From sigcomm94ex-request@cs.ucl.ac.uk Mon Sep 5 07:06:13 1994 From: Jon Crowcroft Status: OR I am sending copies of the filled in questionnaires to Lyman, Craig, Steve and Chris, as well as copies of the tutorial questionnaires to the tutors (van has his already). I guess if others want copies of these, it'd be cheaper for them to mail them inside the US. On the whole, the questionnaires are very positive, in all aspects, on a scale of 1-5, where 1 is good, we get 1s and 2s. The main exception is the Zoo, where catering and venue are criticised by several people: this was largely because the zoo messed up our setup at the last minute, but is a valid criticism. There is also a small number of 'outlyers', who thought a) the conference weas from a closed community i suspect this came from a RACE/EC person b) the "lunch food was terrible" there were 3 of these - i managed to catch 2 of them, and they admitted they were french:-) c) that the content was not technical as good as previous sigcomms (i note this one, as they said they'd been to 5 !) Things positively commented on at length: All tutorials were commended for content, and largely for form as well. The venue with Tea/Coffee/Large discussion area next to Conference hall was liked, although the lunch area needed to be 30% bigger. The vegetarian food was voted best. The European venue was praised by several people The information services were appreciated, although I expect some people were a little surprised to get a) good e-mail outside the US - this will be taken for granted next year. b) poor international availability c) the distance we went to to get e-mail - this was not frowned on by anyone, though, except when it rained. Some people (e.g. scott shenker) actually liked the weather as they claimed it concentrated their minds on business! Small specific errors - we did not have: i) clear enough message boards ii) large enough maps or directions (e.g. from tutorials to lunch/conference paper sessions) iii) enough phones at the conference site (actually, there were quite a few, but we didn't signpost them all). We should have had 1 termanal/workstation at the registration desk Email registration should be always acked ---------------------------------------------- Comments on process: The checklist provided by Chris was excellent The regular teleconferences are a very good idea, especially for organisers who are new to the game! You definitely need to enlist a lot of local people (We had 2 people doing WWW info, 6 or 7 grad students on the day, helpging with directions/email/registration, and 2 full time registration desk people). The money side of registration seems to have worked out (i.e. who took credit cards/cash etc....) so next time you have it in europe, this is the right approach. ---------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: draft of gen chair conf guidelines In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 17 Oct 94 00:11:26 CDT." <199410170511.FAA34741@bigbird.cs.utexas.edu> Date: Mon, 17 Oct 94 09:44:29 +0100 Message-ID: <464.782383469@cs.ucl.ac.uk> From: Jon Crowcroft Status: OR looks very thorough couple more checkpoints 1/ photo of keynote-speaker/sigcomm awardee (for lyman's historical record) 2/ audio/video technology in lecture rooms - have spares very nearby 3/ special diet requirements - check with caterers early - (may be easier in the US) 4/ weather/local tourist information - you can often get a lot of this from your 'city hall' or equivalant for nothing - things like travel (the Underground or T or what have you) provide maps etc, even in bulk for nothing. 5/ Publishers having bookstands - this is appreciated, but needs to be slightly better coordianted than i managed in london this summer... 6/ hotel rates - this was a real problem here! make sure if you get one that it is honoured _consistently_. 7/try contacting EE departments - some in the UK were pleasantly surprised with SIGCOMM (they've only eveer heard of IEEE comms conferences:-) 8/have lots of gophers 9/have lots and lots of gophers.... cheers jon