Victorious March - Adnan Hodzic
Some of the members are asking questions, some of them are raising even suspicion, some of them are raising their eyebrows, some of them even envy, after all this is Bosnia and Herzegovina. It's a ridicule, how can they have such a good bid! I'm being completely objective when I say this, but this is probably the most successful bid when it comes from technical arguments over wiki page to even the financial support. In this document I'll explain my whole strategy and tactics what I did to get DebConf into my country. Who da fsck is Adnan? I won't tell you my life story, since it's too long for this paper and I'm planning to write a book about it one day. I'm currently only 24, but during these years I think I lived at least 3 times some of you never will, this is literally my second life and I'm going to use it the best way possible :) Except for those few that really know me, in my nature, I'm really binary, whatever I do I'm either 1 or 0, either I'm doing it, or I'm not even going to start working on it. Those that know me will know that I'm a perfectionists to the core, when I show dedication I show it to the fullest. So put simple, I'm either hardcore in what I do, or I won't even start doing it at all. Even though there's no much records of it right now, my biggest “success” so far my free (community based) web hosting, whose slogan was “The best web hosting experience” and it wasn't like that to feed my ego or anything, it was like that because I really believed in what I'm doing, “neglecting” everything around me. Deep inside of me I really wanted for Google or some other company like that to buy it all, but this never happened, in the end I was only 18-ish years old and too naïve for anything. When I saw people (at the time) are just too blind to catch up on the whole idea behind it all, and when I decided that I wanted to get my bachelors degree I just killed it. Why? I could have easily go to university and do that as well … true, but that wouldn't be that, I wouldn't be 100% committed. It's really like that with most of the things in my life, I'm trying find “middle ground” all my life, not 1 or 0 but 0.5, but so far I didn't find it, maybe in the end this is why I'm supposed to operate. DebConf11 anyone? Well DebConf9 date was coming near, and I remember I had to make decision if I'm even going to candidate my country for DebConf11, reason I was so reluctant in beginning because I wasn't sure if I'll commit to this project 100%. I used to do this as a young boy as well, I would just observe what elderly would do an what they would talk about, never interrupting just acquiring all that new knowledge. So all I did in this period was observe and watch the videos from previous DebConf proceedings/candidatures, and this way I would record “mistakes” and this is where I learned the most from. I also must admit that my “tutor” and “spiritual leader” that is someone I could look up to when it comes to DebConf was really Jimmy Kaplowitz (DC10 NYC - Team/bid leader), even though I never told him this directly, I was really looking up to him. Also many of these videos were seen couple of times, now just once; and yes I think every future bid leader should see as much material as possible and find a person which he's going to look up to. Possibly try to find a winner, since those are usually good role models :) Even though I was team member with Sarajevo DebConf7 bid, I must admit that this period was when I learned the most about our own bid! Maybe it was because I was looking at it, couple of years later with completely different “eye sight” or I was looking at it from different level but this almost seemed completely new to me, and this is when I realized all our mistakes. To be honest our first bid (Sarajevo DebConf7 bid) was incredibly poor bid, our whole strategy was that we are this poor country and that we can have the same conference organized with much lower cost. Whole vision was very wrong, and I remember when I saw “Terme Hotel” which is all that's left of videos for Sarajevo bid I literally laughed. I'm Bosnian, but I really have no idea how we were planning to win against bid as strong as it was for Edinburgh. I guess, at the second time I was looking at this whole bid with different “eye sight” since I traveled pretty a lot since then and seen other perspectives and options. This was a switch that did it for me, and point where I said “We (Bosnia) are in” :) Play by the rules After everything I saw, my initial sole strategy wasn't much, except it started with “failure is not an option”. To be honest I had no idea how I was planning to get this bid, my plan was just to solve problems as they came along, since at that point I couldn't make any long term plans, except one was sure, get government/local support, get money, do completely opposite of what was done with DC7 Sarajevo