In this case, no response is a quite understandable response, IMO.

1. Im pretty sure there is no link as such. The ideas and details are spread all over, so I guess the best reply would be www.flyertalk.com:D

2. No response, just means that at this stage there are no one that are willing to offer MORE of their spare time than already devoted. They do it all for free, often with own costs, and including what can be interpreted as bashing on the forum towards them. But I do think that almost all of the info is already on FT, and if not, there are thousands of people here offering help on a daily basis- for free^

Actually mrpickles answered your question in post #147:

"Several people wrote a summary. Did anyone write a step by step guide? No, because there was so much information that most attendees were in awe by the fact that they were able to get in.

I have no doubt that this single event has the potential to grow to a larger venue, over 3 days and over 1000 attendees with multiple track sessions. Many attendees were tweeting information and summaries and it had its own twitter hash tag #CSDO1, this years event is #CSDO2.

I don't recall anyone writing a detailed summary for any DO with all of the tricks of the trade outlined and charted for the benefit of those choose to not attend."

but travelkid does a nice summary as well ;)

Cheers.

Euroman response
 

Some of last years presenters provided their slides. Some did not.

This year it will again be up to the presenters if they want to share their info.

The general feeling has been that if you post how to book the $2 First Class fare NYC to London online it will last only minutes. Same holds true for information shared at the Chicago Seminars 2011

Why not come join us?

In fairness, not everyone has that weekend free or can afford the air/transpo (the admin fee to cover meals, etc, is the minor expense). But it's unrealistic I think to expect copies of power point presentations or line item speeches to be provided to all 240,000 FTers.

But besides the extra work, I don't think not providing that info is due to wanting to keep it only amongst the attendees vs non-attendees, but more to avoid giving up a heads up to airlines, hotels, car rentals, etc, on methods that best take advantage of the travel experience. ;) And in the case of the advanced mileage run seminar, that's one you really needed to be there & even then it could be quite confusing. A simple power point isn't going to explain it all.

There have been other seminar dos, such as Ann Abor organized by bikeguy every year. While I've not attended, I never expected the folk presenting there to send me powerpoints. I couldn't make it or chose not to attend, so I missed out on the info provided. Shrug. My choice. When I've not attended more social dos such as Ozfest or even a simple meeting up over meals & tips/techniques were discussed amongst folk, I didn't expect the attendees of those events to send me a write-up.

As travelkid said, a lot of the info is available on FT in one forum or shape or another. It's just packaged more tightly in a seminar setting.

Cheers.

I disagree with your feedback.

This is an OPPORTUNITY for FT LEADERSHIP(moderators) to try to coordinate a summary posting from the presenters of the DO or some who attends to benefit FT site.

Unfortunately, NOBODY from FT LEADERSHIP wants to be pro active just ignores positive feedback on FTb site improvement

exactly. bingo. ding-ding-ding.

scattered- FT; distilled- Seminar

Can I offer a constructive suggestion?

Are you able to be there? You haven't shared your constraint -- whether it's financial, and I mean I wouldn't be surprised if someone offered you a mileage ticket and plenty of people will be sharing rooms -- or work-related, etc.

If you could possibly be there, sounds like you could coordinate such a project.

If you aren't going to be there, you seem to have a strong desire to see it happen. You could join the threads discussing the events and take on the role of seeing to it that it happens. You could recruit volunteers who will be attending, get them to take notes. Maybe get a couple of different people assigned for each session, to assure redundancy and full coverage. And then you could even have them send you their notes, which could be collated and edited for publication. You might send the notes back out to a group of attendees to check for accuracy and missed items before going live.

But then you'd be performing a service for the community, instead of complaining that a service isn't being provided to you. @:-)

Whenever two groups of people get frustrated that the other group cannot comprehend their 'simple point,' as seems to be the case here I find it helpful to think about each others perspectives.

So let me assure you that I am hearing you that those on the 'inside' of these seminars believe that:

- They are a lot of hard work
- They are good for the community
- While comps and freebies are offered and taken, no one makes better than their day-job hourly rate in comp value.
- Expenses match income, or the balance goes to charity.
- While organizer/speaker/other travel products may be pumped, there is more value to the seminar customer than to the organizer and/or speaker
- Sponsors defray attendee costs but do not drive the agenda
- Organizers and speakers feel they are providing great value to attendees often at a personal cost or sacrifice.

I agree that those are all wonderful things. And I understand the defensiveness that many in this thread have had: you feel like some people (myself included) are throwing stones at your altruism and hard work.

But.

Take a second to think about these events from the perspective of an 'outsider' looking at these events.

A thread pops up in community that says 'Sign up for the Frequent Flyer Seminar!' One opens the thread and is says 'For only $49 you get a full day of seminars with some of the frequent travel community's best minds!'

The rules are somewhat strict: you must book to the room block or your reservation will be canceled. No recording or video at the events.

Thinking about it from that perspective, it walks like a purely commercial event. It quacks like a purely commercial event.

I get it that this is an evolution from the Dos and is still largely a volunteer effort. But I submit that just like it's hard to notice your own kid growing, when an outsider sees your little precious for the first time they don't see all the hard work and gradual growth. They see the fully formed person.

And with all the marketing focus on the transactional nature of the 'cash for information' and particularly with the addition of sponsors they are looking more and more like commercial events.

Again, I'm not trying to shut the seminars down. I'm not even throwing stones at them.

But when I look at the TOS, it says:

So the insiders say that despite appearances, these are NOT commercial events. Depending on how you define commercial maybe they aren't (by the 'for a profit' definition) or maybe they are (by the involving transactions involving commodities definition or especially the sponsored or paid for by an advertiser definition).

This increasing ambiguity is precisely why I started this thread. To get the TB to think about what can be done either in terms of TOS amendments or a new forum to deal with it and accommodate the Seminars in light of the TOS.

gleff,

With all due respect, how much more effort needs to be expended to transform these events from "not for profit" to "for profit?" I'm guessing a couple of hours to create an LCC and upping the entry fee from $49 to $99. The infrastructure is in place...online registration...vendor relationships...speaker relationships... come on...

If the founders aren't thinking of taking this idea to every hampton inn in every major city, then they are "nutz." They need to do if before someone else does it for them.

Is your point until they become "for profit", they should be treated like a normal, traditional "Do"? As it stands today there are people making money of these "Dos", the aforementioned sponsors...Disney Vacation Club, etc. You don't see that in a normal "Do". You don't see practically anything these guys are doing at seminars at a normal "Do". I think this is where koko is coming from...

koko your rendition is actually 80% fair which is a start, but you have stated some things very inaccurately, I don't know wheher you are purposely misrepresenting them because they've been clarified and explained several times or whether you are so stuck in your own position that you cannot be open to being corrected on several points.

But let me try one more time, as it may well make a difference, on the assumption that you really are trying to be fair-minded here.

So far we're spot on

This is not the position anyone has taken, at least it's not the position that Rick or Tommy or I have taken. Someone somewhere in the thread may have said this, but it's not how these events have operated.

It's not that anyone is taking less than their day job rate.

It's that no one is being compensated for their time, at all.

In fact, in general the organizers are actually cash negative for their organizing, they're not even being reimbursed for their expenses in putting the event on.

It's not fair to say that Rick or Tommy is just taking less than they'd make at work for the same time. They aren't taking anything.

Now, a comped room is NOT the same thing as you've described 'taking less than their hourly rate'. It's the lack of an expense.

I think it helps to fairly portray what is actually being said, and what could conceivably be offered.

Cash to Rick or Tommy or anyone else in exchange for their time is just not on the table with any of these events and I don't hear anyone advocating it.

As I explained earlier, I even had an exchange with Rick where I said "great, I hope there'll be enough money left so you can have a nice dinner with your wife at the end of this because you have to give up so much spouse time to put it together" and he replied that he wouldn't think of taking a personal dinner with his wife, even, out of the event dollars.

Correct

Any 'value' to the organizer or speaker is deminimus or speculative at best. Think about my South Park underwear gnomes example/ First step steal lots of unerwear. Third step profit!! It's that mystery second step that at least I haven't figured out in all of this, and that certainly hasn't happened for anyone yet that I'm aware of!


Correct

Hope so!

You are, actually. You have been incredibly patronizing, up until this last post. You've been incredibly snarky. Re-read some of your posts. You started out in the generic and made it very personal.. ;)

And that $49 or $75 covers meals, room rental cost, supplies like name tags, etc.

Actually, not quite.

* Frequent Traveler University has no such rule about using a room block
* Chicago Seminar DO doesn't require you to use a room block to participate in the seminar. In order to ensure that the entire host hotel is only for frequent flyers there aren't supposed to be any reservations made outside of the event link, and the hotel plans to proactively fix any mistakes/glitches they would go back and reach out to others that they couldn't honor the reservation.

That's about ensuring a 100% frequent flyer weekend at that hotel, and nothing else!

No, it doesn't, since it's no different than prepaying the costs of a LondonDO or a SinDO or an Ozfest. If prepaying meal expenses (or some amoutn less than actual meal expenses) makes it commercial, then your analysis is that most of the large gatherings are commercial. Because these are no more commrecial than those are.

It's only when you read the conspiracy into this, not supported by the facts, and ignore the explanations, that you can come to that conclusion. :(

Yes, the TOS references "promotional messages for commercial products or services" but again, you've got to stretch really hard to (inaccurately) portray these as commercial products or services when folks are just being asked to cover the costs of meals and lodging for a volunteer effort.

Surely these are less commercial than the services that do discuss themselves here, like KVS or Award Nexus or Expert Flyer, or for that matter discussions by representatives of travel companies like Starwood Lurker or UA Insider whose presence i think we all value.

But again, there's nothing at all commercial about a volunteer effort where participants are asked to cover their expenses for hotel, meals, supplies, event space and no one is making a profit.

Not despite the appearances, only despite your pre-conceptions which persist in spite of the facts.

To take your 'transaction' definition then prepaying a meal by paypal in advance of a DO is commercial. Sorry, your tortured definition does not fly.

Why does a sponsor make something commercial? Sponsors regularly fund all sorts of pure charity efforts, all over the world, is Medicines sans Frontieres a commercial venture?

It's only ambiguous when you torture the facts, that have been explained over and over.

You're missing the point. Your endeavor has a budget. Your endeavor has business partners (your sponsors). Your endeavor is pulling attendees from FlyerTalk. Your endeavor is not a "Do."

I think it is up to the Talkboard to decide if you can advertise your endeavor on Community or not.

The idea that you could take a not for profit event, show folks that it's so valuable that they would pay more for it, and begin charging isn't a reason not to allow the not for profit event. No, I do not think anyone has a vision of making these for-profit, and the point at which is becomes for-profit is precisely the line.

As long as no one is making a profit, and any excess/leftover funds are donated to charity, then no I do not see a problem here at all.

The TOS does have something to say about commercial promotion. It does not say what kind of DOs are permissable and what are not, what forms of activities the members of the community can get together to put on!

It may not seem like a tradiitonal DO, Rick figured out last year a new way to provide value to the community that was different than a lot of what came before (though that had plenty of precedent, eg the long-running Ann Arbor Arts Fair DO that is very much liek this).

Frankly, I think there is a lot of room where many of the better events, like the really great DC event at Dulles at GoingAway put on last spring, many folks would pay for because they're frankly just darned awesome and provide a lot of value. but members of the community have given a gift to other members, by bringing their talents to the table for free.

But because the events ARE great, the kind of things some MIGHT pay for, isn't a reason not to have them! :cool:

I think that's really dangerous. I don't think the TalkBoard ought to decide if Rick's event should be shared with the community or not. Rather, the Talkboard should certainly look at the site guidelines and see whether they still make sense.

And the point of the discussion here is to flush out what the community is thinking, in order to inform that discussion.

Having a budget doesn't make something commercial. Any well-run DO will have a budget.

Now, the TalkBoard could recommend a rule that no DO can take in sponsors. I think that would be unfortunate, since it's a creative way of keeping costs down for the community. I think it's community-enhancing. But if folks were really uncomfortable then something could be done there.

Of course a line or definition of what would consitute sponsorship would have to be delineated, what about a Continental DO as in the past, or one of the Delta mega events or last year's Starwood event? Those are surely sponsored, by travel providers with an interest in advancing their own business, and yet they have been both hugely successful and popular and also hugely value creating for the community. ^

Euromann Come Volunteer YOUR Time
 

Ask the speakers if they mind you doing a summary of their presentations (I don't for mine) and show the leadership of FT what needs to be done, then do it yourself.

You are now given the opportunity to contribute to the community. Will you or will you just complain?

But it can't be for profit. This is an all volunteer not for profit event.

PS: Koko: What was it you wanted to volunteer to this community volunteer event for the benefit of the community?

Thank you for correcting some of my points, gleff.

But you are still looking at this issue from the perspective of an insider.

Now focus on MY perspective.

Let's say you went to an IBB about dog grooming. In the community section there was a thread 'Come to the Dog grooming seminar!' You open it and it says 'For only $49 you can share a room with some of the world's BEST dog groomers.'

Does that look like a commercial solicitation to you? Because it does to me.

You say the line is 'for profit vs. non-profit.'

But who the heck is going to police THAT!? Are Cholula, crissxb and Jenbel going to have to don green eye shades and audit every venture that posts on community claiming to be non-profit? Heck, remember JanAz's daughter's charity kerfuffle? That organization was a non-profit. Why can't THEY post solicitations on Community?

That's why I say the line is something else...and I tend to think it's more along the lines of 'a Do is an event where every attendee pays at least their equal share of costs.' But I'm trying to leave that to the TB to figure out.

I get it that bigger 'flash mobs' require greater organization. But at some point all that organization and the event it is organizing sure do look and act like commercial ventures.

You mention KVS, SeatExpert, etc. I agree that THOSE are incredibly valuable contributions to the very frequent flyer space too.

That's why I also think it makes sense to have a 'Miles and Points Products Marketplace' forum on FT. Where seminars, books, bidding websites, award availability products, award booking products, etc, etc, etc COULD be talked about by their owners and marketers as well as their customers and potential customers. It would have to be restricted to products in a narrow-enough defined fashion that seat picker dot coms would be ok but time share solicitations and pure spam would not. But I'm certain the TB is up to the task! ^