[Inpycon] Venue Finalization {was} PyCon 2010 - Let's get started

[kausikram krishnasayee]

okay the long awaited response from the Chennai team and my arguments for it
in no particular order,

1) The enthusiasm did not die down. we just put it in temporary abeyance,
because we felt that the society matter had to be sorted first. thats the
reason for the long silence. There are lots of people ready to contribute.
last week at barcamp i met atleast 4 people who came to me and asked why
there was silence in the lists, and who were ready to take the grunt of the
fieldwork. Also, the silence in the ChennaiPy group does not directly imply
a dormant group. as Kenneth put it, bangpypers has become a trans-india
group and people prefer posting to / replying to it than their local UG. its
a complicated cycle. more people post to bangpypers because there are more
people on it and more people join bangpypers because there are more posts on
it.

2) I am not convinced with the "majority people required in the ground team"
to run around concept. the last pycon had a considerable number of people
working for it across cities. ofcourse i am not trying to belittle the
contribution of the ground team who did the grunt work. what i am trying to
say is that, most activities associated with the conference (like raising
sponsorship, spreading the word etc) can be done by any person with a
working internet connection and a telephone line, sitting out
of Timbuktu for all you know. I am speaking out of experience here,
fortunately i have had the opportunity to be in the core team of Proto.in.
we have not had any problem what so ever to run the show in any given
city(most of the team sits out of chennai). * Ground work is templatized and
WILL fall in place in due time. *

3) The real concern to me right now is the total number of volunteers ready
to do the running around across the nation. the poll asks for which city
people prefer, thats good, but it does not answer, what seems to be the most
vital question to me. * can you help us run pycon india? *  that to me is
the vital question which needs to be answered. that again i guess will help
us know how many people are ready to do the grunt work / running around at
the ground level. and how many are ready to contribute virtually.

4) Also, we need to find a way to filter out people's personal preference.
on a personal note anyone would prefer his/her home town. i would certainly
prefer chennai, personally, but as an organizer i must not look at my
personal convenience, but find out and host the event at a place that would
do good to Python. in that regard i would rather go and promote / create a
buzz around python in a place which has lesser python developers(chennai)
and to which the pthers can commute easily, than in a place which has
more(bangalore). [no i am not suggesting a n00b conference, i hope i am
understood in the right context]

5) Chennai's weather is not all that bad in September. in fact spetember to
november is THE time to be in Chennai.

6) Travel again should not be a point of concern. people who come in from
the north usually fly in,(i dont see people taking a train, and even if they
do, the train time from delhi to chennai and bangalore are only different by
a few hours). Flight time to bangalore and chennai is roughly the same. Also
you should remember that the Chennai airport is not all that far away from
the city. why all that, i can positively say that on a given weekday it
would take as long for a person flying down from delhi to reach a venue in
south bangalore as it would take a south-banglorean to reach a venue in
Chennai.

Finally, We at ChennaiPy are enthusiastic and would be happy to host
inPyCon, but at the same time if that were not the case we are not going to
draw a long face and walk away, inPyCon is pan India and we will be happy to
contribute to it where ever it happens.

-- 
Kausikram Krishnasayee
Company: http://silverstripesoftware.com | Webpage: kausikram.net | Blog:
blog.kausikram.net | Twitter: http://twitter.com/kausikram | Email:
kausikram at gmail.com | Mobile: +91 9884246490
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