bid! I must say I wanted a lot things changed during first bid, I just did have enough integrity to make my voice loud enough. So my plan was to play by the rules, do everything in its order, create wiki page, give a speech and see how it goes later on. I came to Cáceres (DebConf9) without anything literally, no wiki page, no venue no team no nothing. Only two guys besides me in the team were Velimir (change) and Safir (sapphire), to my disappointment Germans had a very nice looking wiki + after US Germans had the most Debian Developers in the whole wide world! At this point I thought our team is here just to “show up”, show some competition end up slayed by Germans and that's it, at this point I just wanted to give up, my last traces of hope were gone. But there was a problem with that option, when I started this battle I told myself “failure is not an option”, and last person I want to disappoint in this world is definitely myself. Chances of success were … well none really, but this is what give me the strength and my new strategy was just … hardcore? All I had in my head was never back down and perseverance! With eyes of a complete lunatic I started working on something, goals what needs to be done where clear, make wiki page based on PriorityList even tho you don't even have a city, not to mention venue, oh yea don't forget to do the speech ;) Velimir (who was in Vienna) and I (who was in Cáceres) started working on wiki page, along came Safir. As I remembered from DebConf10 candidate speech, what US team did was they nominated 3 largest/open source-ish cities in the US, so that's what we did, nominated 4 largest cities in Bosnia, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Tuzla (my hometown) and Mostar. I nominated Mostar just to be politically correct really. Once that was done, I figured out, that we'll have to figure out/imagine venue and make it feasible as possible. Since Sarajevo seemed as best option, and since I have pretty good knowledge of Sarajevo, I remembered from DC7 bid that student dormitory “Dom Nedjarici” was a proposed, but back then Radon Plaza wasn't built yet, so what I did was I asked for info from Sarajevo colleagues and I even sent my sister to take pictures of possible venues in Tuzla. At this time, Banja Luka went into completely different plan, now main options were Sarajevo, and as backup plan I used Tuzla. It's important that at this time, you don't think about big team, you surround yourself with couple of people, but people you know you can rely on, instead of seeking mass acceptance and support. This is one of the most important step, to surround yourself with as much “good” men who are highly capable, and don't waste one atom on those who slack or don't have the clear goal set in their life. Once I got all the information for “Dom Nedjarici” and “Radon Plaza” I started making the venue, we would use dormitory for sleeping and possibly one hacklab while “Radon Plaza” would be used as venue + other hacklab and place where we would have speeches. Again, don't forget “Radon Plaza” is A class hotel, which costs money, but remember my strategy was completely opposite then DC7 strategy, my new strategy was to go high profile and don't you dare to settle with second best. That is, show them some of the best things your country has to offer! These things cost money, but don't propose something if you don't think it can be done, for example I knew “Radon Plaza” was property or “mag” who owned “Avaz” and who just started off as politician, so he would probably because of the people like to sponsor this event, at least to some extent, this extent depends on you, that is how well you can explain what it is and convince him to sponsor it :) Of course, aim for politicians, since this is great “media” for them, and as much as you can have from it, so can they. Present your bid in best possible way Presentation is very important, so whatever it's the wiki pictures or presentation itself try to find only the best images available, you can really have the best wiki page, but without any pictures … it's most likely that it wont catch as much as attention like … *oooh what is that!? Yes, what primitive creatures we are. At this time, we were going somewhere with the wiki page, but didn't have presentation, or speech ready, even thought of using wiki page on my speech, since I saw Venezuela doing it, but then I thought, but they didn't win + you know that's not the way to go, at least this way you won't show the best you have. Screw it, we'll make the presentation, I remember I didn't sleep much on DC9, on numerous ocassions I was the only person left in hacklab, even missed the daytrip, all it was for me was pretty much work, even “spontaneously passed” out couple of times :) - http://bit.ly/aXIEkE Also, do NOT assemble your time right away, I didn't assemble team until the last minute, because