Should we

• build a platform that allows speaker submissions (and re-submissions to other events)
• use an existing platform like https://sessionize.com/
• both (build + integrate)

This is the issue for the Data Saturday in Guaemala

• EventBrite
• Sessionize

A number and page are needed.

Any support requests, please comment below.

Issue created as organizers are interested in using this platform.

In what way do we want to allow speaker and session rating?

• build platform
• integrate with existing platform

In addition, what features are needed:

• rate session/speaker/event in standard questions
• allow event customization of questions for session/speaker/event
• allow organizers to enter ratings (i.e. attendees vote with cards as they leave a room)
• reports for speakers
• reports for organizers
• aggregation of reports for sessions/speakers/events over time (multiple events)
• redaction of inappropriate comments
• public view of ratings (anonymous allowed?)

I would love to see a library that brings all the content from events together

Ideally with the option to either upload or just link content (on github, personal blogs, wherever).

When google searching for presentations, there is a lot of clutter - this could be highly focussed.

Thoughts?

Pordenone have reached out to us to ask if we can assist, so @spaghettidba is going to provide something that they can use for their event as we wish to support the community.

It is understood that this will not be perfect or perhaps even vaguely represent what this will be going forward but it will be a starting point which we can iterate from

I'd like to see an option to run a 1/2 day schedule that repeats in the afternoon, letting each speaker deliver two sessions, but ensuring attendees have 2 options to see a talk

When we started the brand of SQL Saturday, the idea was to not intrude on business days and ensure the event was open to all, as most organizations do not require work on Saturdays, There have been events on most days of the week, though some people have found an issue with the name.

1. Should we rename the brand to not link this to Saturday.
2. Suggestions?

• Data Days
• Data Inspiration
• ??

I'm sure we can do powerbi on a map like the one Reza did to match the following web site.
https://www.meetup.com/pro/azuretechgroups

A place holder for this tweet

https://twitter.com/AndreKamman/status/1339896606309691397?s=20

This is related to #11 and #17, but not really a duplicate.

SQL Saturday was conceived with numbering, meaning events were sequentially listed.

• SQL Saturday 1 - Orlando
• SQL Saturday 2 - Tampa
• etc.

Some people did not like the numbering, as it doesn't brand the event well. As a result, hash tags like #SQLSatSlovenia instead of #SQLSat1010 were used. Sometimes both were used, which is confusing.

I like the numbering, and the milestones (100, 200, etc) and the sequential listing is nice. I also like ensuring the cities are represented.

I would propose that titles and hashtags be suggested as:

• Data Saturday 1022 - Lisbon (#datasatlisbon)
• Data Saturday 1044 - Lisbon (#datasatlisbon)

I'd prefer to allow people to have multiple events a year in a city, so some differentiation is needed, but also some way to group those that occur in an area.

A test for issue writing but also

Which Version of English are we going to use for this repo. I do not mean the web-site, that will hopefully cater for all but in the wiki, read me etc.

I can cope (more or less thanks to Chrissy) with doing it in US or UK or Aus but I cant cope with UK and US in the same place.
Thoughts please

What payment providers do people think need to be supported. The current SS site support Paypal only.

I know Zelle is big in some places, as is Square. Others for use in EU/APAC?

We are 5 events live and each time, an administrator has merged the pull request, which has set off the publish action to publish the site. They have then logged into twitter and sent a tweet from the DataSaturdays account

Automation is the goal - this could be automated using

• https://github.com/marketplace/actions/send-tweet-action this GitHub Action
• a method of tagging the PRs that are for New Events

One of the challenges with sqlsaturday is that a lot of the tools that were genuinely helpful early on were eventually overtaken by other services like sessionise.

At the time of writing, the following are listed as important assetts in the readme:

1. Administrative tools for event organizers to use when building their site
2. Rating of sessions and events

I wonder whether these need to be centralised and maintained in house in 2021+, or whether we are creating work, overhead and tech debt for ourselves for minimal return.

Perhaps point 1 is better served by a repo with guidance to organisers for self hosting their own wordpress site? Or perhaps we can publish a standard notnet core web app on github with instructions to fork the repo and self host? Perhaps we can talk to Microsoft and ask for free hosting in Azure for these sites, since I'm assuming we are still going to be primarily a microsofty/azure heavy crowd?

As for point 2, can we really expect to build something that's more useful and easier to maintain than sessionise?

Rather than getting into the weeds on these specific points, the emphasis of my question is whether we can be as deliberate about what we DON'T do, as we are about what we DO do. I feel this would help us to avoid creating another powerful centralised org/admin team and support us to keep as much autonomy as possible with the event owners themselves.

