rshuford@well.UUCP (Richard S. Shuford) (02/13/88)
Before last year's 1987 U.S. Chapter Spring DECUS Symposium, I wrote a
memo to some of my colleagues at Siecor. Because it was to be their
first DECUS symposium, I wanted to give them some idea what to expect.
The next biennial U.S. Chapter Symposium will be held in Cincinnati,
Ohio, 16-20 May 1988. Since many DEC users are now deciding whether
or not to attend it, perhaps somebody will benefit from these informal
observations about what goes on. If you want a formal program, you
can call the U.S. Chapter office at +1 617/480-3418.
The contents of the memo were influenced most heavily by the immediately
preceding Fall 1986 Symposium, which had been held in San Francisco.
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To: DECUS Symposium Attendees
Re: Nashville Symposium
BASIC LOGISTICS:
There were between 6000 and 7000 people at the San Francisco symposium.
The first-timers' meeting Sunday evening is probably worth your time.
There will be a reception afterward (8:00) when you will find clusters
of people standing around, grouped mostly according to their
special-interest group (SIG) affiliation. In San Francisco, wine and
cheese were served at this.
There should be an opportunity Sunday until 4:00 p.m. CDT to pick up badges.
This would save time Monday morning.
Monday through Friday, lunch will be served in assembly-line fashion in
a facility somewhere near the sessions (asynchronously; there is no
formal lunch break). Earlier in the day, a light breakfast most likely
will be served in the same place. Monday and Thursday we might expect
that trays of sandwiches will be provided in the lobby to munch on
during breaks between the evening sessions. [The evening snacks cost extra.]
Each SIG has a "campground" area, which probably will be actually inside
a building. People hang out there to hold informal discussions.
There should be a central message-posting bulletin board (with physical
tacks). [There may also be a VAXnotes system for electronic postings.]
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AS REGARDS OFFICIAL EVENTS:
Activities begin in earnest Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. The last Monday
session ends at 11:00 p.m.
Many of the attendees at the symposium dress casually, although lots of
them wear coats and ties.
The "session notes" that DECUS often provides in printed form mostly
consist of hard copies of projector slides that are shown during the
session presentations. Nice to take notes on. Six months after the
symposium, the official "Proceedings" document may arrive, with the more
scholarly papers formally enshrined.
There is a reception on Tuesday night; possibly held away from the main
convention site. Since the event is being held in Nashville, one might
expect that a country-music band will play for this.
Wednesday is a relatively short session day; that night there is an
awards banquet for refereed papers.
Thursday is another long day, 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. That night,
you may expect to see people wearing strange costumes on their way to the
mysterious "Magic and War Stories" sessions--sort of a tribal-campfire/
story-telling time for computer folk.
After lunch on Friday, the pace will likely slow somewhat, although I
observe that some of the most interesting RS/1 sessions will be held
late Friday afternoon, ending at 5:00.
In San Francisco, some of the most interesting sessions ran out of
seating space and so I (and other people) could not physically get in to
see them. The sessions-at-a-glance chart lists the seating capacity of
each session room. If you want to attend a hot topic in a small room,
get there early.
If you miss a session, there will probably be a booth selling audio
tapes for around $8.00 per session which you can listen to on the way
home. (Or 12 for $88 including storage case.) Sometimes the clamoring
mobs cause sessions to be repeated.
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THINGS TO DO OTHER THAN GO TO OFFICIAL EVENTS:
There will be an exhibit of all the DEC products you can think of in a
hall near the sessions, with lots of terminals for trying things out.
The booths will be staffed by technically knowledgeable Digital employees,
so think up lots of questions to ask.
You can see DEC-related products from other manufacturers Tuesday
through Thursday over at DEXPO. There should be shuttle busses running
between DECUS and DEXPO from 10:00 to 4:30. Maybe even IBM will be there.
Wednesday night is the best night to visit the hospitality suites of the
3rd-party vendors exhibiting at DEXPO, if you're interested in this.
Some of the SIGs also hold hospitality suites Wednesday night and at
other times.
Wednesday afternoon from 4:00 to 6:00 there will be a Datatrieve clinic
in the DTR/4GL Campground. Learn now the lore of the Wombat!
In San Francisco, DEC operated a bookstore where you could buy things at
prices less than list, including documentation for most VAX software and
some personal-computer software. The door prize was a complete set of
VMS documentation. Perhaps the equivalent will also appear in Nashville.
I expect that there will also be in Nashville a DECUS store, where you
can buy windbreakers sporting the mascot of the Artificial-Intelligence
SIG, the sloth, and tie tacks with embedded 8600 chips. (And other
things as well, but get there early if you want choice items.)
DEC provides attendees with a room full of VT-220s attached to modems
and phone lines. Armed with a telephone credit card, you could dial
back into your home VAXen to check your electronic mail.
Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) sessions may be scheduled to bring together
people with similar technical interests. You have to read the DECUS
Symposium newspaper \Update Daily/ to find out when these are held.
These are often posted on the bulletin board as well.
Some marketing groups within DEC will be recruiting random symposium-
goers to journey offsite for an hour or so to answer questionaires about
their likes or dislikes of existing or hypothetical Digital products.
If you can manage to be so recruited, sometimes you can be rewarded with
moderately desirable prizes for such efforts.
Of course, you can collect buttons, badges, T-shirts, etc., various places.
You'll probably think of other things to do without help from me.
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It might be useful to take along:
- blank magnetic media
(no guarantee that these will be useful, but who knows?)
- supply of snacks (if you get hungry during an 11:30 a.m. to 1:00
p.m. session)
- some container to carry papers in
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.....Richard S. Shuford
Siecor Corp. RD&E, Hickory, NC 28603-0489
BIX: richard
UUCP: hplabs!well!rshuford
VMSnet: (coming soon to a VAX near you)kramer@prandtl.nas.nasa.gov.nas.nasa.gov (William TC Kramer) (02/17/88)
In your list of official activities at the national DECUS symposia, you forgot to mention the Pre-Symposia Seminars (PSS) which are offered on the Sunday before the symposium begins. There are 75 seminars being offerred in Cinncinati. Seminars differ from symposia sessions since they are 7 hours of in-depth discussions on technical topics. The range of topics is broad - from VMS Tuning to Network interfaces to writing X-Window applications. The presenters are volunteers and Digital employees who share their technical expertise with attendees. In Anaheim, over 2000 people attended the seminars. The formats ranged from lecture to hands-on tutorials, and for the most part were rated highly by attendees. Bill Kramer kramer@ames-nas.arpa