first time we assembled this huge team, half of the team never did anything for the actual bid, they were there just to be on the list for reference or whatever. Either way, day before speech Eddy Petrisor (even before Debian, I know him from Wormux project few years ago) approached me and started giving me tips, besides him many gave me tips, listen to everybody, but wisely, you might think everybody is against you, but if you know how to recognize it, there's really a lot of people that want to help out, especially in Debian. Speech day came, Eddy and I practiced the speech using the stopwatch, even tho I felt completely idiotic doing this, but it's only later on that I found out how good it was that I listened to his advice! Test everything (presentation) is working fine, and test it couple of times! I remember going out to smoke a cigarette to calm down (even tho I stopped smoking) and as I was smoking that cigarette I saw whole crowd of Germans working on something, and at that point it struck me … one hour before the actual speech 20+ of them are working on the presentation. Thus the talk about the team, at one point, size of the time can only be a handicap, on the other side we had clear vision with just couple of guys working on it. Speech ended, I was more of then happy how it went - http://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2009/debconf9/high/993_DebConf_11_in_your_city.ogv Meetings and Gatherings Upon on my arrival from DebConf9 I only gained a lot more strenght! (DebConf9 summary - http://foolcontrol.org/?p=623) Slowly but surely I was getting a lot more of attention, I wrote DebConf9 summary in INFO Magazine, spread the news around my university and so on. It remember I having set up the meeting with Banja Luka mayor to explain him what it's all about, since in the meantime I talked to my old Banja Luka LUGBIH contacts, my web of colleagues was only growing. I was waiting that meeting with Banja Luka mayor for almost 1 month, and I remember meeting up with Adnan Sadzak and discussing plans about having DebConf11 in Tuzla. Either way we gathered up, on our mailing list I called upon meeting in Sarajevo. Even got in some contacts from various political parties, one the Sarajevo team members father was member of govt. council. We meet up in Sarajevo and then story just … goes the wrong way. To make a short summary of what went wrong well it's like this, my original plan of Venue “Radon Plaza” + “Dom Nedjarici” well it didn't go that well. To get the “Radon Plaza” I'd need to convince Faruk Radoncic, guy who owns it, and who just started his political party, after that I should talk to SDP party that has jurisdiction under “Novo Sarajevo” part of the city where “Dom Nedjarici” is, after that we should talk to “minister of culture and science” and after that we should talk to SDA which has jurisdiction over whole Sarajevo canton. After this, I even asked the question, “tell me honestly and be objective about it if it's even possible to have this in Sarajevo?” Besides that many other things went wrong, we just end the meeting I tell them that I finally have the meeting with Banja Luka mayor in two days, and to whatever they can in the meantime, I explain pretty much everything they need. On our way back, I tell Sadzak this is completely failure, I even thing I forgot in which country I live in. Later we discuss about having DC11 in Tuzla, since the mayor and the whole political scene is open to new ideas and mayor would sponsor us with at least 50K. But I tell him, this is even my hometown, it's pretty not good place to have DC, since I know this would end up as great option, but … make sure you're just objective and don't get attached without no reason, no matter how much you love your city, if it's not feasible and possible don't go blindly for that option when it can't be realized. This time I wanted to just forfeit, and it was definitely the closes to giving up. At this time, Germany had already picked München as their host. I say I'll just go to that meeting with Banja Luka mayor, after that it may not even be worth continuing the fight with Tuzla since chances of winning against München would just be too slim. Now I explained everything of what happened with mayor meeting in Banja Luka in DebConf11 bid in Banja Luka? - http://foolcontrol.org/?p=748 And that's really how it happened, at this point, I wasn't sure of much, I definitely saw that local govt. would be really interested in having this event, I knew I'll meet up with prime minister again, when I'll propose the venue and the funds we need. I really wasn't sure of anything, it was all depending on our second meeting, since at the first I saw him all I was sure is that he seemed interested in whole idea. In the meantime, all I do is follow the statistics of how much money was needed from Edinburgh to NYC, I make a nice paper explaining