Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!agate!ucbvax!mtxinu!usenix!peter
From: peter@usenix.UUCP (Peter H. Salus)
Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix
Subject: Re: suggestions for future conferences
Summary: response to Bob Devine
Message-ID: <195@usenix.UUCP>
Date: 9 Feb 89 16:41:35 GMT
References: <8902090223.AA01916@decwrl.dec.com>
Organization: Usenix Association Office, Berkeley
Lines: 83

In article <8902090223.AA01916@decwrl.dec.com>, devine@cookie.dec.com (Bob Devine) writes:
> 
> 1. Multiple tracks for the main session.
> 
Over the several years that I have been Executive Director, the various
Program Chairs have attempted both Parallel and Single Track Sessions.
In every case the option selected was criticized by several attendees.
My conclusion a year or so ago was to leave the Chairs alone as the 
critics would be there no matter what one did.  We even had critics 
of the procedure when we had the WiPs run in parallel to main sessions.
Clearly, anything the Association and the Program Chairs do will 
make some subset unhappy.

We even get flak on which tutorials are simultaneous:  with 23 
tutorials over two days, there's no way to avoid conflict.

> 2. Use the conference as more than a series of meetings.
>   - Get a "pulse of the crowd" by doing a poll on what
>    is needed in computing. 

Why not?  We ran a member survey in 1986 and will be doing 
another in March.  The response forms are carefully read:  the 
increased number of Workshops, the WiPs, and COMPUTING SYSTEMS 
all developed from member responses.  But as I pointed out in 
both SF and SD, the Association runs on volunteers -- if Bob 
Devine wants to run a survey on "what is needed," I think the 
Association would be happy about it.

>   - Allow people to bring along and demo their work in progress.

I have seen folks do this at Graphics Workshops; we don't prevent 
anyone from doing this in any way. (One of the papers in 
the first session in SD had a demo on a Mac SE.)

>   - Use the conference as a way of telling people about Unix.
> 
We do so.  The Association has a Press Representative and a 
Press Room.  It issues releases.  Exactly what the weeklies 
pick up on cannot be controlled; the monthlies like UNIX/
World and UNIX Review; papers like UNIX Today!; and newsletters
like Unique and UNIX in the Office seem to do well by us.

> 3. Add more features.
>   - Add some contests.  

Among the Board members, both Rob Kolstad and John Quarterman have 
been discussing this.  Write kolstad@usenix.org.

>   - Have an equipment demo room.  

In general, USENIX has a vendor exhibit at each summer technical 
conference.  It has none at its Winter Conferences because these 
are generally in the same place as UniForum.  This year UniForum 
is in March, which is too late for our members, so there was 
no simultaneity.  Next January (1990), both will be in DC [for 
the traditional blizzard]; in 1991, both will be in Dallas; in 
1992, both will be in SF; but in 1993, we will be separate again, 
as UniForum will be in March in DC [USENIX has not yet decided 
on its location].  Anyway, I was a the American Physical Society 
meetings last month, and no one bemoaned the absence of a 
cyclotron, a linear accelerator, or a photospectrometer.

>   - More panel discussions. 
> 
Again: these are at the option of the Program Committees; if you 
want something, propose something.  Just posting a long piece on 
the net doesn't help.  Yesterday was the deadline for papers 
for Baltimore:  make a proposal for a panel discussion!

> 4. Open up the conferences to more than Unix. 
> 
They are open to "more than UNIX."  Surely no one thinks that C++
or Eiffel or Mach etc. is identical to UNIX.  Read the blurbs:  
the Association is serious about advanced systems and languages.
While the Baltimore CFP in ;login: talks about "work related 
to or based on the UNIX operating system," a quick scan of 
tutorials and papers over the past three conferences shows how 
"liberally" the committees have seen that.  (If you look at the 
past three keynoters, it's hard to see either Steve Jobs or 
Adele Goldberg as a devout UNIX person.)

Peter H. Salus
Executive Director