Since this is our first Newsletter, we're gonna do a little recap of what the Community has done to date for the 50,000 (UID) and above crowd... After a few months of preliminary work, the YearlyKos pre-launched around March 8th with some
Teaser Ads on the dKos site (the great Teaser idea was
sheabriana's, the Ad space was donated by Markos). On March 13th 2005 we officially launched the
YearlyKos Convention website (server space/traffic donated, again, by Markos). One thing was clear, this place liked the idea of a Convention -
thank you pastorDan! How did we get here and what's been happening since?...
Starting from the very beginning, this Convention was crafted as a
bottom-up-approach. The Community would help craft and develop every aspect of this Convention, either through diaried comments, or from volunteering directly. And by volunteering directly, we
made a small dent in an overwhelmingly large project. Together we...
- Recruited a well-respected Advisory Board & filled Director-Level positions
- Designed a professional presence to visit for up-to-date Convention information
- Developed a comprehensive Project Plan and created and sent out a detailed RFP (Request for Proposal) that outlined our location requirements for the Convention
- Established a user-friendly process to Pre-Register over 360 of us and counting. And with 99% of Registrants deciding to subscribe to the Newsletter, we decided to just to post it here!
Slowly but surely we made progress, chipping away at this immense project. It continues to be "Hard Work", and we've had some lows. But the highest high is still in front of us. I think everyone on the Team feels the same way. This is growing into a full-scale "Event".
Let us tell you why...
THE LOCATION - We are on track to
select the Convention Location and Dates the first week of June. We started by evaluating the numerous Community polls and researching cities condusive to our needs, narrowing our list to 6 cities, and then sending our original RFPs. We then had to
triple our original attendee estimate, and send out another round of RFPs to larger venues. This forced us to start the process over again. Working with Anika Culici, Nolan Treadway spearheaded and documented this effort, and is getting it done. We are now
analyzing the latest round of responses. The final Location selection will be made with the help of the Advisory Board, based on a price/value analysis. The six contenders are convention-friendly and economically diverse cities: Washington D.C., Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, and SF Bay Area. You can view the
current RFP here, as well as
the form we provide to gather responses.
THE AGENDA - We are ready to take
your Convention order! Consistent with the bottom-up-approach, we've created a process that allows
anyone in the Community to sculpt their desired Convention Agenda. To begin this process just
Download the "Agenda" document, follow the instructions, and let us know your
"Dream" Agenda. Inside the spreadsheet you'll find...
| Instructions | The Schedule | A General Example | A Detailed Example | "MY CHOICES" | ... After you fill-out the "My CHOICES" section of the document and send it back to us, we will aggregate and publish the results or feedback for the Community to view. We don't think this process is easy, but you helped shape this Community, please help shape our Convention as well! Special thanks to
pontificator for helping to finalize this process. If you do not have Microsoft Excel, please
download and fill-out this text file as a substitute, you can use the images above to help guide you.
THE BUDGET - Although the Budget is reliant on the final Location selection, our Event Planning Director, Anika Culici, is leading the effort to gear up and tackle this daunting task. In preparation, she has sketched out a
detailed Budget list, rough schedule, and our Event Planning needs.
THE TECHNOLOGY - To meet the demands of a project of this scope, we needed to re-address our infrastructure. Kal Salim is leading this effort, designing and building a
Data-driven system that can; Store all Registrant's Personal Data, Interface w/PayPal to Store all Registrant's Financial Data (Fees/Donations), and Track our Projects and Tasks in
real time. This approach will allow us to be less centralized and more productive. To help the Developers and Volunteers understand the process and functionality, we created a
"Database Integration Schematic". This Schematic illustrates the system's structure, each screen's layout, and a screen-by-screen description.
Click here to view and follow the directions.
THE PROJECT PLAN - And finally, where eveything comes together,
The Project Plan. This is an attempt to quantify the enormity of the project over-time as well as track specific tasks. Inside you'll find many things not mentioned here, like the work of our Legal Director, Karen Hull, and Legal Counsel Mark Tulloss. You'll find that we recently signed up Angela Smalley as our PR Director, and with the help of Kevin Lewis, they will flush out a detailed PR Plan. And you'll also see, one of our top priorities is to recruit a Finance Director to help us with Fundraising.
All of these documents are but a snapshot in time and we are working on ways to keep everyone better informed. However, we thought it was time for an update on our progress and to suggest to you if you don't know much
About Us, you can find out more here, and if you haven't done so,
please Pre-Register. Ok, we've laid out the current status and the serious business.
What about the FUN?...
We're hoping and planning to get you more involved. We want to make sure the Convention takes into account the levity this Community holds near and dear. What are your ideas for a fun Convention...
- Cheers and Jeers: The Awards. Bill in Portland Maine Emcees with full Giant Plasma Video and Surround Sound Audio support?
- Air America broadcasting "LIVE" from the Convention, hear interviews from Meteor Blades, pastorDan, & Epluribus Media?
- Comedic Training: How to Mock a Republican - Featuring: Maryscott OConnor, Bob Johnson, Booman, pastorDan, and Bill in Portland Maine?
- Auction off Scott Bateman's Democra-Tees : T-shirts with Portraits of Political Figures like Markos, Dean, & Hillary, as well as Bush, Delay, and Liberman?
Ok maybe some of those are not so good, but it is your Convention and we need your help! Put your thinking caps on and let's hear what you want for FUN, there are no bad ideas! Now that we covered the fun stuff, you still have one unanswered question.
What happens now?...
Now? You mean "right now", what are we planning "right now"? Ooohhhhhh... As of this posting we'll be meeting with Markos in Berkeley very soon, maybe even
"right now". The goals of this meeting are to share information, ideas, expectations, and strategy. We hope to work on the various opportunities to take this beyond the Community and start the process of getting desired
"Contributors" more involved.
The more important startegy at play here, was to post this diary, and use it as
"The Agenda" for our meeting, a format Markos "might" be familiar with. So we will sit with him and Point-by-point, Issue-by-Issue, address our progress and needs - we just thought we would invite a few more Volunteers to participate -
Welcome to the Meeting! All ideas, proposals, and hair-brain schemes are encouraged.
Mr. Chairman, the Community has the floor...