Open Web Conference Plan

Overview

The "Open Web Conference" is a symposium that Mozilla will lead to enhance excitement and community around the Open Web platform. The conference allows Web developers and browser vendors to collaborate on the platform, and share how Web developers can create fantastic applications.

Conference Format

2 days, filled with 60 minute talks, lightning talks, panels, and a few key programs. ~4 parallel tracks.

Conference Location

Bay area, TBD

Venue: Currently searching for a venue that can hold ~1000 attendees.

Conference Timing

Early 2010 (Feb)

• This will give us time to really get our ducks in a row and come up with some of the ongoing programs that will ramp up to the event
• We can use the 2010 date as a driver for "change". "Come help us build the platform of the 2010s!"

Conference Cost

The balance we are striking on the cost is understanding the current economical climate, glut of conferences, yet show that this conference does have real value. Thus, if we can have a small cost in the $400 range and also offer grants for people/students who can't afford it.

Conference Sponsorship and Partners

How do vendors and Open Web partners integrate into this event? Ideally we are seen as leaders of the event, yet very inclusive (somewhat similar to how Google pulls off Google I/O). We do this by inviting speakers from Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, W3C, Microsoft, and other forces on the Web, but also have a strong force from Mozilla.

Conference Programs

"Hacks"

The conference will build on the Mozilla poetry around "Hack" and the recent work by Chris Blizzard and his team on the 35 days project and http://hacks.mozilla.org/. We will weave in this poetry through a number of programs and events at the conference:

Another 35 Days (like Another 48 hours, get it?)

Prior to the conference, we will announce a program where people can enter an American Idol-esque pool for their own "Hacks" and projects. To enter the competition a person or group needs to build a Web application that uses Open Web technologies in an interesting way. What do we mean by "Open Web technologies"? They can't use plugins for visual rendering (if they use Flash say as a backup way to do storage that would still be OK, but not preferred ;)

The entry will consist of a website and a screencast of their work. The screencast is their opportunity to reach out to "voters" and use the personal touch. The goal here is to drum up interest and support of the conference and showcase the great work that people are doing constantly, not just at the show itself.

A panel of judges will take the votes into consideration when they pick out winners for the final showdown which will occur at the event itself. Then, live on stage, the teams will get a chance to show off their apps and the panel will grill them on how they did things. At the end of the session the attendees will vote for the winners who will win [insert cool prize].

QUESTION: Shall we spread these out during the show (in between sessions etc) with a final voting session, or just have one session that has them all at once?

Hack Sessions

To partner the "Another 35 Days" we should have onsite hack sessions that anyone can join. Various topics can have their own sessions, and at these sessions developers will expect to see the names behind the topics. For example:

• Jetpack hacking with Aza, Atul, and the Labs team
• Add-ons hacking with Nick, Rey, and the add-ons team
• HTML5 advanced hacking with folks like Vlad

Browser hacking with Firefox engineers (and even hopefully WebKit ones)

The coolest hacks will be mentioned during the show.

European Show

There is an opportunity to do a smaller show in Europe that meshes with MozCamp. We could use the Open Web branding to drive awareness and try out some ideas.

Sister meetups

We should reach out to groups to have shared meetups. For example, reach out to John Resig about hosting a jQuery event at the same time (even sponsor shared space). Also, see if we can co-ordinate with an ECMAScript meetup, or a W3C. This will help bring people into town and will also give the feel that this is an event where things happen.

Morning Introductions

Ever had the feeling that you don't know which talk to go in a particular time slot? Ever made the wrong choice and known it 10 minutes into the talk? To help this, what if we had 2-4 minute introductions from the speakers?

Either / or:

• We have the speakers up on stage in the morning to give their spiel
• We record video introductions of the speakers before hand, share these before the show, and play them in breaks and in the mornings. The benefit of this approach is that we can use this as marketing for before the show

Lighting Talks

(POTENTIAL)

We ask people to publish screencasts or video recordings of lightning talks for the event. We let people vote on these, and then invite the best of the best to give the performance live at the show.

Interviews and Panels

Split up the traditional talks with interviews and panels.

For example:

Panels:

• Future of Browsers panel (inviting representatives from the major browsers)
• Future of Web Apps
• Future of JavaScript

Interviews:

• John Lilly interviews Brendan Eich (example)
• then turn it around and have: Brendan Eich interviews John Lilly :)

Air Mozilla

We have a lot of video content at the event. Highlight the "Air Mozilla" brand throughout and consider taping the event (this is normally expensive, not sure if we can do it on the cheap somehow). By taping the event we can "re-live" it as we release the content.

We could end up hosting content for:

• Taped sessions
• Entrants on the Open Web Hacks program
• Entrants on the open web lightning talks program

Of course, we could also work with blip.tv and friends too.

Thoughts:

Session types: HTML5, Browsers, In Practice, JavaScript