I've been working on the one part of this conference which I truely hate, processing registrations.  I have put it off way longer then I should have and now am having to plow through about 80 of them all at once.  I have finally finished the first pass, which includes matching up payments via PayPal with registrations, this takes a while but isn't difficult.  Now I'm left with the stuff which doesn't match up, so I've got to send e-mails to about half a dozen people that registerested but I don't have any payment.  I only ended up with one payment that I can't match to a registration, which is nice.

So if you've registered and never heard anything, I'm sorry.  When you see me at the conference you can give me a bad time about it.  Otherwise you should be getting an e-mail from me in the next 12 hours.  If you registered and didn't manage to get PayPal to work, I'll be calling on you as well. 

On my to-do list for this winter is a new registration page, which will automate as much of this workflow as I can figure out howto make happen.  I've been looking for a project to try our Ruby on Rails and I think this is perfect.  If you are interested in helping out, drop me a note.

de KU7M

Just a couple random updates, since I don't really have enough for a full blow entry.

1) Registration is live and we are seeing a steady trickle of people signing up.  Its early with the conference being over six months away, but it really nice to see the one or two registration e-mails flow in during each day.

2) We have three REALLY great leads on speakers already.  Lyle Johnson-KK7P, Dan Smith-KK7DS and Jeremy McDermond-NH6Z are all serious maybe's right now. (meaning they want to come and as we get closer they will confirm their schedules)  This is REALLY great for this stage of the game, I know all three will be kick ass speakers.

3) Our ARRL sponsorship has been submitted, so hopefully this will get approved in the next 30 days.  Now we need to figure out who to ask from the league to come out and attend. (Steve Ford was great last year, but I know he has family committemnts which prevent him from traveling during the fall)  I'll poke around at the ARRL booth during Dayton next month....

de KU7M

We are finally ready to go live with registration.  I feel bad about this, since the registration page was ready almost a week ago and I've just been to busy to validate it.  Big thanks to Mark-N7WSU for getting the page updated and ready to go.  For those with a good memory, you might have noticed the cost of the conference has gone up $5 this year.  We were able to keep the cost flat last year, but the cost of the lunch/food has increased enough this year that we needed to raise the price.  I still think the we provide a great value for what we do.  I hope others feel the same.

Now that registration is ready to go, I can switch my focus to speakers.  I got a co-chair this year, so please reach out to either Steve-N8GNJ or Kenny-KU7M if you have an idea for a topic or want to speak.

Registration Link: http://www.microhams.com/registration

de KU7M

At the board meeting on Thursday night, we got a chance to review the results from the survey.  At that time, ~1/3 of the people who received the survey e-mail had responsed.  That is about the norm for these kinds of things in my experience, so we are all really happy.  I included the results below, except for the general comments people provided. (to difficult to try and capture and report)  

Here are my general analysis:

• The conference seems to be popular, over 90% said they would be returning this year. (even with the move in dates)
• Our general format seems to be liked, at least there weren't any strong opinions for the proposed changes.
• Everybody wants a demo area
• We hit the sweet spot last year with regard to the technical level of the talks
• People were split down the middle with regard to adding more D-Star content this year.  The strongest comments were actually about this topic, both for and against.

I really want to nail down the remaining detail for the conference next week, which is the cost. (Which basically means getting a handle on the food costs)  At that point all the critical pieces are known and we can publicly announce the event. (Which means the registration site can be enabled)   The board also spent some time brainstorming about speakers and topics, with some really good results.  Lots of really good ideas were thrown out, so I have a list to start working through now.  Having something like this list makes the process easier.  One thing I need to figure out is if there is a talk about my own personal pet interest.  I'd really like to have something on mesh networking this year, I think the topic has all sorts of possibilities.  Maybe I'll break down and give a talk this year if I can't find a speaker.