everything I'm about to talk about really, plan my speech with him. And this is when I got my first suit for this occasion, and for those that have #debconf-team logs find a line starting with: Dec 03 00:20:14 <AbsintheSyringe> btw, off to Banja Luka tomorrow, again to meet up with prime minister again, and conclude what the venue will be This talk is 8 pages long I know since I printed it, and this is when we came up with the number I'm going to aim for. But why Republika Srpska, why Banja Luka? How did I knew that this would be our “loterry combination”, well unlike in Federation, Republika Srpska doesn't have boroughs and cantons, which means all the money is going directly to Banja Luka. In Federation, all the money is first going to Sarajevo, after Sarajevo come other cities with SDA in charge, so until money reaches Tuzla with SDP in charge … it's all pretty much gone. This is why I also didn't go for Tuzla option … In Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik has been on the “top” for number of years, with SNSD on charge, all money going directly to Banja Luka and SNSD itself. So even Federation and Sarajevo seem much more stable and united, they are really not, and one of the joker cars was Sarajevo vs Banja Luka relation since these two are ever lasting competitors :) Cards I was planning to show PM on our second meeting, was: 1.Explain what Linux is, what Debian is, and what DebConf is 2.Who comes to one such event, and what could they have from sponsoring one such event 3.Contract that was signed with Microsoft would expire one year after DC11 would be held 4.Convince them to switch to Debian/Custom distro (Croatian government is considering this option where they would save ~4 million euros) 5.Make Custom Debian distro, thus creating new positions and new staff, and generations growing up on open source 6.Why should RedHat and definetely Canonical in near future go to Belgrade or Zagreb when they can have their support centres in Banja Luka, sponsoring this kind of event would only open the “gate” to such investitors 7.Explain how other governments/military/post offices all over world are basing their systems on Linux 8.Sell your soul :) There was probably other stuff I said and explained, which I can't even remember anymore. Reason I pursued PM even more into this idea, is that I mentioned American/German/French/Russian government using Linux, mentioned that we didn't manage to get Linux into parliament of Federation and so on. I just had to explain it all, since I saw I had him “biting”, I also saw that we have one great common two of us, and that is, when we want something we'll get it. Also, man would do anything for his entity to prosper and be successful, he might not be doing much for the whole country, but he's doing it for his entity. Now, if you are not changing the world and tomorrow, and if he couldn't have people like/or Mark Shuttleworth himself (who besides all that he's done was even in space), then I really miscalculated myself with who I'm having business with. I do understand that this conference may even be better then Microsoft conferences, but we deserved it :) This is my story of how I got to where I got, I most probably forgot a bunch of details, but don't tell me it's easy, or “why would I get so much”, I speak for myself when I say this, but in 9 months I dedicated my whole life to this bid. 1.Finished my semester with pretty low GPA 2.Broke up with my girlfriend 3.Second semester started and I still haven't showed up in university since I'm working on this bid … 4.Not mention rarely sleeping these last 9 months I'm sacrificing my whole life and then you ask how? Learn from this bid, since this as well might be the textbook example of how to get a bid. Just dont tell me it was easy, or you're surprised how we got where we got, if anything it was only blood and sweat. Same goes for our team, we want this, we need this, for other bid countries this could be just another “conference”, here we could make changes in our whole city infrastructure when it comes to IT. This would be unique opportunity for all of Balkans! After fall of Yugoslavia this is one of the things that has truly united us! On how it ended up all so smooth for the whole bid … we have a saying in Balkans - “luck follows the courageous ones” - I guess this was the case with me as well. Yes, it may sound incredibly that you're seeing this from country such as Bosnia and Herzegovina but if you let us we might even show you what's it like to have best organized DebConf, you're all closing doors to us, but all we're doing is opening it for you. This was only of a glimpse what we can do, I want this country in completely different light then you all think of it. Let us prove you wrong and let us really show you what this country is. Adnan Hodzic aka AbsintheSyringe
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