Southern California SPIN
Meeting Coordinator's Responsibilities and Timetable

As early as possible, ask the potential speaker if they would be willing to be a SPIN speaker. Explore possible SPIN dates against the speaker's calendar.

Speakers not familiar with us often want to know about us to help determine 1) whether they want to speak to our audience and 2) what they would say based on our background. To assist in this regard, you should point them to, or give/email them a copy of, the SPIN Speaker's Meeting Guidelines which is available at http://www.ics.uci.edu/IRUS/spin/spin_speaker_guidelines.html

Explain that, as the coordinator, you will be collecting various information and passing it to the IRUS Technical Relations Director, Debra Brodbeck. Make sure the speaker has your phone, email, and FAX for contacting you with any questions. The information we need from the speaker is:

• For the flyer:
  • name, title, and affiliation (as they want it to appear the flyer)
    
  • email address
    
  • URL (if available)
    
  • presentation title
  • presentation abstract
  • bio
• For contacting the speaker:
  • phone number
    
  • FAX
    
  • complete snail mail address so we can send parking pass, map, flyer, etc.
    

About the first of the month 3 months prior to the SPIN

Remind the speaker that you need their name, title, affiliation, email address, and URL (if available) as they want it to appear on the flyer. You also need the presentation title, presentation abstract, and their bio at this time. Give them a sample from a previous email flyer. Remember to get their their complete contact information for yourself and IRUS.

Emphasize that we can include only one or two paragraphs. Expect to have to cut what they give you. Some speakers have a long biography. Snip the parts that our audience will want and keep the rest for your oral introduction of the speaker. That way you will have something to say that is not on the flyer.

Tell the speaker you need this by the 10th of the appropriate month to give you, the coordinator, enough time to edit them down and get them to the IRUS Technical Relations Director by the 15th.

When you [the coordinator] have this information edited and ready, please send plain ascii text via email to:

• the IRUS Technical Relations Director: Debra Brodbeck, brodbeck@ics.uci.edu

Plain ASCII text is best for most of us. If you also want to send it as HTML (no fancy bells and whistles), we may be able to get it onto Web pages more quickly.

We get into other organizations' newsletters if we get the information in on time or early AND they have space. The best thing is to provide 2 to 3 versions:

• Version one just has the Date, Time, Place, Topic, Speaker, Coordinator, Price ($15 +$4 parking) and Contact Person which is the IRUS Technical Relations Director - Debra Brodbeck, UCI/IRUS, brodbeck@ics.uci.edu, (949) 824-2260.
• Version two has the same plus a very short abstract.
• Version three can have all the information we put on our flyers.

Version 1 is most accepted and you can get it in a month early, but send it again before the deadline for the next newsletter.

Giving the overworked newsletter editor a choice gives us more of a say over what does not get cut. If we make their job easier, we are more likely to get our information into their newsletter.

About 3 weeks before the talk

Remind the speaker that they should bring at least 60 copies of their viewgraphs as a handout (2-4 viewgraphs per page, make sure the diagrams and text aren't too small). IRUS prefers that the speaker bring the copies to save expenses. But, especially if the speaker is flying in, IRUS will make the copies if they receive a clean master no later than 1 week prior to the meeting. The address for this is:

snail mail:

Debra Brodbeck
Information and Computer Science
240 ICS2
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-3425

FedEx or other special delivery:

Debra Brodbeck
Information and Computer Science
CS 444
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-3425

(949) 824-7403

IRUS will send a letter addressing AV requests along with a map, directions, parking pass, and flyer approximately 3 weeks prior to the meeting. An electronic version of this letter (i.e. sans hard copy materials) will also be emailed to them at that time.

At the SPIN Meeting

• Welcome the attendees.
• Introduce the speakers.
• Remind the speaker of the time at which their presentation should end.
• Keep track of time, and be prepared to end presentations that run long or cut off Q/A if time runs short. You should determine a method for letting the speaker know how much time is remaining during their presentation, e.g. some coordinators hold up sheets of paper with a 5 (for 5 minutes) and a 1 (for 1 minute) remaining. Coordinate this with the speaker in advance.
• Thank the speakers at the conclusion on their presentation.
  The IRUS Technical Relations Director will present a Certificate of Appreciation to each speaker at the conclusion of their talk.
• At the beginning of the break, tell the audience at what time the meeting will resume.
• At the end of the meeting, thank the audience for attending.

Written by Karen Owens, k.owens@ieee.org
Updated 6/20/97
Updated 7/20/98 by Debra Brodbeck, brodbeck@ics.uci.edu
Updated 8/04/98 by Debra Brodbeck

Permission to copy is granted to other SPINs as long as credit is given to the Southern California Software Process Improvement Network (SPIN) and the author, and logical changes changes are made (e.g., changing "IRUS representative" to an appropriate role, changing email and other addresses appropriately).

Return to SPIN home page.