Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 22:05:17 -0700
From: Nick Ragouzis nickr@leland.stanford.edu
To: Christine Quinn cquinn@leland.Stanford.EDU,
Bebo White BEBO@SLAC.stanford.edu,
Michael Genesereth genesereth@cs.stanford.edu
Benay Dary-abrams benay@sholink.com
Corinne Moore moore@commerce.net
Subject: Rethinking the conference planning and operations model?
Christine, Bebo, Mike, Corinne, Benay:
We have all talked about the need for a plan. An conference description,
an operations plan, a budget, a schedule, requirements. And a need to
determine just how the work of the conference will get done.
One problem we have faced, especially Christine, in trying to delineate
primary responsibilities and other authorities and responsibilities,
is the multi-phased and multi-team aspect of the conference.
I think that we may be able to adapt known business models to assist
in constructing a long-term workable planning and execution environment.
One that continues to build on itself, to evolve without complete
reconstruction at each stage. The traditional business operations
approach for manufacturing and services (i.e., planning then production)
nor the traditional conference approach (i.e., secure facilities and
basic services, manifest it, then open your doors) has worked up to now.
We face the dumbing down of the conference to fit these methods, or the
challenge of finding a model that _will_ work.
The conference happens in two major and partially overlapping phases.
Other characteristics add to these difficulties. Perhaps we need to
consider a hybrid model.
What do you think of this?
--Nick
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POSSIBLE TWO-STAGE HYBRID MODEL FOR CONFERENCE PLANNING AND EXECUTION
I. TRADITIONAL THEATRE AND MOVIE PRODUCTION STAGE
Nature: These productions parallel a standard conference, but
with more, and more complex, interactions.
Like our conference, and unlike a traditional
conference, theatre and movie productions involve
more pre-building of custom and single-purpose
(and never-been-done-before) elements. This is especially
true of today's productions which involve, for example, a
high level of planning for location shoots and
customization, and customized special effects
programming. Another area where our challenge is more
like theatre and movie production is in the detail planning
of the interaction of various components. Sure a
standard conference must worry about the arrival of
food, exhibit pipe and drape, union assemblers, folks to
direct lost guests to registration. But in parallel with
a theatre or movie production's need to plan every set
and every cut, our conference needs, for example, to
plan things such as network traffic and systems support.
These are higher-level needs than a traditional conference.
Timeframe: Now and through period immediately preceeding the
conference. Infrastructure and support continues
throughout the conference.
Implication: Responsibilities are divided into production teams.
Each production team has a job that falls into two components,
each of which may be serviced by different parts of that team.
1) Build and prepare their elements
2) Build and prepare their operations and support of those
elements
To emphasize speed of decision and independence of
execution, each of these teams are responsible for the
conduct of their own area. They produce whatever is clearly
in their hands, and act as service units to other
production teams. They respond to and serve the requirements
of other production teams as they determine that they must and
can. They take on responsibilities and look (independent of
'executive' directive) within the other service units for
support.
This differs in a significant way from traditional
hierarchical methods. In those methods, plans and
exceptions flow up, decisions get made, and the teams
would execute - identifying problems through reporting
and reviews. The method used by theatre and movie
production orgs. 'demands' two dependent teams to
determine their own solutions for the problem. If they
intend to drop or change something, they must seek out
those impacted and determine how another solution can serve
the principles intended by the original. The director has
no time to interact with that process - and teams
pride themselves in resolving it. Unsatisfactory solutions
are escalated as appropriate by the _impacted_ teams.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS FACING US NOW?
1. (Re)Casting these teams. These are not the same as the
sub-committees. Telecommunications, Internal, External
Web services, and Volunteer SCs are four that would be
significantly re-structured. So would the Exhibition,
Sponsor, and P/R, Marketing, Promotion SCs. And adding units
focusing on, for example, File System, Database,
system configuration, and traffic management services.
2. Assigning these teams will help make clear to Conf Mngr,
Exhibit Mngr, Conf Svcs Mngr, Tutorial and Developer track
folks, that several different teams will have design and,
(possibly not the same team), primary decision, or demand
power over various aspects of their work. In a sense this
reflects the reality shown in Christine's recent grid where
several people/committees had primary responsibilities -
for different aspects in different times.