Which tools are needed for organizers and a steering board.

This might include integration tooling needed for #18 and #19

While most people have email, having a general set of boxes for events was useful. I would propose some guidance here for organizers, as well as some generic support in a framework or organization to allow email for events.

To enable simple easy automated event creation without manual input

Right now, we have GitHub actions which will deploy the website on a new commit to master.

There is a lot missing from the rest of the process. But we are in a good place to start the way we want to go on

https://twitter.com/mipsytipsy/status/1340958240184516611?s=20

I'll start a list, please add to it.

• Automated Testing

As of 20 Dec 2020, there are six events in flight. I am ignoring Albuquerque and Orlando as they are too far out.

These events need support and help to run. As they are virtual, I think the resources are minimal, but we need something. I have sent this to one organizer already, but welcome comments. The main items needed are:

1. Speaker CFP, approval, and scheduling
2. email to attendees and speakers
3. Ticketing (not sure how important this is)
4. landing page on web for marketing, redirect to broadcast, registration, CFP, etc.
5. Broadcast

My advice:

1. Move to Sessionize for speakers immediately. Datasaturdays (or something) will likely support or use this service.
2. Move to Mailchimp for your email needs. A number of non-pass events have used this. Email your existing speakers/registrants/volunteers to join a list there. (free for 2000 - https://mailchimp.com/pricing/)
3. Eventbrite might work if you want ticketing, but for your event being virtual, I’d just email everyone in your mailchijp list. Once we get back to live events, we will hope to be providing something else
4. We will provide a landing page for you at datasaturdays.com for now (https://datasaturdays.com/events/datasaturday0001.html ). We can update that with your schedule, speakers, etc.
5. Broadcast – I am sure I can find someone to pay for zoom or teams or something in the next month, but if you need it, youtube broadcasting might be the simplest thing to plan for how.

Any other advice or things I've missed are appreciated.

We should provide a repository with the resources for:

• deck template
• intro/outro for videos of the speaker/event (optional)
• badge "I'll speak at"
• logos
• guidelines for sub brands (optional, if a sub brand will exist
• guidelines for videos (optional)

I've organized and promoted an event with videos and it's been so good marketing side. Just an idea:

• the speaker can promote itself with a 30sec video of its session
• the organizers can promote the event with a video

This is the reason why I would suggest a guideline doc.

With the new COVID world, and potential limitations on attendance when things open up, I would think a way for attendees to be added to a waitlist, by time of registration. I would include the ability for someone to cancel a registration and auto move of people from the waitlist to the attendee list automatically.

Organizers ought to be able to bulk move xx people as well.

To create a new event - Please follow the process in the Wiki - https://github.com/sqlcollaborative/DataSaturdays/wiki

You can also create an issue using the correct template if you are not comfortable with using source control.

Will need support for sponsors

• List of sponsors
• Update contact from each sponsor
• Sponsor tier
• During registration option to receive communication from the sponsor (yes/no)

One of the limitations of the SQLSaturday brand was that it contained "SQL" and "Saturday". As we've seen over time, "SQL" no longer fits for the data platform; it's gotten increasingly broad.

Likewise, organizers occasionally tried to stretch the model to cover events on other days (Sundays or Fridays, for example). Are you positioning this to be an event heled almost exclusively on Saturdays, or do yo want more flexibility than that?

DataDay, DataPlatfomDay....

How do we communicate the policies around harassment?
How can someone report harassment to organizers?
In the unlikely event that an issue comes up with an organizer how can someone escalate this for mediation?

What email options would you want? I'd think that we need these choices for sending an email:

• all attendees
• all attendees and speakers
• all speakers
• specific speaker
• all volunteers
• organizers

Anything else? I wouldn't think an individual needs to be contacted from the system, but perhaps.

Data Saturday Johannesburg 2021

Provisional links to speaker submission and event here:
https://sessionize.com/data-saturday-johannesburg/?e=e0483b
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/data-saturday-johannesburg-2011-tickets-134437071901
~Links will change when event goes live

This will be an online only event, both because its the right thing to do right now and Microsoft our usual venue sponsor do not allow in-person events at the moment.

We are at the beginning; we have accomplished a lot in a brief time. This is amazing.

I think we should ensure that focusing on Inclusivity and Accessibility are at the forefront of our progress.

