[EuroPython] business day

[Jens Thiel]

> If you are running a business and get a booth at a
> conference where no one that may buy something from you will show up, it
> costs money and becomes sponsorship or advertisement

It is still the responsibility of each individual company to advertise their
presence on a conference or fair (eg. by mailing or inviting prospective
customers). EPC can only provide a forum for such activitites by bringing a
"critical mass" together.

It may help to distinguish between the possible "business relationships" and
see where EPC could help - and how:

1) company to customer
----------------------

The customers usually won't read mailing lists or announcements and must be
invited indivdually. To faciliate this, a kind of booth or otherwise
pleasant, professional, more formal and business-friendly environment needs
to be provided, where the "company" can present themself and "non-pythonics"
can feel somewhat "safe" ;-)  That is, solutions and marketing blurbs should
have priority over technical details.

2) company to prospective employees or free-lancers
---------------------------------------------------

Bringing these together can either be done by a company representative
introducing their company in a talk, print-add or booth and being contacted
by the indivdiual later; or by the CEO sneaking around at the "developer
days" and trying to find interesting people. I suspect that both groups will
be attending at least day 1-2.

3) company to company cooperation
---------------------------------

The very small, 1-3 people businesses, might act more like a freelancer in
2) and will otherwise contact people during the developer days. They should
be able to provide at least a "company profile" during the business event,
where a "small businesses forum" may help. The larger companies can get
together naturally on the 1st day.

---

A "business day" will be most helpful for the "1) company to customer"
relationship, where 2) and 3) can be integrated with a developer's
conference quite well. Organising a business day in a setting like described
above would mean to have at least 12 companies with booths, talks, invited
customers and a substantial budget to cover expenses and justify the effort.


What needs to be done now (before discussing badge design) is:

1. Fix conference location and organization teams
2. Fix + announce the conference and planned schedule
3. (maybe declare day 1 as optional depending on interest)
4. Find companies for day 1 at least 3 months before the conference
5. Announce the final conference schedule depending on feedback


Jens.