- Conference Roles/Committee
a) First read the ACM Conference Manual sections on
General
Conference Chair and Conference Committee Roles
For SIGCOMM (a medium-sized annual technical conference with no exhibits),
there are 14+ roles that need to be filled by someone on the conference committee:
general chair(s) (Approved by SIGCOMM Ex)
program chair(s) (Selected by SIGCOMM TAC)
poster session chair (Selected by program chairs - this is a
reasonably senior person)
The FOLLOWING ARE PICKED BY THE GENERAL CHAIR:
tutorial chair
NEW: workshop chair (this is a strategic position, consult with
sigcommex for now)
local arrangements chair (or chairs)
treasurer (writes/maintains business plan)
registration chair (if ACM does it, this can be
combined with another role, still
need someone to give advice)
publicity chair (creator of CFP flyer, Adv Prog
flyer (postcard?), final prog, reminder
emails
webmaster (can be a volunteer, or asst., or
combined with publicity)
fund raising chair - sometimes combined with
general chair, but ....
Internet access (frequently combined with local arrangements)
proceedings (if you choose ACM's proceedings service, then the
program chair might agree to handle it, or the publicity )
Student Travel Grant chair (recently has been a recent PhD...)
These roles do NOT have to be filled by different people, although
it can work well that way. Be aware that if one person wears more
than one hat, occasionally one can take on too much OR can focus
on one role at the expense of the 2nd role.
b) The SIGCOMM exec comm. has observed that conferences do generally
best, when:
* the general chair LIVES in the city that the conference will be
held in, ( or is at least familiar with the city )
* the program chair's name attracts high caliber papers of the
desired focus and thus can attract a good prog. committee,
* at least one of the conference committee members is academic
and is local and thus can provide students to assist in the
registration or other local arrangement issues,
* the fund raising chair has contacts at relevant companies to
solicit funds ( cold calls don't work ), and
* the publicity chair has access to a visually creative designer.
* ...
c) Duties of the general chair will depend upon the other volunteers:
* most importantly, put together a team of volunteers to whom you
can delegate all the responsibilities of that chair position.
Put together the entire team ASAP.
* manage the team, including holding regular group phone meetings and
make sure minutes are sent out documenting the group's
decisions/plans, help those with less conference planning
experience get up to speed, etc.
* make sure that everyone sends out vacation announcements, and
gives the rest of the team advance notice about their
absence - particularly in critical time periods.
* review materials produced by the other chairs, giving them timely
feedback.
* if all is going smoothly, then the gen chair can probably take on
a project to introduce some new feature into the conference:
eg setting up a demo room, or providing an atmosphere that
encourages newcomers to get involved, to attracting new
members/attendees, to brainstorming about a hot-topic workshop
or panel, to getting a luncheon speaker... )
* make sure everyone on the team has the information they need to
do their job.
* keep an eye out for the unexpected glitch, or the volunteer who gets
swamped with work at a crucial time.
* with the treasurer ( and input from all volunteers ) put together the
business plan
* write the "from the chair" letter for the proceedings.
* walk through the conference site with the local arrangements and
registration person ( at a minimum ) and the hotel staff to
get a sense of the layout of the conference ( ideally even
before ACM signs the contract )
- ACM & Conference Planning
2. ACM & Conference Planning
a) ACM has a lot of support materials to help you in planning a
conference. I assume that each member of the conf. committee
has at a least the relevant portions of the ACM conference manual.
http://www.acm.org/sig_volunteer_info/conference_manual/
b) ACM is project-managed... oriented towards specific services. Thus,
SIGCOMM has a Program Director who is our liaison for conferences
and this person is usually added to the conference e-mailing list.
Think of this role as a generalist who helps us with everything...
but your committee will sometimes be pointed to the specific ACM
Program Director for TMRFs, proceedings, mailing out a flyer,
registration, etc....
The SIG Services Program Director that handles SIGCOMM Conferences is:
Erin Dolan
SIG Program Director
ACM
1515 Broadway, 17th floor
New York, NY 10036
Work phone: +1 212-626-0602
Fax: +1 212-302-5826
dolan@acm.org
See the list of services and current assignments:
http://www.acm.org/sig_volunteer_info/sigsvce.html#hqlist
c) It is crucial that you fill out ACM's Preliminary Approval Entry Form
about when/where the conference will be. The conference will NOT be
publicized by ACM at all until you do this.
http://www.acm.org/sig_volunteer_info/conference_manual/prelimpage.htm
2002 example (doc file)
2002 example (html file)
d) and I will be placing other SIGCOMM conference-specific suggestions in
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/chris/sigcomm/conf/
- Structure of a typical conference week
3. Structure of a typical SIGCOMM 5-day conference week
a) Sunday: sometimes have afternoon registration desk to iron out
registration hassles
b) Monday: 2 full-day tutorials, including lunch
registration desk open most of the day
c) Tuesday: 2 full-day tutorials, including lunch
registration desk open most of the day
Welcoming reception, Tuesday early evening 5-8?
sometimes registration desk open
d) Wednesd: Keynote speech, and SIGCOMM Award, and SIGCOMM student paper
award
1 morning technical session, 2 afternoon tech sessions
lunch
EVENING SOCIAL EVENT
e) Thursda: 2 morning tech sessions, 2 aft. tech sessions
lunch
SIGCOMM Business meeting immediately following the tech session
< evening is unscheduled >
f) Friday: 2 morning technical sessions,
close the conference
( could have 1 afternoon session, probably no lunch )
- Date selection
4. Date selection
a) History: SIGCOMM 93 was accidentally scheduled during a Jewish Holiday.
We have promised the community that that will not happen again.
b) The conference has ranged from mid August to mid September, with the
current preference being later in August.
c) In 1994 I sent the following proposal to the SIGCOMM exec. comm. and
it was approved, via email.
I suggest that we prioritize the weeks in 1995 ( and future years too )
as follows:
first choice: 8/28-9/1 ( week before Labor Day )
2nd choice 8/21-8/25 (?is Boston really hot at this time?)
3rd choice 9/11-9/15
4th choice 9/18-9/22
d) Stu Wecker found out something very interesting related to our
discussion of when would be the best time to have SIGCOMM 9x:
The Cambridge Marriott sales office told Stu that the last
week of August ( week before Labor Day ) is the lowest occupancy week!
And right after Labor Day, they raise their rates for the "fall color"
visitors.
This might not apply to Vancouver, but it was interesting and
promising, about having a regular week for the SIGCOMM symposium.
e) MORE HISTORICAL INFO: See Appendix
- Pointers to dates of other conferences
5. Pointers to dates of other conferences
POINTERS TO GET DATE CONFLICT INFO OFF THE NET:
latest: http://uluru.poly.edu/~tmoors/net/confs.html that
summarizes the dates for conferences, and their Calls For Papers, in the
fields of communication networks and mobility.
a) there is a mailing list set up exactly for the purpose of avoiding
conflicts between networking conferences. The members of this
list construct an "events calendar" and make it available via FTP.
To subscribe to the list send mail to
"meeting-planning-request@cnri.reston.va.us".
to get the above calendar:
ftp://ds.internic.net/ietf/1events.calendar.imr.txt
Be sure to avoid the IETF summer conference. In 98 the 2 conferences
are quite close together.
b) The Internet Conference Calendar is an organized and concise listing of
conferences, workshops, exhibitions and seminars related to the
Internet. Sections include what's new, calls for papers, and a
geographic listing. http://conferences.calendar.com/
c) Also, ACM has a calendar of events accessable from the www.
the url is http://www.acm.org/events/
d) Harry Rudin, Chairman Wg6.1 has an IFIP interest calendar:
Send mail to hr@zurich.ibm.com
http://www.zurich.ibm.com/pub/Other/IFIP-WG6.1/Calendar.html
e) IEEE TCCC ( Tech comm on computer communications )
http://www-net.cs.umass.edu/tccc/events.html
f) IEEE Computer Society:
http://www.computer.org/conferen/conf.htm
- Location selection
6. Location selection
a) Issues to think about:
* hotel large "conference area" VS university "lecture hall"
* Coffee break area ( slightly separate from conference area )
* Email access ( hotel or in nearby university lab )
* small meeting rooms/storage rooms/etc.
* conference hotel "sleeping room rate"
b) For any hotel or convention center space ACM will solicit
bids from all interested parties and will negotiate the actual
rates that we will be charged. Thus an RFP must be produced
by ACM with your input.
c) See details under local arrangements
- FIRST THINGS FIRST
a) Fill out the Short Form (see links mentioned above)
b) ACM needs to send out the RFP to the convention bureau, so picking a
local arrangements chair soon that can be involved in
what we send out (or in this case, review the responses...)
is important.
c) Pick your committee (see roles above)
d) A place holder web page at www.acm.org/sigcomm/..... should
be created
e) Logos designed (by mid summer or whenever the first publicity
goes out...)
f) Committee gives budgetary input (rough draft, then later more detail)
g) Committee creates the Call for Papers approx 13-14 months before the
conference, puts it on the web, and distributes it at the prior
conference 12 months before your conference.
h) Several committee members attend the prior conference to get
first-hand observations on new features, meet face-to-face with
the committee and sigcommex, and talk to your counterparts from
previous years committees.
- Conference Objectives
7. Conference Objectives
a) The first and foremost objective is to strive to be a top-quality
networking conference, that adapts to the times. There are many
more conferences these days attracting top papers and participants.
The SIGCOMM proceedings are SIGCOMM's biggest asset.
b) The conference, itself, should be planned to make a little bit of
money, just enough to plan for the unexpected expense or decrease in
attendees.
c) The tutorials are an opportunity to make money for the SIG, which can
then pursue special projects for SIGCOMM. Also, tutorials can be
targeted to locals coming in for the day.
d) Pricing for student attendance is kept low to encourage young research-
ers to view SIGCOMM as "their conference", but should cover the
costs of proceedings, breaks, and whatever else you invite the
students to.
e) The conference is a good opportunity to promote SIGCOMM and ACM to
those attendees who are non-members ( registration pricing can help
that ).
- Conference Committee Communication
8. Conference Committee Communication
a) The conference committee needs at a least their own copy of
the conference milestones ( in this directory ) and a copy of
the README ( outline ) describing the areas of responsibility of the
other committee members.
b) Additionally, each committee member needs their own copy of the
complete TMRF ( business plan ), and needs to manage their
own area using the TMRF.
c) Each member needs that part of the ACM Conference Organizers Manual
that applies to them.
d) Since 90% of the coordination is done via email over the Internet,
a candidate for a position, must have easy access to the Internet.
e) A monthly phone meeting of the entire conference committee really
helps. The University of Texas has a "free conference call mechanism"
that we have used over the years that you are welcome to use,
but maybe you or some of the other committee members will have
something similar.
f) Involvement with the SIGCOMM exec. committee or a steering committee:
I typically have more involvement with the annual conference organizing
committee than the other executive committee members, partly because of
time availability and interest, and partly because of my experience.
So, we usually add whoever else is interested to the
sigcomm9?ex mailing list, but they usually aren't involved with the
decisions. We leave that to you, with Pat McCarren and myself
providing advice as requested.
- Business Plan - "TMRF"
9. Business Plan - "TMRF"
a) your key to managing the conference and to making sure that the other
volunteers all understand when their deliverables are due, is the
business plan, which ACM calls the TMRF.
b) The business plan has 2 parts:
* budget: -- the best budgets are developed "bottom up"; however
ACM Sig services ( Pat McCarren ) has so much experience with
SIGCOMM conferences that he can either drive it or provide some
of the necessary data. Just make sure that the local arrange-
ments chair provides some "bottom up" input for meals/breaks
because the hotel costs can vary incredibly from city to city.
* milestones: -- start with the conference milestones I've written
up and pick dates for *your* conference with your volunteers.
- Keynote speaker(s)
10. Keynote speaker(s)
a) Since the advent of the SIGCOMM award, the only keynote speeches
SIGCOMM has had have been the annual SIGCOMM award winner. This is
a possibility for lunch, although lunch is a good time for making
contacts.
- Travel Authorization
11. Travel Authorization
a) The conf. general chair authorizes travel by the conference committee.
b) The SIGCOMM chair authorizes travel by the conference general chair.
c) The money for all travel by all the conference committee and any
necessary travel by the program committee comes out of the conference
budget.
d) ACM has travel authorization guidelines ( see conf. manual ); all
authorization must occur before the trip.
- Recording the conference
12. Recording the conference
a) Tutorials will not be recorded, because we don't have copyright on
them and because of significant cost vs revenue value.
- Conference Questionnaire
13. Conference Questionnaire
a) This is important to the SIGCOMM executive committee to get feedback
from the attendees about the conference. Many regulars attend the
conference as well as first-timers who live close to the conf. site.
b) Work with the exec. committee to see what should go into this year's
questionnaire. ( Some consistency of questions is desirable from
year to year in order to compare conferences. ) Send the results
( or copies of the originals ) to a few on the commitee.
c) Chris E. has some info from the 93 and 94 conferences, although it
is not all tabulated.
d) Make sure this is handed out, typically the afternoon of the 2nd day,
( or it could be included in the packets , as long as you have extras
and make some reminders to make sure the questionnaire doesn't go
home and into the trash ).
- Proceedings Letter
14. Proceedings Letter
a) You will need to write a letter that is in the first few pages of the
proceedings. The program chair will also write a letter. Describe
the conference as a whole and acknowledge anyone who has helped the
conference come together. You can look at the previous SIGCOMM
conference proceedings to see what other general chairs have written.
- Attendance at previous SIGCOMM conference
15. Attendance at previous SIGCOMM conference
a) It is very helpful to have attended at least one prior SIGCOMM conf.
And it is especially to attend the conference immediately before yours,
to meet the other members of your committee, the SIGCOMM exec. comm.,
and the current volunteers who will be "passing the flag" and providing
feedback as to what worked and what didn't. Plan on holding a face-to-
face meeting there with the current and new committee.
- Historical data on date selection
Appendix: MORE HISTORICAL INFO on Date Selection
I conducted a survey at the 93 SIGCOMM asking questions related to
future conferences , and the questions about the conference date
indicate that there is
a) a preference for conferences in August and
b) a preference for conferences beginning before the fall semester
starts
BASED ON THE FOLLOWING RAW DATA for the question of when to schedule
SIGCOMM( 63 forms returned )
a)do you like Aug for future SIGCOMM conferences?(1=defn yes,5=defn no)
(1) 18 (2) 13 (3) 19 (4) 5 (5) 6
b) do you want the conference to begin before the fall semester starts?
(1) 21 (2) 8 (3) 26 (4) 1 (5) 3
* note: sigcomm94 is the week before labor day, and we are getting
some good registration numbers ( the date might not be a
factor, but it obviously isn't hurting... could be other
things, like the extra publicity this year, or the tutorials,
or the tech. program.... ) I think that the date *is* a factor,
because the long weekend after the conference makes the
international travel easier.
* A possible goal would be to always have the Sigcomm conference occur
the same week of each year, so that people could just schedule
it in ( ie "last week of August".... )
* k-12 schools no longer start the day after Labor Day, what with year-
round schools, and schools starting before Labor Day. In
Austin the regular semester starts Aug 15/22.
* University schedules: ( some start before Labor Day and the rest on
the US universities start throughout Sept. )
* I know that UT ALWAYS starts before Labor Day ( sometimes
the week before Labor Day; sometimes 2 weeks before Labor Day ).
* I apologize for not knowing when international schools and univ.
start. Soren Sorensen said univ. started around first of Oct.
* Attendance at Baltimore ( Aug 17-20 ) was a bit low for the area
( could it have been due to people on vacation ? ) However,
this week WAS before most schools started. Baltimore was a
bit warm that week.
* Wecker wondered wether US attendees would want the SIGCOMM conference
to be scheduled just before a 3day weekend. This could
conflict with personal vacations. This is a good question.
* I think Labor Day is a bonus for SIGCOMM 94.
* International holidays: no data besides the UK bank holiday at the
end of August.
* "It is very difficult to miss the first week of classes for many
academics" -Raj
* The college semester are different from school to school. NYU and
CUNY (with a large Jewish population) do not start the semester
until late Sept. after the Jewish holidays. Other schools are
on tri-semesters and start early in August.
* "I feel that the last week in August is the best dates. SIGCOMM'92
was in the middle of August. I realize from the amount of
bodies around here, and the phone call and email messages that
I get that alot of people take vacation the first 3 weeks in
August. I don't think alot of people (with kids) take the
last week of August because they are gearing up for school."
Pat McCarren
* "I agree with your proposed prioritization. I would strongly urge
that the dates NOT be earlier in August as this pushes the
paper due date uncomfortably close to the end-of-year holidays
(a problem we encountered with SIGCOMM '92)." Greg Wetzel
It is a nice activity -- tends to be a bit intense on judges -- we'd talked
about doing it at the Latin America workshop but got overwhelmed.
Craig
In message <2B0E86920B2B9C43A043DA80E447FCBC8F8081@exchsrv1.cseresearch.cs.wash
ington.edu>, David Wetherall writes:
>http://www.acm.org/src/
>http://www.acm.org/src/subpages/host.html
>
>is anybody familar with the acm student research competition (hosted at sig co
>nferences) and whether it would be a good fit for sigcomm 2003 (via judging o
>f posters/student papers and promotion for awards)?
>
>this is the first i've heard of it, via sosp participating, and maybe its just
> too late or a dumb idea but ...
>
>cheers,
>
>djw