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Hosting UBL International Events - http://www.ublconference.com

Previous conference deliveries:

Confirmed upcoming conference deliveries:

1. Summary

UBL International 2006 was the inaugural UBL International event and was held in Copenhagen the week of November 13-17, 2006, followed by UBL International 2007 the next year in Madrid the week of October 1-5, 2007, followed by UBL International 2008 April 21-24, 2008 in Rome, Italy and then UBL International 2014 December 2-4, 2014 in Stockholm, Sweden. The next UBL International event can happen anywhere in the world ... just read below.

UBL International is a training and conference event bringing together worldwide OASIS Universal Business Language expertise to deliver full-day and half-day lectures and hands-on courses from commercial training companies, and a symposium of presentations from users and practitioners of OASIS UBL 2.

OASIS is the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards and owns the Universal Business Language brand. OASIS UBL 2.1 is a development of the OASIS Universal Business Language Technical Committee.

Mikkel Hippe Brun and G. Ken Holman own the "UBL International" conference brand and we are anxious to see a number of worldwide UBL International events being held in the future, hopefully all as successful as the first two conferences where we had over 100 attendees to each free symposium and dozens over the two to the commercial training.

We have been running UBL International events on a break-even basis to cover the expenses of the event, rather than on a profit-making basis. This is to encourage as low-cost attendance fees for the symposium as possible, hopefully getting to the point where seats at the symposium are offered at no charge to the attendees. We of course understand this may not be possible in all circumstances, but we were privileged to have sufficient sponsorship for both conferences so far to offer this.

We are anxious to promote UBL as much as possible by helping to run as many UBL International conferences worldwide as we have hosts interested in doing so.

1.1 The essence of a UBL International conference event

The goal for each conference is to combine a free symposium with paid commercial training. Speakers at the full-day symposium are invited to present 30-minute case studies and other interesting presentations, without reimbursement. Commercial training companies are invited to run their own training events co-located with the symposium, but on separate days, at their own expense and charging their students prices as they may or may not choose.

Mikkel and Ken are responsible for the UBL International conference web site. Registration and any fees charged by the training companies are handled by the training companies directly with their students and not through the conference organizers.

In conjunction with the hosts, a conference advisory committee reviews the submissions for the conference and the commercial training sessions to determine the programme for the four days. The members of the conference advisory committee are Jon Bosak, Tim McGrath, Mikkel and Ken.

2. Are you interested in hosting a UBL International conference?

2.1 Date

When are you interested in hosting a conference? Are there any events in the UBL Technical Committee calendar that might either conflict with your dates, or perhaps mesh well with your dates because of the proximity of meetings of interest to members of the technical committee? Is your date too close to a previous conference delivery (please see list above)?

How long will the event be? Experience and feedback from former attendees tells us that the four-day event would probably work well with the symposium on the Tuesday and the three days of training following on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. This allows attendees of the symposium to travel on the Monday and Wednesday, and for students of the training to leave late on Friday. The combinations tried in the first two events had the commercial training Monday to Wednesday and Friday, with the symposium on Thursday.

2.2 Venue

The venue you choose should provide for two kinds of presentations: a large audience for the symposium, and smaller breakout rooms for the commercial training sessions run by the various companies. What audio/visual costs are there for the symposium? For the training companies? Are training companies allowed to bring in their own audio/visual support?

If there are sponsors, it would be attractive to them to provide some kind of booth space or tables for the symposium day so they can make their own presentations attendees during the breaks.

Note that the hosts need only deal with the venue for the symposium with the assurance that some space be made available to interested training companies. The actual venue arrangements for the training companies are the responsibility of the training company entirely, as a direct relationship between the training company and the venue.

2.3 Catering and incidentals

At a minimum there needs to be arrangements for refreshments and snacks for the arrival of the attendees and during the breaks in the programme.

Also providing a catered lunch for the symposium will keep the attendees on the premises and by the vendors' booths, so it would be very important to consider providing lunches. This, of course, is not always available at candidate venues and increases the costs, but it will make for a better symposium experience.

Catering arrangements for the training sessions are the responsibility of the training companies, but please indicate if this is available as a choice for them.

As for incidentals, there will be a need for a printed programme (a single piece of A4 is sufficient, and it does not have to be colour), and perhaps some signs around the venue to direct visitors to the symposium room.

If you think of more incidentals, please let us know and we'll update this page with the information.

2.4 Sponsorship

The success of previous UBL International symposia was founded upon the excellent sponsorship we received to pay for each of the venues and catering. Certain amounts were put aside for banners, attendee bags and flyers. Some sponsors paid for reproduction of flyers and a programme.

Please consider what sponsorship might be available so as to make attending the UBL symposium attractive to candidates interested in the content. Giving sponsors the opportunity to hawk their wares in a booth may make it worthwhile for them to attend.

Note that in 2006 we insisted that sponsors pay for a particular number of prepaid seats for attendees, but the sponsors' own staff attending the symposium had to be paid for in addition to the prepaid seats. That way a sponsor could not "use up" the benefit of buying prepaid seats by occupying them with their own staff.

2.5 Web sites

The www.ublconference.com web site will have pages of summary information of the venue, sponsors and programme.

2.6 Registration

If registration fees are charged for the symposium then the event organizers (not Mikkel or Ken) are responsible for collecting them and remitting any necessary taxes.

2.7 Commitment

Getting the word out to candidate attendees is critically important. The sooner the better.

Arrangements for the venue, however, often need to be committed well in advance of the event.

Where possible, the UBL International web site can announce a potential event and solicit interest from candidate attendees. This may give feedback to the hosts and sponsors regarding the possible level of attendance, but of course that isn't a guarantee.

The hosts bear the responsibility for the commitments related to the conference. Making a "go/no-go" decision is based on expected sponsorship and interest and old-fashioned luck. The training companies bear the responsibility for the commitments related to the training sessions.

Please note that Mikkel and Ken are not in a position to participate in the risk of commitment for the venue or any other costs. It is a host's decision to undertake and run the event with our assistance, but we cannot bear the risk of the costs of a failed event.

2.8 Check-list

All of the above details are summarized in the following check list:

3. Contact us

Please contact Mikkel Hippe Brun and G. Ken Holman if you need to ask us more direct questions, or if you are interested in hosting a UBL International-branded conference.

Last changed: $Date: 2015/01/05 01:32:20 $(UTC)