Subject: Suggestion for tech. conferences

From: "Martin Carpenter" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 12:00:35 EST

Hi all,

I was just flicking through the latest copy of "SunExpert (Incorporating
RS/Magazine)" to land on my desk (Nov. 1997, Vol. 8, No. 11) when I
noticed the article on page 36 "Perl Conference Report", particulary
"Perl on ICE". Apparently, the Interactive Conference Environment (from
a company called songline http://www.songline.com) is a "a new and
valuable innovation" that enables:

o Exploration of agendas
o Sign up lists for BOFs
o Online discussions with attendees (presumably for those not present)
o Organisers to preempt session attendance and room sizes

Apparently, the "basic idea is very sound... recommend it to SUG, USENIX
and other technical conference organizers". I'm not sure that it (or
something similar - something homegrown? Domino app?) would give us much
more than we have already have available from www.ietf.org and the
mailing lists. But after being squished into >1 small steamy rooms in
Munich at the session before last, the fourth idea kind of appealed
(yes, I know it was mostly a dodgy AirCon, just kidding :-)).

The perl conference ICE pages have disappeared. Anyone seen this thing
in action? More work than it's worth? Just wondered...

Martin.

Martin Carpenter                            Tie  7-664834
IBM Global Network                         NOSS  CARPEMJ@NHBVM9
EDI Dev & Spt, Warwick, UK                Notes  CARPEMJ@IBMGB
Tel +44 (0)1926 464834                    email  [email-masked]