[ Originally pubished in Datafile, Vol 14 No 5, October/November 1995,page 20. ]      An Inside View of HHUC-95  by    Craig A. Finseth, member #745  fin@winternet.com(Apologies to non-US readers: this document is written in the Americandialect of English.  I did not attempt to translate nouns that differ.)As most of you are aware, I organized the recent handheld'sconference.  These conferences happen about once per year, so youwould think that we, as a community, would have a fairly good idea ofhow to organize one.  Well, as a community, we might.  However, Ifound precious few precedents to follow.  This article will put forthwhat I experienced and learned.BACKGROUND: I purchased my first HP, a 45, just after they came out. I then purchased a -12C and -16C as those came out.  I then fell inwith Steinmetz & Brown, and they got me hooked.  I have attended the1991 (Corvallis), 1992 (Philadelphia), and 1992 (London) conferencesand was a member of the 1994 (Amsterdam) conference. I am the author ofthe HPDATAbase and the freeware Freyja and Loki products.  I alsohaunt the relevant Internet newsgroups.GENESIS: In, I believe, November of 1993, my wife and I were visitingLondon.  We met up with Wlodek for dinner, and, while walking to therestaurant, I got the idea that having a conference in Minneapoliswould provide a convenient excuse for inviting Wlodek to visit us. After breaking the idea to my wife (:-), we all thought that it mightbe worth pursuing.EARLY STAGES: In the winter and spring of 1994, I thought about theidea some more.  I also asked around to see if anyone else wasthinking of holding a conference.  I targeted the (then) MayAmsterdam conference as the first "commit" point.  I.e., I shouldknow by the end of that conference if anyone else was thinking ofrunning one in 1995.  However, that date was missed, so I decided towait until the June CHIP all-nighter.THE CHIP MEETING: I brought the idea up to the people at the CHIPmeeting. All thought it good, and no one knew of any competing plans.I sought input in a variety of areas, from the focus of the topics tothe dates to the constraints on the site.  I also discussed the ideawith Hal Goldstein of The Palmtop Paper.  He agreed to handleregistration services.  (Little did he know that this was a majorjob...)THE FIRST MAJOR EFFORT: During the late summer of 1994, I did thefirst major organizing.  The "end product" of this phase was the(rather lengthly) "flyer" that described the conference, the site,and other details.  I decided that it would be ready for therescheduled Amsterdam conference in early October.The major pieces of this effort were:- obtain commitments from some "name" people- select dates- select site- identify hotels and other arrangements- set prices- write the thingAll of these tasks happened in parallel, of course, but I will discussthem separately.DATES: Hal and I reviewed the calendar.  We wanted to avoid the majorsummer events such as Comdex and the 4th of July.  I wanted it beforemid-August, because my daughter would be starting Kindergarten that(this) September and I wanted to be able to focus on that transition. In the end, we wound up with the 5-6 August date through the processof eliminating all other dates.SITE: That the conference would be in the Minneapolis/St Paul areawas a given.  I started the site selection process by reviewing thecriteria:- hours that suited us (9am to midnight Saturday, 9-9 Sunday)- good for 100 people- good area for vendors- good people control for registration, etc.- good restrooms and support facilities (parking, etc.)- food allowed in the lecture area(!)- reasonable access- decent acoustics- air conditioned- good security- separate place for conversations (not on my original list,  but suggested to me: the rotunda (failed to) served that  purpose)I quickly settled on a couple of possibilities.  One was a typicallow-cost University lecture room.  Advantages were low cost. Problems were hours, lack of food (both availability and the abilityto bring food into the lecture area), and difficult access.  The otherwas the Mall of America Event Center.  It met all criteria, but wasfairly expensive ($3,000: see budget presented later).[ Actually, I had the MoA in mind as I came up with the idea.However, I hadn't checked into it at all yet. ]I ran through a variety of expense projections and eventually decidedthat the high cost of the room rental would require a higherregistration fee.  However, this higher fee would be offset byattendees' not having to rent cars.  This decision was to prove to be a good one time and time again.One of the first ways was that it eliminated my providing food: I knewpeople could just get what they wanted.  This was an importantreduction, as I did learn from past organizers that providing foodwas a major planning headache as well as a major expense.  And, since there was only one person doing the bulk of the planning, eliminatinga major chunk was quite attractive.The second way that the Mall site proved useful was in arranginghotel and airfares.  I obtained referrals from the Mall person, andgained instant credibilty.  