The University of Minnesota is trying to put together a seminar on Open
Source software on November 4th at the Earl Brown Center in St. Paul.  They
are looking for local speakers to talk about various topics as well as
present case studies.  The audience will be CEOs, CIOs, CFOs and decision
makers at most of the large companies in the Twin Cities.

Although Nov. 4th is still a long way off, they would like to print
description of the speakers presentations and to get in print they need the
descriptions and bios by next Monday (Sept 16th), which is not a lot of
notice.

If you are willing to speak about a topic (Linux, Zope, Python, Community
Wireless, Apache etc.) or a case study (like www.isd197.org or other
successful local Open Source projects) please let Mike know.  Anyone that
can speak to the topic of reliability of Open Source software would be very
much appreciated.

If you would like to speak, just send Mike a reply with the following:

	1) Your Name
	2) Topic or Case Study Name
	3) Short Description of Topic (1 paragraph)
	4) A short bio (1 paragraph)

Each session would be about 50 minutes with a few minutes at the end for
questions.

If we get a good turnout for this it will help encourage more Open Source
classes at the U of M.

	Thanks for your help - Dan

Dan McCreary
e-Business Strategy Development
home office: (651) 405-9034
cell: (612) 986-1552
e-mail: dmccreary at attbi.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Amidon [mailto:mamidon at cce.umn.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2002 4:08 PM
To: 'dmccreary at attbi.com'
Subject: Open Source Seminar


Dan-

Thanks very much for offering to help find presenters for us
regard open source technology.  If we can get the presenter list completed
by Monday, I believe we can pull off the Nov. 4 date.

The idea for the seminar came from Allie Micka, one of our Open Source
discussion group members.  She saw it as an opportunity to educate the
public about what open source tools can offer and how far they've come.
This seminar would be targeted to CIOs, CEOs, CFOs and other non-technical
purse-string controllers.  The U of M's position is not to be
anti-Microsoft, but rather to serve as a forum for discussion about viable
alternative solutions.

As I mentioned, the group is also working on a 40-hour course to help
emerging businesses utilize open source tools in the office (Linux, file and
print sharing, email, desktop apps.), plus an 80-hour course on how to
create a Web presence using open source tools.  We would want to mention
these courses at this seminar.

I am thinking of starting with a breakfast, say 7:30 AM.  We would have a
keynote address that would set the tone for the rest of the morning.  After
the keynote, we would introduce the breakout sessions/speakers.  Attendees
would be able to attend 2 sessions during the morning.  I am guessing they
would run from 9:00 - 10:15, to be repeated from 10:30 - 11:45.  These
sessions would be "case studies" of organizations who had successfully
implemented open source technology.  I would want a variety of typical
business "problems" to be addressed by these presenters (e.g., firewalls,
databases, e-commerce, file sharing) so that attendees can see the value of
open source in general.

In a separate area, such as a lobby, we could invite vendors who have
developed commercial open source tools.  Perhaps some big names such as Red
Hat, Sun or IBM would be willing to attend.  We could also have a
side-by-side demonstration of MS Office and Star Office, with an appropriate
price list for each.

Mike Amidon
Program Director
Dept. of Information Technology
College of Continuing Education
University of Minnesota
(612) 627-1813
mamidon at cce.umn.edu





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