It's looking to me like this is not going to happen, this year. I asked Robert Bernecky to put together the a presentation draft, and he's put in some significant work on this, so I'm confident that he could benefit us by attending. But I am not comfortable pushing as hard as I'd need to push, to make the financial side work. (Or, I could fund it mostly myself, with a few contributions from other people, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of me pushing that hard for something that other people are not seeing the value in.)
It's actually a bit premature, to call this off - the deadline isn't until the begining of next month. But I've committed my time over the next couple weeks to a different project and I do not expect to have the time to do justice to this SIGPLAN issue. Next year is still possible, of course. Anyways, I hate closing the door on sending someone to the conference, but maybe it's not the right move for us right now. Thanks, -- Raul On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 10:29 PM, Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > Just to follow up: > > Robert Bernecky said he felt impressed by some of the people putting > together http://www.sable.mcgill.ca/array/. > > So I looked into what the costs and schedule would be like, to send him > there. > > I think we are looking at about $2500 for the trip, and we would have to > raise most of that in the next couple weeks, if we want to pull this off. > So that ideally means we would need a corporate sponsorship of some sort. > Some of us might be inclined to donate that personally, but for that kind > of money I think it might be good if some corporation that wants a small > advertising benefit gets the credit. > > He would need to submit a paper by April 2. The biggest part of the cost > is air transport. The next biggest component is the cost of hotel. And > there's a bit extra to cover other costs associated with the presentation. > Also, this is just an estimate, but if his trip needs more than this, I'll > plan on covering any shortfalls, myself. > > Two weeks is not a lot of time to make these kinds of financial > arrangements. But note that we do not need the money in two weeks, we just > need to have confidence that the money would be made available in a couple > months. It would be embarrassing if he submitted a paper on our behalf and > then we left him to cover all of the costs himself. > > So, that leaves us with a new problem: what benefits does J offer to a > corporate sponsor. > > Of course, there's the obvious and traditional benefits - being seen as > active in a growing computing field, having contacts with people engaged in > researching and developing these kinds of applications, and reaching the > students who will later be interested in this kind of work. It should also > be good for the J community, just to become actively involved with the > other communities of people attending this conference. > > But it's worth repeating: two weeks might not be long enough to engage > corporate interest. > > As an aside it might also be worthwhile for some of us here to buy a > sigplan membership to get access to the proceedings (it's $25 - a good > investment if you find the idea of developing array programming tools > entertaining, maybe not such a good idea if you want this kind of > information handed you on a platter). This is independent of whether or not > we raise enough money to send someone to represent us at the conference. > > Thanks, > > -- > Raul > > > > > On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 3:07 PM, Raul Miller <[email protected]>wrote: > >> I've talked with Robert Bernecky about his interest, and he seemed >> optimistic about the possibility. >> >> He also wanted to establish a clear definition of what he should provide, >> in return for sponsorship (and he made a few suggestions), and expressed >> some concerns the conference itself (which he is looking into). >> >> Of course, this is all still tentative right now, but hopefully we will >> reach a go/no-go decision point soon enough to either allow a clean >> shutdown on this plan or to allow for adequate preparation for the >> conference. >> >> Thanks, >> >> -- >> Raul >> >> >> On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 1:41 PM, Nollaig MacKenzie < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> I would be willing to contribute a bit toward sending >>> an emissary to the workshop. >>> >>> -- >>> Nollaig MacKenzie >>> http://www.yorku.ca/nollaig >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm >>> >> >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