73, Kenny, KU7M

One of the things we have really fallen down on with the previous years conferences was collecting feedback.  The only real input we got were the random comments from attendies and the fact that more people attended then the previous year. (So I guess we didn't screw up to much. :-)

But we are now at the point where we really need some outside input, so we are going to try a online survey.  We are going to spam all the previous attendiess shortly with a online web survey.  I took a first past at the questions, I'm going to send them out to the organizing group for feedback.  What did I forget?

Which MicroHAMs Digital Conferences have you attended? (mark all that apply)
1. 2007
2. 2008
3. 2009
4. Every one of them!

Would you attend this years Digital Conference if it was held in late September?
1. Yes
2. No

If you attended previous years Digital Conferences, do you think:
1. there were to many sessions?
2. there were just the right amount of sessions?
3. there were not enough sessions?

Would you prefer fewer sessions overall, with longer breaks between sessions for socializing, viewing demo's or small workshop sessions?
1. Yes
2. No

Do you think last years sessions overall were:
1. to technical?
2. just at the right level for me?
3. not technical enough?
4. not sure, I wasn't able to attend last year?

Would you be interested in a half day group of talks focusing on Icom's D-Star technology?
1. Yes
2. No

If a half day of the Digital Conference was focused on Icom's D-Star technology, would you be interested in a 'beginner' session on D-Star?
1. Yes
2. No

We had the first real organistation meeting last night for the 2010 Digital Conference.  Here are my notes from the conference call.

1) When should we have the conference?  Options were last two weekends in May or the last two weekends in September.  We walked through the possible options and based on different factors (availability of leaders, conflicts with other ham radio events, national holidays) we decided on September 18th, 2010.

    AI: Kenny will follow up with Josh to nail down the conference space (done)
    AI: We need to publish date as soon as second key detail is known, cost of conference.
    
2) Register with ARRL
    AI: Phil is going to own setting up ARRL event paperwork
    AI: Phil is going to be the PIO for event
    AI: Phil will target getting into Mike & Key booklet and having event published on different key websites. (Federal Way ARC, N7CFO list, etc)

3) Speaker List / Topics Ideas
    The following suggested speakers were thrown out.
        * Ward Silver
        * Lyle
        * Dan Smith
        * Ward Cunningham
        * Jim Corenman
        * Alan Parson
    The following topic suggestions were thrown out.
        * DSP's in Amateur radio (Alan was recommended)
        * SDR's
        * Airmail development / future (Jim Corenman)

    Discussed idea of having half day of talks focused on d-star. No clear decision made, need feedback from attendees. (See below) Is there enough 'new' material?  Do people want a primer now that there is more interest?  What hasn't been talked about?

   AI: Kenny will start focusing on this part of the event.  Will drag into process Dennis, Bill and Scott.

4) Demo's / Workshops?
    Previously people wanted to have a demo area and the idea of having small workshops was brought up during the meeting.  We have space available in the conference room and had people trying to-do demo's last year.  Would people want a extra long lunch for demo's?  Break up into smaller 'workshop' groups in afternoon?  We need some feedback.

5) We kept coming back to needing / wanting feedback from attendees to plan the conference.  Decision was made to try a survey, polling all the people who attended the last two years.

    AI: Phil will figure out how to run a free survey using www.surveymonkey.com
    AI: Kenny (with feedback from group) will write up a list of questions
    AI: Goal to have out by weekend (1/30)

6) When do we announce the conference publicly?
    Before we announce the conference officially (this blog doesn't count. :-)  we need three critical things.

1. Need the data,
2. Need the conference space confirmed and
3. Need the cost of the event. 

We should have #1 and #2 in less then a week, but to get #3 we need to have a handle on the food costs.  Everybody agreed that our previous years food plan was good and we should continue with it.  So someone needs to reach out to Subway and get a quote for sandwiches, which is the largest food item.  
    
    AI: Scott will follow up with Subway on food costs (kenny will share details from last year to use as starting point)

I thought it would be a good idea to start a blog for keeping track of all the stuff which happens leading up to the Digital Conference, sort of a behind the sceens view.  So this blog will attempt to-do just that, hopefully it will help make the whole process more transparent and help others figure out how to put on such an event.