TITLE: Learning about My Communications Job ...
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: December 11, 2006  7:29 PM
DESC: 
-----
BODY:
... on a last December morning in Montreal, where I am
on the job.

I awoke for an early morning run to snow, the wet fluffy
snow of temperatures near 0° C.  In the downtown
area, all that remained were wet streets, but as I
jogged toward Mont Royal the snow was still falling and
the 6-8% grade up Rue Peel was covered in an inch or so.
I love to run in falling snow, and my first snow run of
the year is often special.  I enjoyed this one as much
as usual.

Just past half way on my out-and-back route, I missed a
turn that seemed obvious yesterday.  Perhaps it was the
snow-covered street signs, or my snow-covered glasses.
The result was 17 minutes or so of backtracking and
retracing my steps, and a planned 8-miler turned into
a 10-miler that lasted into Monday morning rush hour
traffic.  The 6-8% grade <EM>down</EM> a snowy Rue Peel
was, oh, let's say more challenging than the run up.
I survived with no spills but a few minutes of my heart
pounding a bit more than usual.

I hope that the
<A HREF="http://www.oopsla.org/oopsla2007/">
   OOPSLA 2007</A>
wiki, which we hope to have up and running any day, will
be a place for OOPSLA-bound runners to share advice on
routes and warnings of things to watch for.  We usually
launch the conference wiki at or just a few weeks before
the conference, but I think having it running all year
long will offer a chance for potential conference attendees
and other altruistic souls to build community around
issues related both to the conference and to our personal
pursuits in Montreal.  This is a part our vision for the
communications component of our conference organization.

As I checked out later in the morning, I received a more
expensive surprise.  It turns out that the complimentary
shuttle from the Hyatt to the Montreal central bus station,
which I thought ran on a regular and frequent schedule,
requires a one-hour advance registration.  There was no
information about this in the packet I received from our
logistics company, nor at the L'Aerobus station, nor in
the hotel itself.  This inconvenience followed the general
sense of disorientation and complexity I felt on the
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2006-12.html#e2006-12-09T13_08_54.htm">
   night I arrived</A>
and strengthened my desire to incorporate a useful Local
Travel on the conference web site.  Anything we can do to
ensure that all of the ancillary things associated with
conference travel go well, the more likely we can create
an awesome OOPSLA 2007 experience for attendees.  Yet more
conference communications!  Yet another element to my
position on the conference committee.

Before I began to dig into this position during OOPSLA
2006, I assumed that most of my activities would focus
on the conference content: calls for submissions, the
advance program, the program on the web site, the final
program, and the much-missed Program-at-a-Glance that
makes the days of the conference easy to follow and plan.
But I have come to understand that communications is
much more than simply organizing the program for
presentation in paper and bits.  In fact, I'd say that
that task is merely one example of a larger purpose.
It is really about eliminating the friction that naturally
comes at all stages of participating in OOPSLA.  It is
about serving the informational needs of submitters and
attendees.

I have come to admire the underlying sense of duty that
runs throughout our conference committee.  General
chair
<A HREF="http://www.dreamsongs.com/">
   Dick Gabriel</A>
has his pulse on both ends of the spectrum of tasks that
faces the committee: those little details that seem to
matter only when something goes wrong, such as web-site
navigation and hotel reservations, and the big picture
of moving the conference forward for which he is so
well-known among the OOPSLA committee, such as Onward!
and the Essays track.  He certainly recognizes the
financial implications of falling down on the little
services, which affects both the current year's attendance
and the possibly future years' attendance, but I don't
think that this is what
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2006-12.html#e2006-12-10T13_48_36.htm">
   motivates him</A>.
In any case, just now I am short on the kind of big
ideas that can move the conference in a new direction,
I am hoping that my attention to the details of our
communicating well to OOPSLA participants can help the
rest of the committee put on a winning conference.

And I am not saying all these nice things just because
Dick graciously picked up part of a dinner tab that the
conference budget could not last night at Montreal's
<A HREF="http://www.restaurantglobe.com/">
   Globe</A>
restaurant, attended by the committee members who had
stayed an extra night in order to do more committee
business and scout the area.  The Globe offered a fine
menu extravagant in seafood and a mix of French and
North American cuisine, at prices that left this
small-town Midwestern boy in a state of awe.  The
waitstaff was remarkably attractive and, um, shall we
say, enticingly well-dressed.  While I probably won't
dine at this establishment on my future trips to
Montreal, I can cherish the memory of this visit's
delights.

Finally, during dinner conversation, I learned of the
next big thing that will rock the software world, which
will explode out of OOPSLA 2007 as so many revolutionary
ideas have sprung from past OOPSLAs: ribosome-oriented
computing.  Keep your eyes
<A HREF="http://www.google.com/search?q=ribosome+oriented+computing">
   glued to Google</A>;
this has the potential to make an international superstar
out of postmodern software prophet
<A HREF="http://http-server.carleton.ca/~rlbiddle/">
   Robert Biddle</A>.
-----