Local SIGs: Volunteers

Kate Ehrlich

Introduction

Focus: Volunteers

Profile: ToRCHI

The ToRCHI/BayCHI Challenge

News and Views

Introduction

Each column focuses on a theme related to local SIGs and profiles one of the local groups. In this issue we salute the people who have given up their personal time to help run a local SIG, and explore some of the motivations of volunteering. ToRCHI (Toronto Regional CHI), serving Metropolitan Toronto, Guelph and Saint Catherine's, in the Canadian province of Ontario, is the featured local SIG.

Focus: Volunteers

Local SIGs are run by volunteers who help create and run a local community around issues of Human Computer Interaction.

Why do people volunteer to help local SIGs? Here are some reasons given to me by past and present volunteers.

The camaraderie of working with like-minded people to create and sustain a local CHI community.
The satisfaction of knowing that you made a difference to the quality of the group and the quality of the program.
The opportunity to meet new friends and colleagues.

People move in and out of volunteering. What works fine when you are a new graduate student no longer fits into your schedule when it is time to submit your dissertation. Or the many evening hours spent with other volunteers organizing the program is hard to fit into your life when there are small children to take care of.

It is understood and recognized that people's lives change and most people will only be able to work with a local SIG for a limited amount of time. However, any amount of time someone devotes to a local SIG will make a difference.

So how do you get involved? This part is addressed to potential volunteers: Don't assume that there will always be someone else to do the work. Many local groups teeter on the brink of extinction because of the lack of active participation. It is your responsibility too to make your local group a success. And there is always important, useful work to be done. At the next meeting, find someone who seems to be involved and let them know you are interested in volunteering. Or, turn to the inside back cover of this Bulletin. There you will find the name and address of all the local chairs or other person to contact for more information. If you don't find a group in your area you might consider starting one. Call me for more information on that.

Is there another way to get involved? This part is addressed to the current local SIG officers: Don't assume that people will step forward voluntary. You, the officers, should initiate the invitation. Besides, it is flattering to be asked. By inviting someone to volunteer you can also better match the person to a job and hence help them succeed. For instance, if you need someone to play a technical role make sure that the person you have in mind has the appropriate skills and time to do the job. And it is important to recognize the time and effort of everyone who does indeed contribute.

Profile: ToRCHI

ToRCHI, formed in December 1990, currently has about 130 members. They have regular monthly meetings at the University of Toronto and conduct a workshop in February. Speakers are drawn from the local area supplemented, on occasion, by visitors to the area. The present chair is William Hunt of the University of Toronto; vice-chair is Marc Griffiths.

History

Although the CHI+GI conference in '87 and CSCW in '92 were both held in Toronto, neither were key to establishing ToRCHI. Rather, this local SIG grew out of a clear need to serve the interests of the local community. The area between Toronto and Guelph in Canada is replete with excellent academic institutions, many of which have strong programs in Human Computer Interaction. The ToRCHI constituency comes from the students and professors in these programs as well as from past students who have graduated and gone to work in one of the local companies. And, of course, from other people working in industry who may not have any prior affiliation with one of the local universities.

Marilyn Mantei, a professor at the University of Toronto was one of the founders of ToRCHI. In a recent email, she described the beginning this way:

I became tired of coordinating industry calls, student requests and all sorts of information exchanges that I was beginning to handle for HCI in Toronto. I tried to interest the local SIGGRAPH that was forming, into an HCI related role as well. They were interested but very heavy on the graphics end and well supported by the graphics industry in town. Their strength would have consumed a newly forming HCI group, so I decided to get people together and form ToRCHI.

I scanned the environment looking for leaders, people with titles and people willing to plunge in and work hard. I came up with Paul Brennan, Rhona Charron dropped in my office out of the blue, Michael Boshes, Michael Blumenthal and Tom Carey (Guelph) who volunteered himself, Tammy TeWinkel and Michael Ellis.

These people, and others, formed the first slate of TorCHI officers. They were: Michael Boshes (Chair), Paul Brennan (Vice-Chair), Paul McInerny (Secretary), Michael Blumenthal (Treasurer), Rhona Charron (Membership), Sigrid Grimm (Program Chair), Tom Carey (Newsletter Chair), Michael Ellis (Newsletter Editor), Marilyn Mantei (University Liaison Chair).

