As some of you know I go to several conferences a year - and every year in
addition to ARMA I make sure to go to AIIM and Xplor. Both of them stopped
providing paper handouts, CDs, and proceedings a while back and make the
presentations available for download from the conference website for some
specified period. 

One of the challenges we've had on the Program Committee (I served on Boston
2003, Long Beach 2004, and San Antonio 2006) is getting speakers who are
experts in their field, who are good speakers, who are available, and who
will agree to meet the stated requirements to speak. We've gone back and
forth about the requirement to submit presentations on time, and to
"black-ball" those speakers who absolutely, positively, NEVER follow the
requirements, but there seem to be unacceptable political consequences to
doing so. I still don't really understand that myself, as other conferences
do in fact do just that. You don't play nicely, you don't play again for
awhile. I think it was de Gaulle who said, "The graveyards are full of
indispensable [people]." 

In the meantime, I have seen several conferences (albeit more IT-ish and
more cutting-edge) move towards the wiki model for the reasons I previously
stated. In brief: 
- Materials can be made available as early as the wiki is
- Materials can be updated up to the minute the presentation starts - and
after!
- Materials available can range from PPT, to pre-recorded sessions for those
who miss them (mp3/podcast-type), to supporting materials, to academic
papers, to ?????
- Speakers can grant access to other experts in that area - or to attendees
- to modify the materials
- Materials can also be "published" - at least on my wiki
(http://informata.pbwiki.com) I can output any page to PDF in one step
- It's quite simple to create links between e.g. a basic email management
session at ARMA 2006 and a more advanced followup at ARMA 2007 (same author
or different, doesn't matter)
- And the wiki can remain in place for a year, ten years, the foreseeable
future, using e.g. http://arma2006.pbwiki.com, http://arma2007.pbwiki.com or
http://www.arma2006.com, http://www.arma2007.com 
- One big advantage to doing this: the incoming Program Committee will be
able to see who met the minimums, who excelled WRT the supporting materials,
job aids, etc., and try to target those presenters for the next conference -
and pass on those who couldn't be bothered or whose materials were too
proprietary. 
- And chapters can use the wiki to see who has presented, their contact
info, and secure their services for chapter presentations, webinars, etc. 

Can ya tell I'm excited about the wiki model? :D I'd even volunteer to get
it put together. 

Regards, 

Jesse Wilkins
CDIA+, LIT, ICP, edp, ermm, ecms
IMERGE Consulting
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-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of mckinney, susan
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 9:41 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ARMA flash drive...and in 2007?

The Flashdrive will be an exact copy of the CD.  

The problem with any conference you might attend is that while there is a
deadline for submissions of speaker presentations, there are always speakers
who are not able to meet that deadline for any variety of reasons, and their
presentations do not end up in the proceedings distributed either before or
at conference.  In addition, some presenters are not able to distribute
copies of their information because of trademark/copyright/intellectual
property concerns.  And finally, because of the ever-changing world we work
in, there are also sessions that are not finalized until late in order to
get the most up-to-date information or technology programs.  

I'm not sure what others are finding, but I have found that with many of the
conferences I have attended in the past couple of years, organizations are
shying away from distributing any type of proceedings because of the
difficulty of getting complete sets of the information.
I'd be interested to see if others are finding that also.

Susan

Susan McKinney, CRM
Director, Records & Information Management University of Minnesota
502 Morrill Hall
100 Church St. SE
Minneapolis, MN  55455
(612) 625-3497
(612) 626-4434 (FAX)
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