WordPress Community Summit 2012 - Sponsorship Proposal

Question

This is early writeup to start wheels moving, but a lot of details are undecided and will be added as information becomes available.

What

Community Summit is a new kind of WordPress event, hosted by representatives of WordPress project contributor teams. It aims to bring together people from prominent WordPress businesses, communities and just contributing to it in interesting ways.

When

Event will be held at:

• Monday, October 29, 2012
  • possibly with extra hack days after
• Tybee Island, GA

Who

People to participate were freely (self)nominated by community and narrowed down by organizers to list of 131, which currently goes through RSVP process.

I am thrilled that WPSE is represented in that list by three of our community moderators:

as well as many more users:

(please edit yourself in if I have missed you)

Agenda

Specific event agenda is to be decided at later date.

Event Sponsorship

The selection for summit was driven (among other things) by factors of community reach and international representation. I think this makes it WordPress event with unprecedented potential impact and access to both formal and informal WordPress leaders (up to co-founder Matt Mullenweg himself :)

I think in communication going to happen and waves it will send through global community it will easily rival even San Francisco WordCamp and as such would be fantastic event for Stack Exchange to formally sponsor.

[update] I was informed SE will not be sponsoring the event.

Official sponsorship options announced

When you sponsor this event — the first of its kind, and unique in intent, format, and attendee influence — you will be helping make a piece of WordPress history.

OMGBBQ Awesome

$10,000 or higher — Covers all kinds of things: venue, lodging for team reps, and anything that we can’t get via sweet-talk or bartering.

Core Committer

$5,000 — Covers a meal, drinks after conference, or some subsidized lodging for post-conference coworking/hack week

Bug Gardener

$2,500 — Equivalent of bringing one international volunteer to the event

Core Contributor

$1,000 — Equivalent of bringing one U.S volunteer to the event

First Patch

$500 — Fill in budget holes like taxis, coffee, wifi boost, incidentals

Sponsors will be listed here on the summit website (with link to sponsor sites), included in the printed event program, and thanked at the event.

Speaker Sponsorship

While it was tentatively said that there will be some travel scholarships, I think that in line with logic above it would be just as fantastic for Stack Exchange to directly sponsor people to attend as well. Being international event it is great opportunity, but also potentially huge expense for people outside of US to attend.

Given many our users being on the list, I am not sure what selection criteria for personal sponsorship(s) should be - up to Stack Exchange to consider.

Discussion

Please answer with:

• your support for Stack Exchange to consider sponsoring the event and/or speakers
• if invited - your intention to participate, if you are looking to be sponsored and how would you like to represent and promote WPSE at the event

Info links

• How can I get Stack Exchange to send me to a conference?
• Supporting Community Conferences
• Community Summit blog
• Community Summit buzz on Twitter #wpcs

Answer 1

[update] US denied me visa.

I was invited to the summit in large to my WPSE participation and it's not the first or last time I feel amazed by the opportunities the site keeps bringing into my life.

I RSVPed as "maybe" and will do my best to attend, which for me involves successfully applying for US visa and very high (on my scale) travel costs. So I am highly interested in being sponsored by Stack Exchange, as well as applying for summit travel scholarship (if I qualify when details are announced).

I am not from the earliest users or moderators on site, but I have been very active in both capacities and firmly believe in importance and long term impact of the site on WordPress ecosystem.

If given opportunity by organizers, I will be happy to prepare and deliver talk with overview of WPSE lifetime, our growth, our challenges, lessons we can teach and value we bring to WordPress users worldwide.

And of course I will do my best in every way possible that whoever comes to the summit without WPSE account won't leave without one. :)

Answer 2

I was invited in part for my work with WPSE, but also for my contributions to core, the plugins I've put together, and based on my past experience with WordCamps. I would very much like to attend, but as Rarst has already pointed out, travel is a bit expensive (though in his case far moreso).

I've tentatively RSVPed as a "maybe" because I want to get a little more support together before I commit. Namely, this will be my 4th WordPress event this year, following:

• WordCamp Phoenix - I was a speaker and had my travel subsidized by the WPSE.
• WordCamp Seattle - I was a speaker and paid my own way.
• WordCamp Portland - I will be a speaker, live in town, and will be sponsoring the event.

I love working with WordPress and know I would both get something from and provide something to the Community Summit. But taking time off work, flying across the country, paying for lodging, and covering the $100 ticket fee is a bit much with everything else I have going on.

Answer 3

Update: I had to cancel the flight.

---

I am in a similar situation: I responded with maybe.

I will be at the German WPCamp in Berlin, October 13, where I’ll hold a session about our site and stay a week to plan and organize some projects for the next year. After this … I can probably not afford the expenses for a travel to USA.