In order to draw a crowd, the kickoff meeting was organized to coincide with a visit by a well known HCI researcher. Invitations were sent to approximately 450 people -- members of SIGCHI living in Ontario as well as the attendee list at CHI+GI '87. About 100 people attended; 40 of whom became ToRCHI members.

One way to convey the history of a local SIG is to look at the experiments and innovations that were tried. Some of these will have worked well and others not so well. Every local SIG is unique. What works for one group may not necessarily work for another. We look at some of the things that were "Good" (innovations that worked well), "Bad" (innovations that didn't work so well) and "Ugly" (more complex innovations that work in some cases) at ToRCHI.

Innovations: Good

Bringing in one of CHI's tutorial speakers for an all-day session in February.
Running email announcement of meetings and a newsletter that gets mailed four times a year.
Having pizza with the executive meetings; the meetings should be fun, too.
The ToRCHI T-shirt [Ed: This worked for BayCHI too]
Not just bringing in speakers but bringing in good speakers and listening to members needs.
Moving the meeting around so that people are not always disadvantaged by having to drive far.
Spreading out the work so no-one is inundated with too much.
Having a good set of people running the organization.
Providing an email list of available jobs including even international listing.
Poster sessions to let people show off their work and meet other people in the area.
Membership directory.
The ToRCHI / BayCHI challenge.

Innovations: Bad

Having one person on the newsletter. This continues to be too much work and the person invariably resigns from the workload. [Ed: GBSIGCHI has one person in charge of the newsletter but a small crew of people responsible for email distribution, labels, printing etc.]
Having one person handle the program. We try to have speakers and nights allocated to different people's responsibilities. Again its too much for one person to handle throughout the year. [Ed: But note that BayCHI prefers to have single program chair. See the description in this column in the October issue]
Bringing in speakers who are trying to sell something. This has always turned off the attendees.
Changing meetings at the last minute. Our membership is not all on email so it is hard to reach them at the last minute.
Running on a shoestring. People don't have enough time to do the extra little things you need to do to save money today so that running the group becomes onerous. The SIGCHI start-up funds were a blessing.

Innovations: Ugly

Merging programs: Good when working with large, established organizations (e.g. ToRCHI benefited from support from Centre of Excellence). But less useful when align with small organizations with occasional common interests unless spend minimal time.
Booth at the local computer fair: Good for building a base of support. But lots of work with not much payoff later.
Running a conference. Good for outside contacts, bad for local meetings. When CSCW '92 took place in Toronto, it used up all of ToRCHI's energies and people. We finally decided not to have meetings during the time of the conference.
Research. A balance must be struck at the meetings between presenting new research and material that is practical today.

The ToRCHI/BayCHI Challenge

There has developed a friendly rivalry between ToRCHI and BayCHI which comes to the fore each year at the CHI conference. I described the most recent round in the previous issue of the Bulletin.

The true history behind this challenge is already lost in the mists of time and certainly open to much speculation. But rumor has it that the challenge was precipitated during a friendly debate between BayCHI and ToRCHI members, during CHI '91 in New Orleans, over who could hold their finger longest in a glass of beer. The outcome led to a call for a new challenge at the next CHI conference, CHI '92 in Monterey.

Having described the challenge as one that pits BayCHI against ToRCHI it is in fact open to all local SIGs. There will be a description in the next issue (April), of the plans for the next challenge, which will take place at the CHI '95 conference in Denver.

News and Views

NUCHI sponsored an all-day seminar on September 20th featuring presentations on:

Implementing human-computer interaction work within one's organization. This covered planning, budgeting, staffing, pitfalls, and lessons learned.
A participatory exercise on work analysis, mental models of those who use computer products, design of products that are based on this information, and prototyping of the resulting design.
A participatory exercise on usability testing of the prototypes. This included selection of usability participants, briefing of them, and uses of the feedback from them.
A review of selected research findings from the fields of human factors, cognitive psychology, and computer science.

Local volunteers helped put this together. The people who attended the seminar found it very useful and it gave the NUCHI officers some good ideas for future meetings and seminars.

Acknowledgments: Thank you to all the current and past ToRCHI officers and volunteers who spent time bringing me up to speed on the history of ToRCHI. Special thanks to William Hunt, the current chair, for his review of an earlier draft.

Kate Ehrlich, Local SIGs Chair
ehrlich.chi@acm.org

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Vol.27 No.1, January 1995
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