My conversations started "Hi, I'm CraigFinseth and I'm organizing a conference at the Event Center..."  (Ialso contacted other hotels, but the deal at the MoA Grand was thebest by far.)Ditto for the air fares.  Unfortunately, only three people used that fare.The Mall site did have a couple of oddities, however.First, they originally asked me to buy liability insurance (this isthe US, after all).  However, given the nature of the event and thefact that I already carried substantial personal liability coverage(this _is_ the US, after all (:-)), they agreed to waive thatrequirement.Second, they originally asked that all vendors be "pre-approved." They are worried about competition with existing Mall vendors. However, as this was a "closed" event and as none of us were incompetition, this proved to be a minor problem.  I dealt with it bythe simple means of running vendors by them for approval: they quicklyquit asking.Third, the Mall people are _very_ concerned about competition in thearea of food.  This includes giving it away.  Actually, it_especially_ includes giving it away.  We did not have a problem inthis area.[ For those around on Sunday, you probably noticed that coffee androlls showed up.  These were donated by HP Singapore.  Many thanks! ]I developed a budget and contingency plans during this time, andcirculated it along with drafts of the flyer among a half-dozen peoplefor comments.  All this planning was done via e-mail.  (Actually, theuse of e-mail was critical to success.  I would not have been able todo it if I used the phone.)I had no idea about banquet sites, so I just plugged in a number thatsounded reasonable from past conferences and left it until later. More on this topic later.That's about it for this phase.  I obtained a few commitments forspeakers, and a $1,500 loan from Hal to help cover early costs (spacerent deposit), and had the flyer ready by October.As one can see, running a conference does require substantial up-frontcash.  It thus helps to be an established club, a business, a friendlynearby HP office (as with Amsterdam) or from personal finances.  Forcalibration, I spent about $5,500 before I received any funds.THE LONG DORMANCY: Once this effort was over, nothing much happeneduntil February.  The flyer made it into the Amsterdam conferenceproceedings and DATAFILE.  I also sent out the flyer a few times onthe net, but that's all.THE PACE QUICKENS:  Starting in February, we had our first attemptedregistration (thanks, Jake!).  He attempted to register and thisforced us to get our registration procedures in order.  I also started"pinging" HP since, in earlier messages, Khaw had asked how he mightbe of assistance.  As it turned out, I never heard back directly.  Iassume, however, that my requests wound up affecting HP's interactionwith others.During this period, Wlodek also started tracking down speakers.  (Seethe full list of credits at the end of the article.)  It becameobvious that it would help to have a US technical contact: apparently,not everyone was as well attached to the net as we were.  For the nextconference, net access should be pretty much ubiqutious.  That doesnot mean that everyone of interest reads the same newsgroups...In April, I asked Richard Nelson to be be US technical coordiator. He agreed.During the period of April to June, we continued the process oftracking down speakers, monitoring registrations, and making lists ofactivities.During June and July, I sent all who registered a mailing thatcontained an updated schedule, directions, and other information.THE FINAL MONTH:During the last month or so before the conference, preparations kickedinto high gear.  I investigated and arranged for things in theseareas:Procedings:  I cajoled Brian into giving me a guess for the pagecount, then located a printer that would do the proceedings in thetime (two days, at most) and for a reasonable cost (i.e., notKinkos).  I also purchased ACCO covers.After I received the master from Brian (on the Tuesday before theconference), I quickly wrote and added extra intro material for theproceedings and the attendee list.  Then it was a matter of droppingoff the master and picking up the copies.  Don't forget to have them3-hole punched.During this time that Brian had a last-minute panic, both because hehad received some last-minute submissions, and because he had notfound the time to write his own submission! Future Proceedings Editorsshould consider themselves warned to write their own submission early,and to be rigid about the closing date.  Possibly remind speakerstwice early on, once near the final date, and one final time a coupleof days before. It might even be worth offering prizes for earlysubmissions.I looked for and found someone to handle at-the-door registration (inexchange for a free membership).  This position checked off people asthey came in, gave out stuff, and tracked money.  The person was"on-call" throughout the conference, so he earned his keep.  