Re: [Tccc] Cost of attendance from developing countries / in general

Can more be done to attract business sponsorship and support of
conferences to offset costs?

[IHMO more businesses/corporations would lend more support -- even in
these tough times -- if some effort went into learning to speak their
language and present the benefits of conferences in a manner that better
appealed to their perspective. E.g. how will it eventually improve
*their* performance, reduce *their* costs, impact *their* bottom-line,
etc... rather than sometimes giving the appearance of a vacation for
academics :)]

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: tccc-bounces@lists.cs.columbia.edu
[mailto:tccc-bounces@lists.cs.columbia.edu] On Behalf Of Roch Guerin
Sent: Sunday, December 06, 2009 4:28 PM
To: Joe Touch
Cc: Celia Desmond; tccc@lists.cs.columbia.edu; habib@ccny.cuny.edu
Subject: Re: [Tccc] Cost of attendance from developing countries / in
general

Joe,

Joe Touch wrote:
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>
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> Roch Guerin wrote:
> ...
>
>>> Well, none given out from the conference, but there are subsidies
>>> given out by the SIG - and that money comes from conference
>>> surpluses. For the SIGCOMM conference, this includes the SIGCOMM
>>> award winner (who is typically the keynote), the student award
>>> winner. There are also funds for the GeoDiversity grants.
>>>
>>>
>> Sure, but as you point out, these have *nothing* to do with the
>> budget of an individual conference.
>>
>
> They do as follows:
>
> - - when an organization has a surplus, it can afford to run closer to

> the edge of losing money
>
> - - when an organization has no surplus, it needs a conference to add
> to the surplus (e.g., the ACM requires that a SIG have 50% of its
> yearly operating budget in surplus)
>
> As a result, how you perceive the "overhead" tax depends on whether
> you
> think:
> a) you're paying into a fund that you thin you never see
>
> b) you're paying into a fund that already gives back
> to you this year
>
We are not debating these. As has been made eminently clear, this is
not a punctual issue even if there are punctual triggers for reopening
the debate. We are discussing the outcome of different approaches to
running conferences, which largely manifest themselves in differences in
registration fees.

Overhead taxes are not a question of perception, they are a question of
checks and balances and how much visibility there is in those checks and
balances. Having that visibility can go a long way towards addressing
some of those issues, but it is a symptom and not a cause, i.e., if
conference costs were all low and consistent, we would be having this
exchange.
> As to travel to the meeting and complementary meetings, I can speak
> for myself right now, for both my roles in the ACM and the IEEE:
>
You are not the issue ;-)) and I don't think anyone suggested you were.
The question is more in terms of how many others end-up asking for free
registration and travel support on behalf of the conference. I am not
saying that none of these are valid, but they add-up and at a minimum
disclosure of how they were incurred and for what purposes would go a
long way towards either forcing greater discipline or making people
realize the need for such expenses.
> 1) I have never received a free registration EXCEPT when keynote
>
> 2) I have never received travel funds, a hotel room, or
> honoraria except as a tutorial presenter (which is typical
> in both organizations, and is part of the separate tutorial
> budget, FWIW)
>
> 3) I have no "entertainment budget", and have never held an
> organizational meeting whose expenses were submitted for
> reimbursement
>
> 4) the only other "comps" I have received were things that
> the hotel threw into the contract free, e.g., larger room
> (for every N rooms, they give a room upgrade), or a plate
> of fruit or such
>
> Please also keep in mind that the conference costs also pay for the
> TPC meeting (teleconference, meeting space, lunch/dinner), and paper
> management costs (EDAS fees, DOCOLOC fees, etc.). Some groups use free

> services for this (Sigcomm, e.g.); others (esp. larger meetings) use
> pay services due to issues of scale. These costs are small, but
nonzero.
>
As you said, these are small and in my experience are in the noise when
it comes to determining registration fees.

Roch
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