How to get the MySQL Community Team at Your Local Event

December is half way through the budget year for the MySQL Community Team and we carefully meter out our small budget to make the most effective use from it. But December is also the time when existing conferences start the tasks of preparing for next year and brave souls who have never been part of a conference start out from scratch to create a new show. The MySQL Community Team would love to help with your conference.

First we need to know about your conference. We do scour the announcement sites like callingallpapers.com and lanyrd.com but your show may have been inadvertently skipped. Tell us the dates, the location, how many people you are expecting, your target audience (PHP Developers, DBAs, left handed actuaries from the Pacific Rim), and what makes your show unique (at least for your area). We spread the word about shows to our MySQL ACEs, MySQL Employees, and anyone else we can reach. Left us know when your Call for Papers opens and closes!

Secondly, what sponsorship levels are available and what comes with those levels? How many people can we have in our booth, if we get a booth? Do we still need to buy entry tickets? Do we need to rent tables, carpet, electrical outlets, and chairs for the booth from a specified vendor? Can we have folks from the local MySQL users group in the booth with us? Oracle covers our travel bills but sometimes you need X bodies in N hotel rooms for conference room discount Z, so let us know if you need us to be at your conference hotel.

We love to speak about MySQL and if you have special subjects you want covered for your audience, be sure to let us know! Some of the best conference are the small, intimate events. We also try to visit local MySQL User Groups so having on of those nearby your conference helps too.

Payment can be tricky. If you are in the Oracle PO system (If we have sponsored your event in the past you probably are in there under your DBA — ‘Doing Business As’ or your legal name), it can be a fairly simple process. If you are not in the PO System, the corporate credit car d is used which can get tricky outside of the US or you want to be paid through Paypal(1) and this may take some extra time plus effort on both our parts.

Lastly we have only three MySQL Community Managers and we work hard to split up the shows between us. However we can only cover so much territory. Also Oracle expects us to be at certain events like Oracle Open World, MySQL Connect, Collaborate and a few others so hopefully you do not over lap in the calendar with those. We may be able to fall back on the MySQL ACEs in a few cases. So the earlier we know about your show, the better.

So we on the MySQL Community Team look forward to seeing you at your event, handing swag away from our booth, and talking about MySQL to your attendees. Ping me at Dave.Stokes AT Oracle.com please.Bertran

1. Paypal sometimes has odd fees or requirements for payments to third parties especially those with new or unverified accounts. I love Paypal and am a long time customer but you may want to set up some other credit card processing procedures when you sent up the accounts for your conference.

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