Columbus ACM SIGCHI Chapter
First Organizational Meeting: Minutes
The first organizational meeting to form a Columbus Local SIGCHI Chapter
was held at OSU on Monday, November 27, 1995.
Twenty two people attended the meeting after
Kevin Mullet's
(mullet@macromedia.com)
talk.
The meeting began with brief introductions,
followed by a discussion of the formal requirements for creating
a local ACM chapter.
These requirements include:
The discussion turned to the less straightforward issues of
whether a local SIGCHI chapter is a good idea, what the chapter would do,
and why should a local activity be associated with ACM.
- Good Idea?
-
About 40 people expressed interest in a local chapter,
and 22 people showed up at the first organizational meeting,
so it does appear that there is a critical mass for a chapter.
One activity that should be a high priority for the viability
of a local chapter would be to contact local organizations.
The following were suggested (*'d organizations are already
represented, to some extent):
- AT&T *
- Bank One
- Battelle
- CCAD
- Capitol University
- Checkfree *
- Chemical Abstracts Service *
- Columbus State
- CompuServe, Inc. *
- DeVry
- Fitch
- Franklin University
- IBM
- Metatec *
- Nationwide Insurance
- OCLC
- OSU CIS, Psych, ISE, Design, Cognitive Science, ACCAD, Medical, ... *
- ReSource Marketing
- Sterling Software
Additionally, Phil Smith
(psmith@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
suggested contacting Columbus Small Business,
and
Srinivas Raghavan
(raghavan@cis.ohio-state.edu)
suggested contacting
consulting organizations such as:
Computer People,
Andersen Consulting,
and Keane Consulting.
- Activities?
-
A recurring topic was that we should consider a variety of
meeting formats, not just one-speaker-on-a-topic,
but other formats that support networking and sharing ideas.
Some suggested activities included:
- Symposia
- Courses
- Awards
- Networking (SIGs, discussion groups)
- Gathering interest profiles of people
The following sources should be considered for ideas:
- The SIGCHI Adjunct Chair for Local SIGs,
Kate Ehrlich (ehrlich.chi@xerox.com)
- Other existing and forming SIGCHI chapters,
for which there is a prototype page at ACM at:
http://www.acm.org/sigchi/sigs.html.
In addition to the large SIGCHI chapters
like BayCHI and GBSIGCHI, there are several
chapters with populations more similar to Columbus
(e.g., Atlanta, Austin, ...).
- ACM?
-
ACM affiliation would help legitimize local CHI activities,
particularly ones we might use to raise money (e.g., courses)
for other purposes (e.g., bring in outside speakers);
many companies are more willing to support well-established
professional organizations.
Additionally, ACM affiliation would allow for coordination with
other ACM activities, both locally and with nearby cities
such as Dayton, Cincinnati, and Cleveland.
A steering committee to look into all of the above was formed:
Columbus SIGCHI WWW Page:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~perlman/BUCKCHI/index.html
Address
Gary Perlman
Department of Computer & Information Science
395 Dreese Lab, 2015 Neil Avenue
Ohio State University,
Columbus,
Ohio
43210 USA
perlman@cis.ohio-state.edu
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~perlman
+1-614-292-2566 (voice) +1-614-292-2911 (fax)