Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: suggestions for future conferences
Message-ID: <1989Feb11.232801.19780@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <8902090223.AA01916@decwrl.dec.com> <5586@pdn.nm.paradyne.com>
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 89 23:28:01 GMT

In article <5586@pdn.nm.paradyne.com> reggie@pdn.nm.paradyne.com (George W. Leach) writes:
>... Would contacting a speaker via their hotel
>room phone be considered appropriate?

Leaving a message for them with the hotel is less likely to disturb them
and more likely to reach them (many Usenix attendees are found in their
rooms only when asleep).

>... However, the
>San Diego Conference has smaller sessions on various topics...

For those who don't understand how these things get set up, I should observe
that in a conference like the San Diego one, which didn't advertise any
specific choice of topics in advance, the session topics get picked to
fit the papers, not vice-versa.  That is, after the accept/reject decisions
on individual papers are pretty much complete, one starts trying to group
them into coherent sessions.  This sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

> [interactive demonstrations] ... the cost of setting
>up such a demo for a research prototype may not be worthwhile.  Perhaps
>those who attend SIGGRAPH Conferences can shed some light on this area.

Here again I can comment with some authority.  I was co-chair of the demos
track at CHI+GI 87 (joint ACM-SIGCHI and Graphics Interface conference).
Getting good demos is very tricky; CHI+GI had quite a mixed bag.  We didn't
have too much trouble with marketing hype, partly because we'd specifically
indicated that systems ought to be demonstrated by their authors.  However,
it is *very* difficult to tell whether a demo is going to be worth seeing
without seeing it.  Kate Ehrlich, the other demos co-chair, tried hard to
pick good ones based on written descriptions, and concluded afterward that
this approach was basically a failure.

Also, it is a lot of work running a good demos setup.  I saw very little of
CHI+GI except the inside of the demos room.  We needed a lot of AV gear (it
is impossible to do effective demos for a substantial audience without
projection video, for example) and connecting 57 different kinds of computers
to video hardware can be a serious headache.

Showing demo videotapes, instead of live demos, might be a good way to try
to assess interest without getting into all the complications.

>     What I would like to see is a wider availability of the Tutorial Notes.
>I know that limited quantities are sold after the tutorial sessions are over
>with.  However, they sell out fast.  If you don't get there in time, you will
>have to wait until you get to go to another conference.  Perhaps USENIX could
>sell them as they do the proceedings, from the office in Berkeley.

The availability of tutorial notes is not necessarily under Usenix's control;
the authors have a large say in it, and often don't want unlimited quantities
distributed.
-- 
The Earth is our mother;       |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
our nine months are up.        | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu