BOBCATSSS 2009

We recently received a web questionnaire from the organisers of BOBCATSSS 2011, which will be a cooperative effort between Austria and Hungary. The multiple-choice questionnaire was directed to the organisers. The questions and answers may still be of interest to the general audience as well, so I will take a look at some of them in some detail and provide commentary from my personal point of view.

Note: these answers do not necessarily represent the official stance of the organising team.

“1. How many people were included in your organiser group ? How many people worked on the BOBCATSSS project?”

The Tampere organising team comprises of 11 students and one teacher; team Porto has 8 members. In addition to these there are other people in Porto assisting, e.g. helping with the practical matters during the symposium.

“2. Who were the members of the organising team?”

At least in team Tampere all actual team members are active students in different phases of their studies at the University of Tampere’s department of Information Studies and Interactive Media. Almost all of the team members already knew each other before the project started, mainly from the local student organisation UDK ry. and its board.

“3. What kind of project group(s) were you involved in?”

The Tampere team was split into subgroups pretty early on. The groups are “sponsorship and finance”, “call for papers”, and “communications and registration”. The names are quite self-explanatory, though borders have very often been crossed, and different tasks have been taken care of by different people irrespective of nominal group designations.

There’s not much hierarchy here, or group leaders, strictly speaking. Self-management has been vital. Naturally different roles have been formed. For example, Erkka Rautio has probably been most in contact with team Porto and has held the strings. Tytti Karvonen has a firm grip on many of the daily issues. And so on. Every person has offered valuable expertise.

Personally, I was part of the communications and registration group, though a large part of the time worked as an “external member”. This means that I, for example, worked with the website, the brochure which was given out in Zadar’s BOBCATSSS 2008, registration program and email.

“4. How long before the symposium did you start the planning procedure?”

I believe the project was started a little over a year before the D-Day. I was recruited somewhere around November-December 2007, but there were talks even before that. In Tampere the organising efforts were formed as a project course, and most of its members have met weekly or even more often during the semesters. This started in January 2008.

“9. Which material did you use to get sponsors/furtherers to back you, and how did you make the BOBCATSSS-event public in your hometown?”

A letter was written to be sent to possible sponsors, and we have also written and sent out a press release. Mikael Hoikkala, a member of Team Tampere with experience in journalism, has written articles for a local university magazine and a Finnish publication for information professionals. We have also printed and sent out posters created by team Porto. Mailing lists and people who have had the chance to experience previous BOBCATSSS symposiums have probably been crucial in getting the word out.

“11. How many people worked on the website?”

Indirectly everyone, for example through the planning of the programme. Communications and registration group in Tampere (4 people) wrote most of the content. We received hotel and flight information from team Porto. In the role of webmaster I designed the visuals and coded the site by myself. The registration program was ordered from a Finnish software company, and its requirements were written by the communications and registration group.

“12. When was the website designed and created (before the disclosure)?”

The very first version of the website was published in a hurry just before BOBCATSSS 2008 in January 2008. The current version (looks and architecture wise) saw the light of day in May 2008.

“13. Which was that menu point which took the most time to create (the content of it)”

The blog and the programme and contributions sections have taken the most time to write and update, I think.

“14. What kind of considerations were the most important when planning the website?”

This question had 5 classes to choose from with a 1-5 scale. Perhaps the most important things were “regularly updated information” and “simple orientation”.

“23. What are the most important points when organising?”

I would have to say that commitment and motivation come first: we cannot rely on external guidance, but have to handle things by ourselves. New questions or problems arise constantly, and they must be dealt with in a reasonably timely manner. Communication between the two teams is extremely important to the success of the project. To exaggarate a little, for the organisers, “every day is a BOBCATSSS day.” Sometimes this can cause stress, but at the end of the day it’s rewarding to see the effects of your actions.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 10th, 2009 at 18:49 and is filed under About Bobcatsss, Behind the Scenes, Website, by Team Tampere. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.