With this in mind I add this issue -

We should ensure that we support languages other than English and ensure that our assets are accessible for all

Given the preliminary state of DataSaturdays, I think it would be beneficial to enable Github Discussions on this repo so that high level brainstorming / discussions can happen there and subsequently allow Issues to remain focused on specific action items that can be tied to a PR.

Sessionize have built an excellent platform for Speakers, managing call for papers and embedding Agendas

They state

We think pricing should be fair and simple. All features included in each package. Free for community events with no participation fee

https://sessionize.com/pricing

I know that it has been used for events such as DataGrillen, Data Scotland and when organising PowerShell Conference Europe we used it also (we had to pay)

Advantages

• One place for speaker abstracts which they control and also works with other events

• Fantastic Call for Speakers experience for organisers

  • Deals with Acceptance AND declined Emails
  • Easy ranking system, can be used by multiple people at same or different times

• Super Easy to embed the agenda in and it auto updates and is easily accessed by API for other use cases (Apps etc)

• Bring your own lunch (yes/no)
• If No list different options to choose from

I like this idea: https://devopsdays.org/organizing/, it sets out pretty clearly what the "rules" are for using their brand. Not advocating re-using their rules, just their transparency in communicating said rules.

I have heard that for DevOpsDays, profitable events use part of their surplus to provide "bridging" loans to new events, so that they can pay early bills - venue etc. - before their sponsors pay them, which as we all know can take a long time. This is organised in a peer-to-peer way rather than being centrally brokered. I've often thought such a model would be helpful, if unlikely, for SQL Saturday.

We will need a registration page for welcoming and asking participants for the relevant informations.

Easy access to virtual event urls and options.

This is some slight overlap with #12 , but I think starting from scratch is a huge opportunity to make things as accessible and inclusive as possible (especially digital content).

Some areas to think about:

• General ADA website compliance (not legally mandatory likely, but doesn't mean it isn't important)
  • Widgets exist (EqualWeb for ex.) that handle a lot of these aspects automagically
  • Standardizing on captioning tools/services on videos (auto-captioning isn't really reliable IMO for those who rely on it)
  • Screen reader compatibility for static content
  • Designs aware of color blindness/deficiencies
• Resources for finding interpreters (primarily thinking ASL/BSL here) for events
• Resources for creating/adapting event spaces in accommodating fashion

Open issue for the first event and any support needs they may have.

Page is already up: Data Saturday #1 - Pordeone

PR for the page: #35

If there are any needs, please list them in comments below.

One feature I used a lot while planning my event was the reports. I pulled the sessions submitted report to build the rough draft of what I wanted the schedule to look like. Some of the other ones were nice, but just being able to export the sessions submitted would be useful.

Session Submitted Columns:

Last Name
First Name
Email Address
Session Title
Session Description
Track
Category
Level
Approved
Scheduled
Session Time Preference
Additional Notes
Shirt Size
Speaker Bio
Speaker URL
Twitter
LinkedIn URL
Blog URL
MVP
MCM
MS
Phone Number
Country
Region
City
Address1
Address2

To discuss methods, solutions for cloning the website for new events

I assume we are looking at this for a better site than (SQL Saturday)[https://www.sqlsaturday.com/]. With that in mind, perhaps we need a list of the items to deal with? This list likely needs to be on the wiki, but a discussion here first would be good.

• main site for listing events
  • list of upcoming events
  • search for events by various means (location, name, status, etc.)
  • feed of upcoming events
  • global sponsors (logo, text, link)
  • submission for a new event
  • general about/faq/support/etc.
• individual sites/pages for each event
  • data managed by an organiser (description, date, location, etc.
  • Code of Conduct - ??? do we allow customisations/additions ???
  • T&C - ??? customisations/additions???
  • email features to contact speakers/attendees/volunteers
  • schedule of sessions with locations
  • support for multiple days (pre-cons/post-conts, day of) -- ??? Multiple day events???
  • attendee registration
  • cart for adding pre/post con and lunch
  • integration with payment options
  • feed for mobile apps -- ??? do we add a mobile app to the project (??separate project??)
  • sponsor list
  • networking/who is attending
  • support for speaker uploads (?? zip only??, ??separate PPT/code??)
  • ical
  • support for online platforms (separate urls)
  • map app support - one thing I find hard from SQLSat is easily getting directions day of
  • news/updates from organisers
  • volunteer requests/opportunities
  • evals
  • list of speakers, links to some bio/speaking cv/site/etc.
  • build a schedule?
• Admin side
  • approve/decline sessions
  • manage waitlist
  • manage refunds (easy link to payment sites)
  • produce badges/speedpass/tickets
  • manage sponsor invoices/AR features
  • manage indididual registrations
  • graphing for data elements
  • social media promotion (scheduling)
  • email promotion (scheduling)
  • todo list
  • burndown of milestones to events, ical integration?
  • reminders for groups (speakers, organizers, etc.)
  • templates for emails and social media promotions (token by event?)

