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Vol.27 No.3, July 1995
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Vol.27 No.3, July 1995 |
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At some time, a local group may consider running a seminar as a way of generating extra revenue or attracting new members. But organizing a seminar can be a lot of work, and may not bring in the anticipated rewards. For this issue we asked two groups, who have a history of running seminars, to share with us what they have learned. One is the Greater Boston (featured in the July 1994 issue). The other is the local SIG in Northern Utah (NU CHI) who we feature in this issue.
The local ACM chapter in Greater Boston runs a series of three seminars each year; one series in the Spring and another in the Fall. When the local CHI group was formed, they ran their seminars as part of this established series.
Jared Spool, a past chair of GBSIGCHI, has been involved in these seminars as an organizer as well as a speaker. He writes:
I think running seminars is a great way to raise revenue. When we get 100 people to attend one of the seminars in Boston, at $70 a pop, we usually make about $4,000 in profits. They are also a great way to increase membership (we insist that all attendees be members) and to attract the attention of people who otherwise might not be able to see your organization.
About half of our attendees tell us that they paid for the seminar personally (versus having their company pay for it). Since people see it as a personal development seminar, we've intentionally kept our prices low. We often add extras. For instance, when Edward Tufte spoke, we sold his books for $10 off each book's list price. (We typically sell the books on consignment, sending back any we don't sell.)
The Greater Boston ACM organization puts on six seminars a year, all with volunteer support. We have no paid staff. All the aspects of the seminar are dealt with by a team of 20 volunteers. This includes speaker recruitment and selection, brochure production, mailing, registration, treasury, A/V, books, printing of notes, facilities and crowd control. Volunteers are rewarded by free attendance to the seminars, though many of us end up working through most of them. I estimate that for each seminar we put on, there is about 100 hours of volunteer work.
Not all of our seminars have been a success. Some of the things that we've learned are:
Brochure timing is critical. If it arrives too late, people are already booked and can't come to the event. If it arrives too early, people procrastinate registering and then forget about it. We shoot for six weeks before the seminar as our target date.
Speaker and topic clarity is required. If people don't understand what the speaker is going to talk about and how it is going to improve their life, they won't give up the day. We've had some low attendance at some excellent seminars because the brochure did a crummy job of explaining the topic.
The Northern Utah local SIG is a relatively young group; it was established in mid 1993. However, in this short time they have made their mark in a number of ways: they are one of the first local groups with a World Wide Web home page, they have run 3 seminars, and, recently won a Quality Chapter award as part of the 1994 ACM Chapter Excellence. Congratulations!
To find out more, I contacted the current chair, Bill Loggins.
Kate: Tell me something about the history of your local group.
Bill: In spring of 1992 I became interested in obtaining a professional association/support system for myself and began exploring possibilities. I reviewed things with my friends and colleagues and spoke with Vivienne Begg [Local SIGs chair at the time] and Judy Granat (of ACM) to get started. I found others who were interested in supporting us for their own career success and satisfaction, as well as a way to make significant contributions to our professional communities.
These people included: Dennis Allen, Skip Bailey, Ken Betran, Kathleen Burnham, Jon Bushey, Scott Harrison, Joyce Whiting, Martha Eining, Russ Fish, Larry Wood, Linda Chang, Neil Tanner, and Marie Irvine.
[This group held an initial meeting in early December 1992. About 40 people attended many of whom volunteered for an interim management committee.] The committee met a few times in the spring of 1993 and developed by-laws, rules of thumb, dues structure, and general practices for meetings. These rules and guidelines were based on survey results, phone calls and email discussions. Officers were nominated and voted on at the June '93 meeting. Standing committees were recruited and we've been going ever since. Current officers are Bill Loggins as chair, Dennis Allen as vice-chair, Cynthia Metcalf as treasurer, and Ron Zeno/Craig Boyle as secretary.
Kate: Who are your members?
Bill: My perception is that most members are software developers who create products for customers outside their own company, or who are managers in such companies. The second largest group are those who usually work full-time in product design and/or usability evaluation of products -- both hardware and software. The next are information technology professionals who write specifications for products, and occasionally develop software.
About 30 companies have sent representatives to our seminars and the monthly meetings usually have 6 to 10 companies represented. NU CHI has currently obtained corporate sponsorships from Novell, Inc., Thiokol Corp., 3M Health Information Systems, Professional Programming Services, Inc., and Clark Development Inc. Previous corporate sponsors have included WordPerfect Corp. (though WordPerfect was purchased by Novell, Inc.), Execusoft, Inc., and Unisys Corp.
We average 16 people at our meetings. The fewest we've had is 6 and the most was over 50.
Kate: What kinds of publications do you have?
Bill: We have a monthly newsletter, edited by Larry Barney. Also hardcopy, email, and Usenet newsgroup which are archived in the NUCHI WWW Home Page (accessible via http://www.acm.org/sigchi/local-sigs/).
Kate: You have also become quite active in organizing seminars.
Bill: We've had three seminars and plan to do two one-day seminars each year: one in the spring and one in the fall.
First Seminar. Dr. Robert Bailey conducted the lion's share of the first seminar (Nov. 29, 1993) -- at no charge except for materials and travel -- as a fund-raiser for NU CHI. The topic, human factors and human performance in engineering systems, was chosen from interest surveys and the needs of the program committee members.
About 45 people attended. We set the seminar fee at $25 for members and $75 for non-members in advance and $45 and $100 at the door. The fee included materials and snacks. Thiokol allowed use of their facilities for the seminar and sent about 15 people to it as company-sponsored training. NU CHI netted about $1,000. Thiokol's administrative staff helped to arrange the building, snacks, and the audio-visual for the room. NU CHI volunteers, led by myself and Cynthia Metcalf, the NU CHI treasurer kept track of registrants.
Second Seminar. The second seminar (September 20, 1994) was conducted by senior software practitioners and managers from our own, Northern Utah membership. The choice of topics came from member requests for skill-building and discussion experiences. The fee was $50 for members and $70 for non-members in advance, and $60 and $80 at the door.
Unisys allowed use of their facilities and sent about 15 people as company-sponsored training. NU CHI netted about $800. Unisys staff were a huge help with arranging lunch, snacks, use of A/V equipment, and lots of details that came up -- they even arranged telephone access for those who needed to be reached during the day.
Third Seminar. The most recent seminar was held on Friday, March 10th, 1995. 42 people came from 17 organizations. The fee was $100 ($50 for unemployed professionals), which included materials, lunch, and snack, and, a year's subscription for NU CHI dues. Brigham Young University (BYU) provided their conference center facility.
Mike Sellers conducted the seminar on the topic of User-Centered Design. The topic came from interest surveys and requests from members. Mike was recommended from his article in Interactions magazine, his participation in the internet groups on usability and human computer interaction, and people who had taken his class.
Our costs were around $2,000 and we appear to have netted about $900. Julie Daily, Larry Wood, Cynthia Metcalf, myself and Larry Wood's students comprised the NU CHI committee that publicized, and otherwise put the seminar together. Much credit also goes to the BYU conference center staff for arranging all the details around facilities, food, and audio-visual equipment.
In the next issue, reports on events at CHI '95. Stay tuned.
Kate Ehrlich
Local SIGs Chair
ehrlich.chi@xerox.com
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Vol.27 No.3, July 1995 |
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