98 lines
4.0 KiB
Markdown
98 lines
4.0 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: "board"
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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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- No more online track: No more online tickets or Twitch stream for Boston
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- Goal is to become the "fully offline" counterpart
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- Return to original technical lectures format (sans homework)
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- Boston should have job booth rentals too
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**2025 Target:** Two-hundred in-person attendees. We're still in the growth and experimentation stage.
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**Founder's Note:** 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: Both in-person and online tickets 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 (before mass layoffs hit hard.)
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**Founder's note:** A well-known 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 is pleased with the new conference dates. Hositing 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 or not we should support Discord as another private chat server, in a bid to expand audience
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- Founder noted at least a third of ticket holders are anti-Discord and privacy-conscious
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Finally, the board recommended an overall 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 when 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 a little throughout the year
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- It's okay to let speakers update 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 1600-1700 (US/Pacific)
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