[HH] Open Hardware Summit @ MIT, Sept 6

[Kurt Keville]

Most of the deadlines have past but we could probably print up some flyers and put them in key locations the night before...

On Aug 3, 2013, at 10:53 PM, Tom Metro wrote:

> Kurt Keville wrote:
>> The OHS this year is at MIT on Sept 6.
>> http://2013.oshwa.org/ 
>> 
>> Do we want to have a booth or something to evangelize BLU or our own
>> projects?
> 
> That's a fantastic idea, and thanks for proposing, but I've been busier
> than usual with my $DayJob lately, and won't have the bandwidth to do
> much to facilitate this.
> 
> The 6th is the first Friday in September, and I'm not sure if I'll be in
> town when the event happens, so I can't even commit to volunteering at
> the booth.
> 
> Looks like it is a one day event held between 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM in
> MIT's Kresge Auditorium (http://whereis.mit.edu/?go=W16). Event tickets
> cost $90.
> 
> Will exhibit booths be open for that entire duration, or only a portion?
> 
> What do you think the "prime" exhibit hours are?
> 
> If we decide that there are, say 6 hours, during that 11 hour range that
> we deem as "prime", we'd probably want between 4 and 6 volunteers to
> cover a booth, so you could have a pair during each period (to permit
> bathroom and snack breaks), and 2 to 3 hour shifts.
> 
> In the mid-2000s we staffed a LinuxWorld booth for BLU in a similar
> fashion. It would be awesome of we could do this for HH, but I'm
> thinking that many volunteers is a tall order for this small group.
> 
> Are there even 4 people on the list planning to attend the summit? (I
> know Kurt will, and I'm guessing Federico probably will, so in theory,
> if you two commit to cover 3 hours, we'd just need to come up with two
> more volunteers, if my time range guess is accurate.)
> 
> I see the event was offering free attendance to volunteers, but that was
> volunteering to help put on the summit itself, and I'm assuming working
> at a booth doesn't count. Regardless, they've met their volunteer quota.
> I'm assuming exhibitors don't get a break on ticket prices, so we'd also
> be asking our volunteers to pay their admission, if they weren't already
> planning to attend.
> 
> Are there fees to exhibit? Deals for no-profit groups? Can we run under
> an MIT affiliation?
> 
> (I don't see any exhibitor information on the site. Neither how to sign
> up as an exhibitor, nor who is going to be an exhibitor. Are you sure
> they'll even have an exhibitor area? Closest I see is a list of sponsors:
> http://2013.oshwa.org/sponsors/ )
> 
> What collateral materials would be needed? For LinuxWorld we made
> brochures and business cards. But the whole paper approach seems rather
> passé these days. David Kramer had a BLU banner produced. It's probably
> kicking around somewhere and could be reused. Maybe we just need to
> supplement that with a one-off poster - even just an 8.5 x 11 sheet on a
> display easel - with some basic info on the HH group and a QR code.
> 
> What message do we want to get across?
> 
> What stuff would be demoed?
> 
> Mark Woodward volunteered at the LinuxWorld booth and demoed his Linux
> robot. This would be an even better fitting audience for that, if he
> wanted to participate. I'm sure Kurt has something new on hand to demo,
> and Federico always has stuff.
> 
> If we had any budget for BLU HH, I'd say the next best thing to a booth
> would be a sponsorship, with starts at $100 to get our logo on the site.
> It says, "Great option for Hackerspaces or other open maker groups."
> 
> -Tom
>