Graphics Interface 2010 wrap-up: Lessons learned
By sylvie | June 3, 2010
Well, it’s over; Graphics Interface 2010 that is, and I think that overall it was a successful conference. Yes, we had problems, small and large, but we managed to get through the conference with only a few technical hitches.
This was the first time I was co-chair of a conference, so I learned a lot of things, but the biggest lesson I learned was this one, which I will write in big letters because that’s how important it is:
BE PROACTIVE
When I was first invited last September to be co-chair of Graphics Interface 2010, I admit that I was completely surprised. First, because I had never heard of this Canadian conference (and I am truly embarrassed by that, although in my defense, I don’t really work on visualization issues). And secondly because I don’t work on visualization/graphics issues, so why ask me? Well, the HCI research community in Ottawa is very small, so it can be hard to find someone to do this kind of job, but someone I know recommended me (hi Lyn!), which is how I got on the short list of candidates.
Folks, don’t be afraid to volunteer for conference duty. It gets you known and people remember you as a potential volunteer for future conference work.
Now it turns out that being co-chair of GI is more like being the program chair on a larger conference like CHI. GI is part of a consortium of three conferences all held at the same time and there is an uber-committee that takes care of the boring details like making sure we have some place to present our conference, have money to do it, and other such important stuff. So my job consisted for the most part of making sure that we had papers and presenters: getting ads for the conference into the proper mailing lists, recruiting people for the programming committee, finding an invited speaker…
As this was the first time I was a (program) co-chair and I had never been part of a programming committee before, I really had no idea what I was doing.
Be Proactive
I must thank David Mould, my co-chair, for all the help and guidance he gave me during this period. I was constantly bombarding him with questions about what I should be doing and he was kind enough and patient enough to endure my emails.
One thing that I should have established with him from the start was a calendar of dates for things I should be doing. For example, I was late in starting to recruit people for the programming committee because I was expecting someone to tell me when to do that, instead of finding out myself when to do it.
Be Proactive
I also want to thank the HCI program committee members for volunteering for the job. I really appreciate their hard work at choosing the final papers that got into the conference.
Of course, PC members are also busy academics who have other deadlines, travel plans, and so on, which can have an impact on their availability to do the PC work. Don’t be afraid to send multiple emails as some can get lost in the shuffle (this happened a couple of times). I also had a problem with a couple of people misunderstanding or misreading some of the instructions. If you see that somebody isn’t doing something they should be, don’t be afraid to remind them or, if need be, do it for them (although this should probably be as a last recourse). I feel that this is where I failed the most.
However, in spite of these problems, we did manage to select quality papers and I am happy with the final result.
Be Proactive
Another place I was late was in starting to recruit an invited speaker. Again, my fault for not being more proactive about figuring out when I should be doing things.
I think I was very lucky to be able to recruit Catherine Plaisant from the University of Maryland. Catherine gave a very interesting talk on displaying temporal information. Thank you very much, Catherine, for that.
Be Proactive
Catherine almost didn’t show up in time because her flight was cancelled and she had to rebook a flight for the day of the conference itself. If I had been reading my email, I would have known this, but I was lazy on Sunday evening and didn’t check up on this. You’d think I’d want to make sure my speaker had arrived, wouldn’t you?
My only excuse is that we are in the midst of selling our house and we spent the Sunday evening (after I got back from the welcome cocktail) discussing houses we might buy.
Be Pro…No, wait, sometimes, there’s nothing you CAN do
If you follow my tweets, you’ll know that we had a series of technical mishaps during the conference: people couldn’t connect their computer to the projector; the projector lightbulb blew out; there wasn’t any food left during the first break. While we were able to come up with a solution for the connection failure (just transfer the slides to the in-cabinet computer) — and the connection was eventually fixed during the first break — there wasn’t much we could do about the lightbulb until somebody showed up with a new lightbulb. So we took an early break and when people came back into the room, the lightbulb had been fixed and we could continue.
So I guess the lesson here is “be flexible”.
As to the food, well, either the caterers or somebody in charge noticed the problem because after the first day, they kept some of the food wrapped up for later arrivals.
Be Kind, Rewind
Finally, I want to thank all of the other committee members, those in CHCCS and those in the uber-committee, for all their help in getting the conference organized; all our session chairs for helping shepherd the presenters so ably; WonSook Lee, our poster chair for her hard work in getting the posters organized; our presenters and poster authors, for making the conference worth going to; and of course everyone else who showed up for the conference.
And if I’m missing anyone, please consider yourself thanked as well 
Topics: GI2010 |
