- Currently Listening to:
- Vast — We Will Meet Again
A number of the SRG volunteered were conscripted for active service as helping hands for Pervasive 2006 this week, which was chaired by Aaron and Paddy. The conference was really well managed, and I think can confidentally be called a great success, our two fearless leaders being the apotheosis of cool under pressure (Lorcan on Paddy: “I don’t think he knows how to sweat.”).
While being a volunteer was tough going, seeing my first conference from behind the scenes has been a very interesting experience. The SRG gang really gelled together well, and our ranks were further bolstered by a complement of other great volunteers, who we had a terrific time with.
We have the official photo gallery. The man William “Richie” Hazlewood — who can down a carbomb like nobody else I’ve ever met 
— has also uploaded a great set of photos from the conference (and the after-party…).
Celebrating a job well done!
- PHD Comics: Call for Papers!
- The Myth of the Popular Audience « Time to Eat the Dogs
Every year I attend two or three academic conferences, mostly to keep up with friends and sneak-preview new research. Usually the best material (about friends and research) emerges from conversations in bars and hotel lobbies rather than in the faux-walled conference rooms where panelists deliver their papers. I know many colleagues who avoid the panels all together, afraid of being caught in a boring session from which they cannot (politely) escape.
- AVI 2010 - May 26-28, 2010 - Program
- What makes a good HCI systems paper? | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM
However, I think the first step is to define a set of reviewing criteria for HCI systems papers. If reviewers don't agree on what makes a good systems paper, how can we encourage authors to meet a standard for publication?
Here's my list
- Guide to Good Conferencemanship « Beki's Blog (there's an original name)
There’s also asking questions at other people’s talks. There is some debate, not much, but some, about whether you should explicitly refer to your rejected CHI paper, or just give the premise of the paper as your question implicitly. I think in the next few years that ACM SigCHI should develop a policy on this.
For the rest of us, establishing a complex backchannel that includes the conference name and room is essential. It allows us to share information about the talks, about the continued use of comic sans and other nasty fonts, and so forth. Also good for knowing when Ben Shneiderman beats us up.
- Don't bore me | GroupLens Research
However, in reflecting on my experience, many of the talks began to seem, hmmmm..., monotonous. The speakers didn't look animated. They didn't use much of a dynamic range in their speaking: they weren't loud sometimes and quiet others, fast sometimes and slow others. There weren't too many jokes (shout out to Cliff and Reid, two speakers who did joke a bit). The slides too were pretty homogeneous: none that shouted "I'm important - notice me!".
- Social Media and the Twitter Backchannel at CHI2010 | blog@CACM | Communications of the ACM
A major trend this year is the use of Twitter as a backchannel for information distribution and commenting during and after the talks. People are also following the conference from afar using the #CHI2010 hashtag . Conference attendees are using room designations to report on specific activities in different parallel tracks, and using it to decide whether to hop over to a different session. Interestingly, they're also using it to comment on the talks and to spread these comments. For example, when Ben Shneiderman made a particular heavy remark, it spread amongst the attendees .
These practices are enabling conferences to be less about one-to-many lectures on the latest research and more about peer-to-peer interactions.
- Haystack Blog » CHI: Do we really need three reviewers for every paper?
At the PC meeting, there was a lot of discussion of the huge amount of work that was going into reviewing for CHI. CHI accepted about 300 of 1350 submissions. As a first time PC member, I was particularly bothered by the work on rejected papers. I felt pretty guilty wasting three separate reviewers’ time on a paper I was sure would be rejected. If we could cut down to two we’d be saving a lot of work.
- Chi Student 6
- Conference Search: HCI
- How to attend a conference - Notes In The Margin
If you're like me, a conference is the closest thing to a vacation that you get. It's a week away from work, away from responsibility, and away from doing dishes. Party time! From observing folks at conferences, it would seem that the seasoned conference attendees have fallen into this view. The goal of any decent conference, therefore, is to spend as much time as possible hopelessly inebriated, and to attend as many parties as you can possibly get an invitation to, and several more if at all possible.
- Volatile and Decentralized: Who pays for conference reviews?
Serving on a program committee takes a tremendous amount of time. So, one of the frequent complaints that TPC members make is when authors submit half-baked, clearly below-threshold papers a conference just to get some reviews back on their work. Personally, I feel little responsibility to write detailed reviews on papers that are clearly in the "Hail Mary" category, but I still have to read them, and that takes time.
- Volatile and Decentralized: The Psychology of Program Committees
There are many subtle psychological effects that influence the disposition towards a given paper. The first has to do with the timing of the paper discussion. At the beginning of a PC meeting, everyone is amped up on caffeine and uncalibrated with the respect to the overall quality of the papers being discussed. Your chances of getting a paper accepted when it is discussed early on in the meeting can vary widely. Most PC meetings discuss the top-ranked papers first, but after a string of (say) five or so papers accepted, people start thinking that it's time to reject a paper, so the sixth paper tends to be a scapegoat to release the pressure and make everyone feel better that the conference is still "selective." Fortunately, most PC chairs recognize this effect and switch gears to discussing some of the lower-ranked papers next, so the committee sees both ends of the spectrum. I've been in PC meetings where the top ranked paper with four strong accepts and a weak accept is tabled for f
- Last day « Ken’s Blog
On the one hand everyone is happy to have gone through such a positive and cathartic experience - an entire week of heightened reality, with everyone representing what they have been doing for the past yea, entire months of preparation going into single twenty minute presentations. In some sense everybody - for one week - becomes an embodiment, a sort of living avatar, of what they have been doing for the previous year, as everything comes together in one intense apotheosis, an affirmation of why we do what we do.
- Welcome | Interact 2011
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