"Our group is dedicated to providing a harassment-free event experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, or religion (or lack thereof).
We do not tolerate harassment of group participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any meetup venue, including talks, workshops, parties, Twitter and other online media. Group participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the group (without a refund if applicable) at the discretion of the group organisers."
The long version is at confcodeofconduct.com which is also the source for the above.
iNOG Donations a.k.a. Magic Tickets
Any donation buys you the warm feeling that you've helped make each iNOG happen. You really get nothing else, no preferential treatment, no guarantee of talks, just warm and fuzzies. Close to 50 hours of unpaid planning, meetings, testing, hosting, web/video/copy editing and design, marketing etc. goes in to each iNOG. Donations will help fund swag, stickers, and behind the scenes sunk costs such as; hosting, SaaS subscriptions, meetings, planning, feeding volunteers, and enabling organisers to continue to contribute professional time. iNOG has no funding and is not registered as a charity, non-profit, or designated activity group *yet* so, this is currently facilitated via Defensible Limited.
Dates
Now canvassing for 2020! We tend to alternate on Wednesdays and Thursdays to give people a chance to come who may have prior engagements on either evening. The dates below are a line in the sand and we're open to modifying them for your awesome space if required.
Space
We (the iNOG community) are open to any space such that it can comfortably and safely seat a minimum of 90 people albeit a 100+ person space is desirable!. We tend to see 75% attendance on RSVP numbers for free events (this is even with multiple reminders).You don't have to have a massive space but it has to be suitable (seriously fit-for-purpose!) for events. Ongoing community feedback has shown that the most successful spaces are warm, comfortable, and quiet. We must have a PA(Public Address) system, ample screen size (and additional digital signage if possible), and the ability to record video including laptop output is ace!). If you can not record the talks we can sometimes assist with an adhoc solution, but we prefer if the host organisation or venue use their in-house set up. Spaces must be certified to hold the capacity communicated to us i.e. have all the relevant fire certification and exit lighting/escape routes.
Your Event Space Sounds great, keep reading and fill out the form!
Hire an Event Space Please contact us first for a site visit and chat via the form!
Attendance
Who comes to iNOG?
Industry veterans, academics, system engineers/architects, infosec, programmers, students, career change seekers, hobbyists etc. but mostly we're a bunch of engineers, managers, and hackers from a range of MNCs(Multi-National Companies), Enterprises, Service Providers, VARs(Value Added Resellers), 'web scale' platforms, SMEs(Small to Medium Enterprises), SMBs(Small to Medium Businesses) etc. but don't worry about the acronyms. You're likely to bump in to technical people from Workday, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Indeed, Intercom, SIG, Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Eir, BT, HEAnet, Virgin Media, INEX, Blacknight, Asavie, Redbrick/DCU, DIT, CCT...
We tend to see 75% attendance on RSVP numbers for free events (due to frequent communication efforts), we:
open RSVPs 30-45 days in advance (otherwise people 'event' squat)
as an example; if we can safely, legally, and financially accommodate 100 people, we will advertise our final max RSVP as 140
manage our waitlist by releasing 80% (112), then 10%(14), then 10%(14) of our RSVP spots alongside our emails below
send out reminder emails and requests to update RSVPs 7, 2 and 1 days in advance
use Tito for ticketing and RSVPs and think you should too!
Location
For now, we strongly favour central locations in Dublin, Ireland, in the central business district but are open to both other towns, cities, and urban locations (if there is strong enough demonstrable interest!).
Format
Mini-conference evenings usually take place from 6.30pm-10pm and comprised of 2 (preferably co-located) parts.
The first part is from 6.30pm to 8.00pm: Introduction, Lightning talks x3 (15mins each) and the Thunder talk x1 (25mins), and community outro.
The second part is from 8.00pm to 10.00pm: The get-to-know-your-community portion which is all about connecting with and welcoming new members whilst deepening the relationships within our growing community of practice.
Note: We have a Program Committee(PC) in iNOG who help source and screen speakers, however hosts get to optionally provide the Thunder Talk of the evening (which must adhere to the no selling, no recruiting, and Code of Conduct)
Catering
We don't expect every host to be able to fill our bellies but providing some healthy food from 6pm (with options for vegetarians, vegans, and coeliacs) is smiled upon! Even if you don't have catering on-site, usually some pizzas can fill the gap. We use the 0.4 pizzas per person expected e.g. 100 and 20% vegetarian, 5% vegan and 5% gluten free when ordering. We also love to have some refreshments on hand:
non-alcoholic (soft drinks / juices) 0.3 per person expected e.g. 100
alcoholic (helps with social lubrication!) 1.5-2beers per person expected e.g. 100
tea/coffee
water
We have found that the metrics X above per person attending covers the distribution well. We recommend that drinks are available throughout the evening and do like to feed attendees as quickly as possible! Reach out to us even if you think catering is going to be a challenge!
Collaboration
We tend to plan iNOGs with host organisations anything from 6-16 weeks in advance (the earlier the better!) and have custom event runsheets covering everything here and more. About 4-5 planning calls of 30mins or more (most of which usually take place closer to the event). We also mandate an early AV test run and walk-through with all speakers and organisers on-site 3-10 days in advance. We do strongly advocate the 5Ps!
Promotion
We will happily co-market and co-brand the event but do not allow any sales pitches or recruitment drives. By virtue of bringing a group of specialists together, we understand the inherent value in the group but also the fragility of community. We advocate that the better the attendee experience in your space (without being sold to in any way) actually means that you are passively demonstrating your culture to engineers and actively engaging in what we call "sheep-dipping" in your brand/organisation. We only allow "swag" that is opt-in and not in the direct path of attendees where they actively have to refuse it to partake in the normal event experience. Don't get us wrong, we love free stuff, but it has to be opt-in!
Oh and we'd love you to share this page too, right now, go on, click the Twitter or LinkedIn buttons below to share the love!
We also subscribe to and are super serious about our Code of Conduct in relation to talks, spaces, events, online interaction and the values we promote.
