Silly conference survey

[Mark Waddingham]

> I do think, even if only as a sop to those of us (like myself) who get
> fed up how RunRev, for all their ballyhoo about China and so forth,
> do seem to give the impression that they don't really seem to think
> outside a North Atlantic box, the survey would have looked a bit
> more friendly if it had left a chance open for participants to suggest
> other cities in other states/countries than those forced as choices
> on participants.

To be blunt Richmond, it doesn't take a great deal of thought to 
understand *why* there is a restricted choice. Indeed, I think people 
before me have already explained adequately why. However, let me 
reiterate in perhaps slightly more detail:

The point of a conference is that people attend.

If people are to go to a conference then they need to be able to afford 
to do so.

If you hold a conference somewhere where the cost to get there exceeds 
someone's ability to pay those costs, they won't go.

If you hold a conference somewhere where the ticket price has to exceed 
someone's ability to pay that cost, they won't go.

Therefore, you need to ensure that you hold the conference in a location 
where the most number of people who are likely to attend can attend.

Bearing in mind we have a pretty good map of the locations of the 
majority of LiveCode users who we would class as 'likely to attend if 
they can', it isn't a difficult thing to work out where the optimal 
places to hold it might be.

In regards to why Edinburgh (UK) and not somewhere else in Europe. Then, 
again, that is an economic imperative. Whilst getting to the main 
aviation hubs in the Western part of Western Europe (Amsterdam, Paris 
etc.) is perhaps no more difficult than getting to those in the UK, if 
we hold the conference in Europe rather than Edinburgh than we have to:
    1) Only take a restricted set of staff.
    2) Pay for transporting said staff to the European location.
    3) Pay for feeding, and housing said staff at the European location.

This latter cost means that (comparatively speaking) the ticket cost of 
the conference would have to be greater as it has to cover the costs of 
running the conference (the staff being there being quite an important 
aspect of this).

Now, of course, it costs more to transit staff to the US (although 
perhaps not to house!) than Europe; however, we have more users in the 
US who are 'likely to attend' so the expected tickets sales if we have 
the conference in the US is higher in the UK.

Basically, where a conference is held is entirely a numbers game.

Sure, we could throw in a couple of 'lets make people feel fluffy 
questions' into such a survey (which wouldn't really give any useful 
data at all) but that would just make the survey longer. The longer the 
survey, the less responses you get, thus the less accurate the results 
you get. Again, it all comes down to numbers.

Mark.

-- 
Mark Waddingham ~ mark at livecode.com ~ http://www.livecode.com/
LiveCode: Everyone can create apps