3. Preparation of the plans - it might seem natural to us
but these folks will need outlines. Ones that focus on
the two stages mentioned above would help a lot. For
example the constitution and training of a problem
response center and team for server outages, or a
service for updating and maintaining consistent
configurations on public systems, would probably be missed
at this stage in our current methods. Also the difference
between testing designs and testing the implementations
themselves. (In my discussions, few were thinking about
that, but rather just taking the 'build the systems' view.)
We also have the need to remind them of the difference in
planning the implementation and the kind of planning and
coordination (very detailed) that is necessary for the
build-up at conference time. Finally, the grid of activities
must be redone to reflect these different phases in the
work, and the many interacting demands.
II. NEW-STYLE MEDIA AND CONTENT DEVELOPERS MODEL STAGE
Nature: These organizations consider the look and feel of their content
and the structure in which their content is presented, as
paramount. They care little about the technical aspects; those
must be there and must provide the capabilities they feel are
necessary to provide the desired audience experience and to
compete. (If the capabilities aren't there, they will make your
life miserable!)
Timeframe: For some areas this begins now - we should have people
working now to develop the content of our experience -
investigating the methods for developing content, determining
the nature of the experience, and defining the road to getting
that content. This would be true for activities ranging from
standard broadcast, basic news groups and forums, and even
general exhibit floor activities. It extends to fun stuff
happening during the Great America or other events.
For specific Technical Program categories their timeframe for
active participation is a few months off - at least after the
call. If we do any sort of advanced participation (which we
could certainly do at the Technical Program/Tutorial/Developer
CATEGORY-level without involving specific papers, etc. then the
timeframe for full involvement of this type of activity is
quite early - Sept to begin, Oct to be up and active.
Of course, the focus of this 'new-style media and content-dvlpr
stage' is on the meeting days themselves. Active meeting
activities, Partner sites, Satellite conferences increase the
need for this.
Implication: Responsibilities for this divide the conference into
possible 'content channels'.
Like channel directors in web media publication houses,
or standard program directors in production broadcast,
plus editors in standard print media, assign one, two,
five, ten of these folks to reflect the content and channels
to be emphasized.
These folks also help in determining how the content and
channels can be best promoted and extend their reach. Even
determining how search facilities would best be categorized
and managed.
Just in case someone has gotten the idea backwards - this
second stage does _not_ work to control the Technical Program,
but rather to prepare themselves, their channel, to maximize
TechPgm exposure and play in the ways determined and controlled
by the TechPgm cmmttee and the Conference Chairs. The proper
folks for this are among the best technology folks in their
area, candidates perhaps also to be on panels or to lead
panels; past presenters who don't have new papers; etc.
Further, these folks become critical to the success of any part
of the active meeting aspect. Paris had very low remote and
advanced participation but also didn't work to develop it!
Involvement of these types could expand the outlets for
the Program Committee, the Tutorials and Developer track, and
the Exhibit floor science faire, tutorials and demonstrations.
Last, this is not only the domain of the remote/papers-related
type stuff. This also required the assignment to someone of the
'channel' of, for instance, what a Delegate sees on their web
pages, or the conference web pages during the conference:
dynamic and static adverts, announcements, scheduling.
'Reminding' Delegates of neat software or activities available
on the conference servers (before and during the conference.
Or the 'channel' of the orientation and training for Delegates
to participate in the conference web services - before and at
the conference. In any of these 'channel director' roles, this
involves high-levels of interaction between those responsible
for communications, devices, systems, or timing.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS FACING US NOW?
1. Casting these teams. Again, these are not the same as the
Subcmmttees. Perhaps they should be an arm of the Program
Committee. (Situated in that way they may also be a resource
for the papers/panels/posters and science-faire activities.)
This would explicitly remove from a unit such as the Meeting
Web services the problems of the content itself; from the
Telecom unit the problems of estimating the bandwidth - this
information _IS_ needed now, but it isn't their
expertise.
2. Assigning teams will make clear the need for cohesive
messages in each channel, and coordination across channels.
We are now in critical need of segmenting our audiences and
these folks should be doing it.
3. These folks will set requirements and develop ideas. For
instance if we were to do the 'parallel font development'
idea, or the WebQuest from Paris, or the Medical data
services, or any similar thing outside of the Tech Pgm but
still content, these folks must begin work and inform
others. The collaborative choir idea might fit well treated
in this way.
4. Planning. This area requires significant planning for
effective execution. Some of it imposes requirements on
others; in other ways it requires money. But it also
requires significant development of primary and alternate
content; identifying participants; scripting activities;
coordinating supporting and related events and activities;
seeking and architecting sponsorship and promotion.