We will be handling a lot of PII data.
How to make sure we keep the data safe?
How do we make sure that both attendees stay in control of their data?
And give them a way to share as much or little as they want with the sponsors?

What do we do with indirect PII data?

Also we will need a way for participants to make clear that they are willing to volunteer during an event.

Just by a checkbox or an extra page to opt-in for one or more tasks.

Most likely part of the session design. Not sure if any different needs to happen other than adding a full day category. Might also need the option to chose a different day. Most pre-conference happen on Friday.

Should we new try and continue the numbering from the SQL Saturday site, that way if we are able to get the SQLSaturday.com brand (Like @way0utwest is tying to do) then we can merge the two streams pretty easily?
~The highest published event I saw was 1023.

One of the things that the DevOps world seems to have settled on is that centralised and standardised tools can be really helpful, but that "product teams"* should have the final say on whether to adopt them. This keeps the centralised tools teams honest. If there are better tools on the market, teams should be free to use them instead.

May I propose that we adopt the philosophy that all centralised assetts are optional, and that while event owners are free to use them, they are not required to do so.

There are two important consequences of this.

1. When we create website/scheduling/CFP tools, we should not assume that all events will use them, and we need to support event owners who take a different path.
2. It is the responsibility of the tool creator to make their tools useful and desirable to event owners, not the event owners responsibility to use the centralised tools, at any cost.

'* I'm aware that it's better to focus on value rather than products, but trying to avoid getting bogged down in terminology.

We need a Code of Conduct (or Codes of Conduct) to support:

• Contributing to this repo
• Participants at events (Speakers, sponsors, organizers, etc)
  • Encompassing both in-person & virtual events

GitHub contributing Code of Conduct

This seems pretty straightforward in using the same Code of Conduct as other sqlcollaborative projects.

Event Code of Conduct

In #27 @andrekamman mentions the CodeOfConduct.com code as a base, which helps tackle internationalization/translation.

Events should have a "base" code of conduct (like above), plus a "supplement" which has event-specific details.

Requirements:

• The event-specific supplement should include who to report violations to, and how/where to contact them.
  • Reporting/assistance should be a direct, unambiguous path from the Code of Conduct. (ie, a monitored email address, a front desk person at an in-person event, etc)
  • Provide guidance to event organizers on eliminating single points of failure for individuals seeking help in reporting problems. Event organizers are often busy & not able to provide a fast initial response
• The event Code of which is featured prominently & is easy to find. When an attendee is "in crisis" as the victim of harassment, it should not be difficult to find the Code of Conduct (and hence the path to reporting/assistance)

We should additionally provide resources for event organizers so that they feel equipped to provide assistance & response.

Hey folks, I just wanted to start a conversation because I fear this is starting another org that will just get big and need management. I am certainly being critical here but looking for constructive conversations. Not being negative to be negative. :)

Here are my concerns:

• Is this going to create a new clique of folks getting behind "datasaturday" events?
• What is the plan to maintain this going forward? Providing folks with an "event in a box" solution where they can take some guides and recommendations and create an event is one thing, hosting all these event sites is another. Are there plans for what happens if this outgrows living on github pages? That's when money would start getting involved and a central org would need to be formed to handle that money
• Why are we not instead just backing existing projects, like https://datacommunity.events/?

Again, I'm not trying to be negative here, I'm just concerned. I want to avoid cliques as much as possible, and think we have a good opportunity to do that with PASS being gone (simply because it gives us a clean slate).

As this is a group community project, and I have seen decisions being made, issues closed, etc., I am concerned that we may not be considering how opinions and views may diverge on issues, especially over time. I realize the early days will be different than things may move over time.

I would propose that we have a motion and second to close issues (or advance them) to a vote, with 2-3 positive votes advancing an issue and 3 negative votes delaying it.

We can always change course or reverse actions, but having a process of some sort would be valuable.

requesting details from organizers.

Their leader Jean Joseph has already created a Sessionize link for the rebadged Haiti SQLSaturday and I offered to promote it here as well. https://sessionize.com/HaitianSQLOneDayEvent

Here is the Eventbrite link as well: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/haitian-sql-one-day-event-tickets-133876158193