over the weekend gives attendance a massive boost (even though venue rental is more expensive. Risk is worth it.)
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5. **Revolt Chat**
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- Board agreed [Revolt](https://revolt.chat) is a substantial improvement over Element/Matrix for the conference live chat
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- Board wondered whether we should support Discord as another private chat server, in a bid to expand audience
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- Founder noted a third of our ticket holders are anti-Discord and privacy-conscious
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Finally, the board recommended a survey to previous ticket holders.
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6. **Voting on Talk/Demo Submissions**
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- Matt Nite simply used a Google Form for Software You Can Love
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- It's best if the founder says "please read these submissions by the next meeting, and add your own notes"
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- Source speaker candidates from meetup hosts
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- Generally receive more feedback from meetup hosts on conference content
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We've agreed to create a dedicated email address for receiving submissions
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7. **Hard Deadlines to Commit to Present at HMB/HMS**
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- Gradually add penalties if deadlines are not met
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- Ensure all speakers sign agreement. No exceptions
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8. **Conference Agendas**
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- Get the agendas up as early as possible
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- It's okay to massage the schedule around throughout the year
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- It's okay to let speakers massage their talk title and description even if it's already on the website
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---
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**ACTION ITEMS**
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- Founder to meet with meetup hosts before the next board meeting
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- Create HMC email address for community submissions
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- Create webpage explaining how to enter submissions. WITH DEADLINES
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- Discord integration for submissions: allows live thread discussions among board members
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- Make sure Jim (1st speaker for HMB) is on our website by the next meeting
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- Make sure Taylor (1st speaker for HMS) is on our website by the next meeting
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- Determine how many open slots we have for each conference
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**Founder's note:** Last item depends on venue and the available hours their rental affords us, which is being negotiated. As an estimate, I will offer figures to the board from previous years.
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---
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**NEXT MEETING**
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Date: 16 April 2025 1600-0500 (US/Pacific)
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