If theconference was much larger, I should have had a second person in thisrole.I monitored the hotel room status, working with the hotel staff toensure that we had enough rooms and did not tie up any more thannecessary.I would have done the same withe airline, but they aren't set up forinteractive queries.Working with vendors approved by the Mall, I rented furnishings.One vendor handled the tables.  Final cost was about $13.50 for tableand linen (each).  They would have handled the chairs ($.80 each), butthose wound up being supplied by the Mall (don't ask).The other vendor handled the A/V equipment.  We rented an overheadprojector, large screen and Kodak Carousel projector w/long throw zoomlens and remote with a long cord.   Someone brought an overheadadaptor for the 48.  (Thanks to whoever you were.)  In the future, Iwould expect that a _color_ overhead LCD panel for IBM PCs, etc.should be considered mandatory (quoted rental cost was over $500 fortwo days: should drop).  I didn't learn of the requirement for oneuntil late, and wound up making do with a 17" monitor.  But you may aswell borrow one or build it into your budget.  We also wound uprenting a P/A system at the last minute (again, made possible by theMall connection).I also looked into providing Internet access for the attendees.  Costwould have been $25 per hour for use of a room full of PCs.  I woundup not using it because the budget was tight.  But again, futureconferences should consider this service as all but mandatory.I found someone and had arranged for them to do a conference swapdisk.  However, they wound up not showing up (:-(.  With the net, itis not clear that this service is as important as it once was: no oneseemed to miss it much.  Or if they did, they didn't complain to meabout it.Prizes: The early conference budget had amounts for prizes (door,best speaker, and best paper).  Thanks to generous donors, I did nothave to purchase these.The banquet: The initial banquet ticket price was a guess.  As Iexplored banquet sites, I realized that the banquet could go in one oftwo directions.  First, we could take over part or all of a regularrestaurant.  This path would be less expensive per person, but has alimit to the number of people: many restaurants can't handle over 50people and very few can handle over 75.  Second, we could go withcatered facilities.  The problem is, this can get pricy (looked like$20 to $40 per person) and needed a lot (say 50-100) people to spreadthe fixed costs over (i.e., get them down toward the $20 end).  I alsoneeded to commit to an exact count long before the conference itself(or pay for the priviledge of being vague).This was one area I missed: I did not specify an early cutoff date forbanquet tickets.  I lucked out.  I suggest that future conferencesstate that the supply of banquet tickets is limited, and tickets willbe sold on a first come/first served basis.  This also encouragesearly registrations.  In this way, you can keep the number to suchthat you can work with an (affordable) restaurant.  (Of course, alwayshave a stock of a few extras for important last-minute people.  Buildthis stock into your budget.)I had considered doing cakes at the conference, a la the Londonconference (five sheet cakes, one for each of the Voyager models). However, I dropped this idea because the Mall was skittish about theidea of non-bakery cakes (bakery cakes would have cost a fortune) andwe ran out of time in the schedule.Finally, I decided that there should be a conference momento.  I gotthe idea from the HP-41 keychain from a long ago conference.  Thereason was simple: if _I'm_ doing the conference, I'm going to do itright.  The only thing that I would have changed would be that Iwould not include the conference-specific information on the item.THE CONFERENCE ITSELF:  For me, the conference was two days of worry.I probably only heard about a third of the talks.  (I'm lookingforward to seeing it on Jake's tapes.)  Most of Saturday was spenttracking receipts and cross-checking records, such as the count ofbanquet tickets.  I also troubleshot problems as they came up, such asthe (lack of a) P/A system and getting someone to do a Kinko's run. And I worried.  Sunday was similar, but there were fewer problems.It is important to have someone whose job it is to keep speakers onschedule.In my case, as of Friday night, I was about $2,000 in the hole (allexpenses were in, but not all revenue).  I knew that I would make backmuch of this, but it still wasn't easy to sleep...AFTER THE CONFERENCE:  Afterwards, there were still tasks to be done.I had to:- Sort out boxes of stuff that I brought home.- Send copies of the proceedings, etc., to the people who were notable to attend, but who had memberships.  (Don't forget to includethis in your budget: overseas airmail for a proceedings was $12.00each!)- Do the final accounting, both for receipts and for expenses.I suggest allowing about $500 for after-conference expenses andadjustments.  I.e., consider that you break even if you're $500 aheadat the end of Sunday.LIST OF OBJECTS BROUGHT: I wanted to make sure that we would havewhatever we needed.  So, I packed and brought these items:- assorted pens, markers, pencils; pencil sharpener(!)