[Osmf-talk] Feedback request: Workshops at SotM

[Frederik Ramm]

Rob,

> - Do you want State of the Map to include workshops? If so, how many?
> - What topics make good workshops? Is there a workshop that you would
> really like to see next year?
> - How could we encourage more people to host workshops?

IMHO workshops work best if people can learn a concrete skill. Topics
that would make good workshops:

* setting up a tile (or Nominatim, Overpass, routing, OpenVectorTiles)
server
* writing your own Carto CSS (or Mapbox GL...) style
* Overpass query 101 (or querying an osm2pgsql database with Postgres)
* public transport mapping with JOSM
* generating high quality print maps with <toolchain>
* creating a small Osmand based Android App

Workshop topics are often topcis that would be rather boring as a
regular talk - e.g. "writing a carto CSS style" is just not novel enough
for a talk, but a sought-after skill for a workshop.

Good expectation setting for attendees and teachers is a must; for a
good workshop I would expect to see something like "attendees are
required to bring notebook with <operating system> and <minimum
requirements>", and the workshop would have to be held in a proper
classroom with tables. (Or, the workshop could be in a classroom where
there's a computer that can be booted with an OSGeo Live DVD or something.)

The German FOSSGIS conference covers a significant portion of costs by
charging about EUR 100 per workshop, and the workshops are mainly
frequented by "professional" visitors - the open source and mapping
hobbyists among the conference-goers don't usually need someone to
explain things to them so they're not negatively affected by the
conference charging for workshops; actually the income is used to
provide free tickets for open source/open data contributors.

I realize this differs a lot from what SOTM has been doing and I'm not
saying it is where SOTM should go, but if you have the flexibility, why
not try it out - perhaps select two or three "hot" topics and offer
"premium workshops" on them that cost money, to see how well the offer
is received.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"