[dlvorg] Moving along with DLV planning ...

In this mailing:

Org List
Moving along
Project Management
Event length and Go-Karts
Freezone
Systems and such
Administrative Committee
Administrivia
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Org List:

This is the DLV 2014 Organizational Mailing List (dlvorg_at_geekbabe.com)
Replies to this message will be forwarded to the DLVORG list and not
the DLV-Announce or DLV-Discuss list.
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Moving along:

Again, sorry about the slippage in the ORG mailing schedule. We'll be
trying to get back on the schedule of a mid-week mailing every 1-2 weeks
as soon as possible.
. . . . .

Thanks to those who sent in the photos following the reminder in the
last mailing. We will need to close the Call For Photos shortly. We do
have one large batch coming by snailmail, and that should arrive later
this week. When we get that processed and loaded, we do have to draw the
line, so please send in any remaining items.

All photos and removal requests received by last Monday have been
processed. All photos noted in the "I don't see them" items, less
those for which removal was requested, have been located.

Again, big thanks to all who submitted photos of this year's event. We
have a record number of photos this year. The staging area will remain
open until early August.
. . . . .

A few administrivial/systems items here.

First, PLEASE PLEASE do not "invite" any of the DLV list addresses to
social networking sites. The volume of these invitations coming in to
the various DLV addresses can be overwhelming at times! Some of these
are trapped by a script, but many still get through. :( If you use these
sites, please un-check any "invite my friends" options on your profile
page. (This checkbox is often times pre-checked and not obvious.) It
will be appreciated.

We've cleaned up the main DLV mailing list, removing about 500 names
which appear to be stale. If you received one of those "Your DLV list
subscription has expired" messages and have not responded, please do so
if you wish to continue to receive any DLV mailings, including the ORG
mailings.

This next item is mainly to Yahoo Mail users, but it's been known to
affect all of the Big Four e-mail providers. There's evidence that many
DLVers' Yahoo passwords are compromised. If you are a Yahoo mail user
and recently clicked on a link, possibly allegedly sent by someone you
know well, and something funny happened, such as a pop-up asking for
permission to continue, or a screen telling you to log into Yahoo even
though you were already logged in, it's a good idea to change your Yahoo
password.
. . . . .

Let's keep those cards and letters coming! :)
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Project Management:

We (Annie, Beverly, JoAnn) have decided to "divide and conquer" the task
of project management this year. Here is a rough breakdown of who will
be concentrating in what areas:

Annie will be focusing on logistical items, such as systems, scheduling,
communications, facilities, etc.

Beverly will be focusing on activities which are already planned or
scheduled. (She has it easy for the next few months.) :)

JoAnn will be focusing on new activities, those which are not yet planned
or scheduled. This includes both activities which have occurred during
previous events and those which have never occurred.

The lines of responsibility are very blurry, so don't be surprised if
someone other than who you expect may be doing something you don't
expect them to do. If anyone gets overloaded or needs to take a break
for a while, others will fill in.

We've made a few tweaks to the way we handle the e-mail internally and
we're approaching a true "groupware" set-up, to use buzzword-compliant
terminology. There are a few rough edges, so if you ever send in
anything and do not see at least a reference to it, please let us
know.
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Event length and Go-Karts:

Dennis writes:

I would like to suggest that anyone who wishes to extend DLV to a seven
day event, which BTW is a great idea because it would mean an extra day
of fun, should also be ready to stand up and take on volunteering for an
event for that extra day.

Annie responds:

I will go one step further. I'll say that anyone who seriously jumps
aboard any "extend the length of DLV" bandwagon should be prepared to
not only coordinate an extra activity, but be prepared to actively be
involved in the recruiting of the additional volunteer help it takes to
make that extra day happen!

Dennis continues:

It's not fair to the other volunteers to have to come up with activities
for an extra day.

Annie continues:

Speaking freely, it's also not fair to increase the Project Management
Team's workload by making them (us) responsible for getting enough
volunteers to cover all of the days of an extended event.

What we have done in years past, particularly right after we went back
from a seven-day event to a six-day event was to keep open the option of
extending the event by one day providing a few criteria are met, such
as:

1. Enough committed volunteers to cover all activities for the regular
event plus the extension day.

2. Concrete plans and volunteers in place for the major gatherings.

Our Standing Rules say that we can extend up to three days by a simple
majority vote. If this is to happen, a November-December target for the
extension decision will give us enough time to assess the strength of
the volunteer force and such and will be plenty of lead time for the
attendees, as few make any air/hotel reservations prior to the first of
the year.

Another thing to consider if you want that extra day of fun is to simply
come a day early and/or leave a day late. Las Vegas is open 24 * 7 * 365
and there are always places to go and things to do.
. . . . . . . . . .

Dennis continues:

With that out of the way, I'd like to share with you an idea I have
for a fun, and different activity, for 2014. Las Vegas has several
go-cart race tracks. I think it would be fun to have an evening for
us to try out some go-carting in the "cool" Las Vegas night air.

Beverly responds:

I tried out one of the indoor go-kart tracks a few years ago and had a
great time. They let you race against other drivers, not just against
a clock. Also, there are several coupons available to reduce the price.

