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

Steve,

Having been there and just finished doing that (with others) for CoNEXT
(and having done it for other conferences in the past), I can attest
that it is not easy, although we did pretty well given the economy. How
well you do will depend in part on the quality and reputation of the
conference, which may help with the darwinistic selection that Tony
hinted at and that is indeed badly needed.

On the other hand, most of the income from corporate sponsors is
typically applied to help students attendance, primarily for students
without papers or other means of support. So I don't think we can or
should view corporate sponsorship as a means to help reduce "regular"
registration fees, at least not on the basis of the typical amounts that
can be raised.

Roch

Bush, Stephen F (GE, Research) wrote:
> 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:
>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>>
>>
>> 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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