Tomorrow I will participate in the 1st VoCamp on Energy Efficiency Modelling in Buildings, organized by the Adapt4EE project.
If you think about it, there is not much information in the Web that supports people organizing VoCamps. When you check the vocamp.org wiki, the page devoted to how to run a VoCamp was created during the organization of the first VoCamp in 2008 and has not been further updated.
Because of this, I will write a series of blog posts devoted on how to successfully organize a VoCamp, collecting the experiences and lessons learnt from the people in the Ontology Engineering Group who have organized or participated in these type of events.
For starters, in this post I will talk about what you should do before the VoCamp. The checklist is the
following:
Define the goal of the VoCamp.
This is something that has to be clear from the beginning: what you want to achieve.
Define a potential participant list.
This list should include everyone interested in achieving your goal (or in collaborating with you to achieve it). Don't stay just with the people that you know, try to find new friends!
Make a budget.
Even if you count with having free rooms in your institution, organizing a VoCamp entails some other costs (e.g., meals or drinks).
Since people come to work voluntarily, try to avoid registration fees. If you need money, you can always look for an sponsor to support the VoCamp or some extra activity like a gala tapas dinner.
Choose the location.
Make it easy for people travelling from far away. This usually comes in contradiction with making things easy for you.
Try to minimize costs in the room, maybe your institution has some working space and, if not, you can try another places. Don't restrict yourself, a pub will work.
Also, check the opening hours of the place if you plan to extend your working sessions in certain days (e.g., Saturdays).
Choose one or more rooms with enough space and where you can move chairs and tables; flexibility here is a must.
Choose the date.
Be aware of relevant events for your audience.
Here you have the option of collocating the VoCamp with some event of interest for your potential participants. This will increase participation, but can easily decrease it or distract people. You don't want participants to leave the VoCamp because they need to train for a marathon next morning (what kind of events were you thinking of?).
Prepare a participant pack.
Important things to include are: a hotel list, how to reach the city and the room, contact person with phone number, and an initial reading list (if needed).
Create a web page.
You can do it at the vocamp.org wiki, in your own wiki, in your preferred social network, etc. Microblogging is not recommended to host this page (unless you are an absolute master of the 140 characters!).
Here the important thing is that the page is open and accessible by anyone.
For the content, check the template in vocamp.org.
Contact participants.
As soon as possible if you want to gather a significant number of people.
But not before having things clear; take into account that after being contacted, people has to take the decision of whether attending the VoCamp or not, so they need some key information: goals, location, costs, etc.
As mentioned above, tomorrow (it is already today after finishing this post) I'll be VoCamping.
When you organized your VoCamps, did you make these things? And, if you had to organize one in the near future, would you do them?
Would be nice to know.
How to organize a successful VoCamp:
