• ESRI
  • NAVTEQ

Sponsorship Opportunities

For information on exhibition and sponsorship opportunities at the conference, contact Yvonne Romaine at yromaine@oreilly.com

Download the Where 2.0 Sponsor/Exhibitor Prospectus

Media Partner Opportunities

For media partnerships, contact mediapartners@ oreilly.com or download the Media & Promotional Partner Brochure (PDF)

Press and Media

For media-related inquiries, contact Maureen Jennings at maureen@oreilly.com

Where 2.0 Newsletter

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Contact Us

View a complete list of Where 2.0 contacts

Where 2.0 2010 Call for Participation

Call closed 11:59pm 10/20/2009 PDT.

Where 2.0—Accepting Proposals—Submit Yours Today!

O’Reilly Media invites technologists and strategists, CTOs and CIOs, technology evangelists and scouts, researchers, programmers, geographers, researchers and academics, artists and activists, business developers, and entrepreneurs to lead conference sessions and tutorials at the next Where 2.0 Conference, taking place March 30-April 1, 2010 at the San Jose Marriott in San Jose, California, U.S.

If so, you are invited to submit a proposal now to speak at Where 2.0. Read tips for submitting a proposal.

If you are one or more of the following:

  • CIOs, products managers, and technologists curious about how to incorporate location technology into existing products
  • Product Manager, Business Manager, Software Developer or Computer Programmer
  • City planners, government planners
  • Officials from USGS, DOD, and other agencies
  • Open source mapping and location tool developers
  • Grassroots developers building important mashups and systems
  • Researchers and academics studying the field and building prototypes
  • Artists creating collaborative experiences with a spatial focus
  • Activists and community organizers building tools for managing nonprofit location groups
  • Neographers and traditional geographers working deep in the trenches of geospace
  • Venture capitalists looking for the next investment opportunity

Then you are invited to submit a proposal now to speak at Where 2.0 2010. Where 2.0 will be at the San Jose Marriott, CA, from March 30-April 1, 2010. Read tips for submitting a proposal.

You’ll be asked to include the following information for your proposal:

  • Proposed title
  • Overview and extended descriptions of the presentation: main idea, subtopics, conclusion
  • Suggested track
  • Speaker(s): expertise and summary biography

Proposals will be considered for the following types of presentations:

  • 30 minute session
  • 75 minute workshop
  • Panel discussion
  • Where Fair
  • Ignite Where: we will be conducting a separate call for Ignite
  • Product launch: please indicate in your proposal if you are planning a product launch
  • RFID Project/Game

Some of the topics on the radar for Where 2.0 are:

Mobile: The iPhone, Android, and Symbian mobile OS’s are continually advancing the state of the art. By creating a wide-spread platform that allows for third-party development and geolocation they are bringing along the whole industry. The phone is going to become the primary I/O device for geodata in the near future. What new applications are you building for it? How are the social apps affecting society and our notions of privacy?

Realtime Mapping: Mobile phones are being used to generate maps and other geodata. Sensors across the world are capturing more data every second. Reality mining systems are being used to release this data to users in realtime. Who is making the most of this deluge? How can they handle these new data sets?

Temporal Information: Realtime data requires the element of time to be added. This is uncharted design territory. How should time come to the Web?

Rich Analysis: Web mapping is moving past just allowing the display of data (aka red-dot fever). There are now many tools online that help people analyze data and could, in time, challenge traditional GIS systems. How is the Web different? Will end-users take up richer tools?

Geolocated Web: Every updated browser can now geolocate it’s user. Websites are now going to start using this information. What should they do with the information? What new services can be created?

Mobile Advertising vs. Services: Will people pay for their mobile apps directly or through ads? Which makes for a better product, a better user experience and a more stable revenue stream?

Augmented Reality: The combination of a camera, a GPS and a compass on a mobile phone is going to let us layer information on top of the world. What do you want to see? How will you edit the layers?

3D: Photosynth-like apps are becoming more commonplace. Google’s 3D Warehouse is filled with models. It’s safe to say that 3D is here. But do we need it? What are its limits?

Open Data: Governments are treasure troves of data. Increasingly they are releasing it online for free. How does open data effect the web? How can this data be widely available and yet maintain its creators? How is this critical information being put to use?

Crisis Mapping: The tools of neogeography are being used to spread the word of humanitarian and natural disasters. What are some of the best (and worst) examples?

Open-Source: The backbone of any independant mapping site is open source software. What are the newest tools that can be used to handle the location-enabled web?

Workshops

Where 2.0 will have a full day of workshops where participants can dig deep into a range of issues and leave the conference armed with new tools and skills. Workshops are one hour and fifteen minutes in length and will be held on Tuesday, March 30, 2009. Topics we’d like to explore include, but are not exclusive to:

Geo Support in Web Application Frameworks: As people design their own mapping applications, there has been a need for built-in geo support. We’re looking for workshops that teach about Mapstraction, Modest Maps, Open Layers, GeoDjango, GeoRuby, MapCruncher, and other tools.

GeoStack: As locations apps are brought in-house, companies need their own geostack. What are the best tools?

Mapping APIs: The location space would not have gotten as far as it has today without all of the innovation in the mapping API space. How can you test the limits of these free resources?

GeoTargeting: Knowing users’ locations has never been more important. Identifying it accurately can be difficult and expensive. What are the best methods?

Privacy Implications: As you are collecting user data, keeping track of your users, or collecting geodata, are you aware of the relevant laws? What would you teach others?

GeoBrowsers: Google Earth and NASA WorldWind are both amazing geobrowsers. How can you get the most out of them?

Data Management: Geo applications work with massive amounts of data. What are the tools, tips, and tricks that can be used to manage it?

Protocols and Formats: GeoRSS, GML, KML, EXIF, Microformats, Geo OpenSearch. Which formats are on the way in and which ones are on the way out? These are just some of the technologies and transformations we’ve noticed and represent just the starting point for the program. While we’d like you to tap into the theme as your inspiration in writing your proposal, feel free to wander. What are you working on that will change the world, or at least the world you’re in? What project is bringing you pleasure, or teasing your brain? Surprise and delight us; shake us out of our assumptions. We’re angling for shorter talks with longer breaks so you’ll have more time for one-on-one interactions.

Where Fair: Have something you’d like to get in front of other location geeks? The Where Fair is the perfect place to showcase your research, art, DIY, and just plain fun location-aware projects. View last year’s Where Fair entries.

RFID Project: RFIDs can be used to add a proximity interaction such as letting a device know who you are and giving you a much simpler interaction with technology. It’s very easy to conceptualize the possibilities, but exploring RFID physically is much more fun. If you have an RFID-driven project that you want to bring to Where, please let us know.

Limited speaking opportunities are also available through conference sponsorship. Contact Yvonne Romaine at (707) 827-7198 or yromaine@oreilly.com for more information.

Tips for Submitting a Proposal

Help us understand why your presentation is the right one for Where 2.0.

  • Be authentic! Your peers need real-world scenarios they can use. Please submit original presentation ideas that focus on knowledge transfer, and engaging and relevant examples.
  • Include as much detail about the planned presentation as possible. The more we know about what you plan to present and why it matters, the better.
  • Be thorough! If you are proposing a panel tell us who else would be on it. If you are going to have a release let us know. If you feel this is something that hasn’t been covered at Where 2.0 before let us know.
  • Keep it free of marketing
  • Keep the audience in mind: they’re technical, professional, and already pretty smart
  • Clearly identify the level of the talk: is it for beginners to the topic, or for gurus? What knowledge should people have when they come to the presentation?
  • Give it a simple and straightforward title or name: Fancy and clever titles or descriptions make it harder for people (committee and attendees) to figure out what you’re really talking about
  • Context is important. If your presentation is about something truly ground-breaking, earth-shattering, and new, it will be helpful to the reviewers if you describe it in terms of things that attendees might already know of
  • Limit the scope of the talk: in 45 minutes, you won’t be able to cover Everything about Widget Framework X. Instead, pick a useful aspect, or a particular technique, or walk through a simple program
  • The longer the talk you’re proposing, the more detail you should provide
  • Explain why people will want to attend: is the framework gaining traction? Is the app critical to modern systems? Will they learn how to deploy it, program it, or just what it is?
  • Let us know in your proposal notes whether you can give all the talks you submitted proposals for
  • Warmed-over talks from some conference circuit are less likely to be appealing. The conference has a limited number of slots, and if attendees can see the same talk somewhere else, why should they come see you at this one? If you speak at a lot of events, be sure to note why this presentation is different
  • Don’t assume that your company’s name buys you cred. If you’re talking about something important that you have specific knowledge of because of what your company does, spell that out in the description
  • Present something relevant. If you’re presenting a new way to do something that others have been doing for a decade or more, you need an angle on it that’s fresh or an explanation for why it’s important now. The hot things are hot, the cold things are cold, but there are interesting problems in almost everything. One of your challenges as a proposer is to demonstrate that you understand that attendees might need an extra reason to pay attention to something that they might otherwise think of as "settled"
  • Avoid taking a scatter-shot approach to proposals if you submit more than one or two. Be focused, have something important to say on a worthwhile topic, and sell the topic (not just yourself)

Please keep in mind that this event is by and for professionals. Our participants expect that all presentations and supporting materials will be respectful, inclusive, and "safe for work."

Looking for advice before submitting your proposal? Read these tips from program committee members from some of our other conferences:

  • Giuseppe’s thoughts (MySQL Conference & Expo)
  • Baron’s thoughts (MySQL Conference & Expo)
  • Colin’s thoughts (MySQL Conference & Expo)
  • Alex’s thoughts (Alex Russell’s notes on Dojo)

Resources

Important Dates

The submission extended deadline for all proposals is October 20, 2009.
Early registration opens in December 2009.
Standard registration begins February 2010.

Submit a proposal now!