- assorted pads of paper, sheets of paper- floppy disks (for sale if people needed one for the swap disk)- camera, film- AA, AAA batteries- stapler, staples, staple puller- tape: masking, Scotch, plastic packing, duct- Post-It notes- paper clips, pins- tape measure, scissors, utility knife- rubber bands, paper clips- screwdrivers, assorted- 3-hole punch(!)- aspirin, Sudafed- speaker timer- tickets for door prize drawing- boxes, trash bags, paper towels, assorted extension cords- various forms, etc.:* badges, both pre-done and blank* badge holders* speakers certificates* large sign (22" x 28")* "Wall of Fame" sign* "these items are free" sign* signs for vendor tables and clubs table* price lists* detailed list of pre-registered people (database dump)* sign-in lists* list of "special people" for the at-the-door person to watch  for (they owe us money, we owe them money, etc.)* registration summary sheet* forms to record sales* banquet tickets* ballots* probably a few more...Things I forgot:- Kleenex- overhead transparencies, markers for- cups for waterBUDGETHere is an _approximate_ budget for the conference.  Many peoplecontributed time and funds which were not reimbursed.   Inparticular, it is more-or-less traditional to not reimburse for longdistance phone costs (although, if anyone had asked, I would have).Amounts in US$.Receiptsregistrations3,875vendors  350banquet  925cash donations  214others  536-----5,900(In the past and at this conference, Hewlett-Packard hasgraciously paid conference memberships for employees that arespeakers.  This is one of the many ways that they havesupported conferences and was appreciated.)Expensesspace rent3,000equipment (A/V, talbles, display cases  575copies (flyers, last-minute)  225shipping (including $60 after conference)  125CoGS (proceedings, tags)1,000banquet  450supplies (miscellaneous)  125other adjustments  400-----5,900Net$5,900 - $5,900 = $0, well the net is really $16.39.THINGS TO DO DIFFERENT: Here are areas that, in retrospect, I wouldimprove.Publicity was poor, especially among palmtop users.  I should havefound someone who was good at publicity and turned it over to them.To me, it was obvious what the conference was about.  But it was notobvious to others.  It would have helped to have a short,clearly-written statement of the conference focus.Relating to both of the above, it would have helped to have a list ofspeaker topics or titles well in advance.  Such a list would helpprovide the missing focus.I set the at-the-door price way too low. For that matter, I set thelast-month price far too low.  Everything has to be sized and orderedin advance, so those people who insist on making the organizer's lifemiserable should pay for the priviledge.  In this case there were fewlocals, so everyone who showed up at the last minute had already madeairline and hotel reservations, or at the minimum travel plans: so whynot conference memberships? We wound up with way too many speakers, 25 speakers and 36non-speakers.  This means that each non-speaker was carrying about3/4 of an extra person.  I suggest that for future conferences,speakers get a reduced membership rate (say, 25-50%), but not get infree.  This would also help solve a major problem: many speakers didnot actually register, which means that:- They did not get into the attendee list (as I only listed thosepeople for which I had a positive "ok").- They did not get the pre-conference mailing!We could go back to free for speakers when we get back to eachnon-speaker only carrying about 20% of a person or so.  Or offerrefunds to speakers if the conference makes too much money (:-).Proceedings: I had 75 copies made.  This was just the right amount.65 were given to people with memberships and 10 were sold.  (Peoplewith memberships who did not attend still received proceedings bymail.)  I received a number of complaints about not having enoughproceedings: apparently, people came expecting that there would beextras for sale.  Again, it costs real money (about $13 each) toduplicate the proceedings: I kept the number on the small side becauseI was concerned about expenses.  For future conferences, I suggestallowing people to pre-order proceedings or ask people to do as I havedone and register for the conference as a full member.  All that said,a few spare ones (let's say, 10 for the sake of argument (:-)) are agood idea.CREDITS: These people helped or contribued in many ways other thanthose listed.Jeff BrowngraphicsEric Craneat-the-door registrationJim Donnellyplanning consultationHal Goldsteinregistration servicesKeng-Joo Khawmuch supportWlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicztechnical program, moral supportRichard NelsonUS technical program Colleen Rodibaughperson at Thaddeus who did the work...Jake Schwartzplanning consultation, videoJeremy Smithplanning consultationBrian Walshconference proceedingsApril Street, Inc.prize donationsEduCALCprize donationsGlobal Connectionsprize donationsHewlett-Packardprize donationsRichard Nelsonprize donationsRichard Nelson & Friendsprize donationsIf I missed someone, my apologies.