The one draw back to the track I used was that they had all drivers put
on a jump suit. That might be kind of difficult if our ladies are in
dresses or skirts.
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Freezone:

Kandi writes:

I am reposting this from my post on the regular DLV list.

I have Freezone on my To-Do list for their Friday 6/29 show. I have lots
of places in Vegas I will visit 'en fem' the last week of June. My style
is conservative and I'm hoping for a carefree trip. My trip report will
be forth-coming.

I'm open to more suggstions as I sample around the LV nitelife.
. . . . . . . . . .

Ladies, here is a point-person for those who need one! If there are any
specific requests for venues to check out, please let us know during the
next list cycle.

Kandi has stated that she will attempt to get a good solid handle on
what the attitude/policy/whatever is at the Freezone.

Kandi, if you do happen to get a positive response from the management
of the Freezone, you might want to inquire if they would like a lot of
business on a usually-slower evening. There's movement to do some kind
of a costume and/or prom theme affair, and Freezone would be a definite
option if they have not backed off on their new attitude.

And, please post a trip report in the Discussion Forum. Please let us
know of any venues that you think would be appropriate for DLV. :)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Systems and such:

Kandi writes:

I have used eventbrite.com to coordinate my free events. They don't
charge any fees for this. Their APP is mobile friendly, too. This could
easy the check-in burden for some of our events. Pre-paid eventrs would
handle the $$, of course.

my $0.02 worth,
. . . . . . . . . .

Annie responds:

My major concern with services such as Evenbrite/Eventbrite is that
using them would expose participants' personally-identifiable data to
a third party. That, in and of itself, scares me.

I really do not see the need to "outsource" any of our major systems
functions. Virtually every tool available on these sites is available
to us through normal channels. The challenge is, of course deciding on
which tools to use and how to use them effectively.

IMAO our current system of registration is not in need of an overhaul.
It can use some extensions, such as a mobile-friendly check-in function,
and possibly some cosmetic clean-up, but for the most part, it ain't
broke. It works very well and is tightly-coupled to other functions such
as activity sign-up and back-end reporting.

Yes, I do admit to being somewhat possessive and even pedantic when it
comes to the systems functions of DLV. :)

However, if you wish to get involved in the systems end of DLV, there
are a few "shovel ready" projects that can be taken on.

If you (or anyone with the appropriate skill set) wishes to take any of
these on, contact me off line. Here's a current list of systems projects
which have been sitting on the back burner:

1. Clean-up of some of our older "legacy" web pages, particularly the
follow-up pages of the years 1999 through 2010. They are inconsistent in
style and theme and some were done before things like CSS were widely
adopted by the various browsers. I'm talking about a clean-up here, and
not a tear-down. We want to be sure that such things as users' bookmarks
and web searches and such will not break with said maintenance. Ditto
for some ot the legacy information pages. Many can use a good once-over.

2. Creation of an integrated stylesheet set (combined with 1 above)
which can be used for both the main pages of the site and the MyDLV
sections. There are two very different themes currently being used. Main
constraint is that no functionality will break. There are currently some
issues with the MyDLV stylesheets and the newer IE browsers.

3. (Combined with 1 and 2) Get more of the context of the main site to
be more mobile-friendly via the m.geekbabe.com site. Yes, the m. site is
there and it works, but it's mostly just links to the main site and used
mainly for QR codes on brochures and posters. For the most part things
do display reasonably well on Blackberries and Droids and such, but it
can be awkward.

4. Optimization of the layout of the Tabular Schedule, example here:

http://www.geekbabe.com/dlv/maincal.html

The functionality is good, but it's too large. Lots of empty white
space. It needs to be moved from the slam-bang table-oriented theme to a
CSS type of theme. One constraint is that this needs to be automatically
regenerated whenever the schedule is changed, which is quite frequently
just prior to the event.

5. Clean-up of the appearance of some of the on-line reports, such
as the activity sign-up lists. Main constraint here is that they stay
fully integrated with the core system.

If you (or anyone) feels up to the challenge, please let me know.
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Administrative Committee:

For the last two list cycles we've had no specific nominations for the
Odd Year Administrative Committee seat, currently held by Bob and Sara.

Beverly writes:

I move to allow Bob and Sara to keep the seat jointly for the next term,
providing they both agree.
. . . . .

Annie writes:

I second the motion. :)
. . . . .

Bob writes:

I wouldn't exactly call "sharing a seat with Sara" a bad thing.
. . . . .

Sara writes:

(Trying to get the blush off my face that doesn't come off with
makeup remover!!!)

I'm in for another round.
. . . . .

There we have it.

If we have no objection to letting this motion carry by consensus over
the next list cycle, we'll consider it to be a done deal. If there are
any objections, we will vote on the motion. Speak now or forever ...
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Administrivia:

This is the Diva Las Vegas 2014 organizational list.

One address for all items regarding this list, additions, removals,
changes, submissions, questions, etc.:

dlvorg_at_geekbabe.com <--- NOTE: all lower case

Diva Las Vegas 2014
Dates to be announced autumn of 2013
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

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Received on Fri Jun 21 2013 - 06:06:36 CDT