One concrete thing about the OTSConf in Dortmund and the general discussion around it is the branding. The topic came up during the review meeting and in the conversation I had with @Ola and we want to make sure it reflects best how we as a community see the conference’s relation to OpenTechSchool. Be sure things have been designed with lots of care regarding this so far, still the Conf organizers are open for feedback.
Please have a look at https://otsconf.com and comment if you have serious concerns about how OpenTechSchool branding is used. Positive feedback also welcome
Au contraire, I think if this is going to be an OpenTechSchool conference the branding needs to be much stronger.
Currently, if you don’t know what OTS is the page means nothing to you. It speaks about “Open Tech” (sounding like a makers workshop) and “Angular JS and NodeCopter” (sounding like every other Javascript conference.) That OpenTechSchool is primarily about teaching and learning is difficult to understand for me.
If this is going to be a community conference it needs to be one—all or nothing. Having some conference coincidentally also called Open Tech something will only further dilute our brand.
Also, no OTS logo, link, or CoC anywhere. Let’s please not isolate this from the rest of us if this is a community event.
Update: I seem to remember the very purpose of this conference was to show the Dortmund area why free, volunteer-driven workshops are cool. This is very hard with the website as it stands.
We’ve designed the website with having in mind to not be too close to the OTS, although we stand for the same values. We weren’t sure, if the OTS is all in.
If it is, we can adapt the most important points.
@robert if you’d like to chat about that topic, ping me
