I will be shepherding this effort this year. Most of this is not cast in stone, as we expect it to evolve over time when we see how the various programs are received. We also want your input on all of this, especially on how we can build a successful/salable event next year. I will be sending email to each of you separately.

I. Summary of Discussions   back to top

There was consensus that while the economy is the major factor effecting the slide in conference attendance at Annual Tech over the past several years, most felt that we need to do something experimental that will engage the open source community while still retaining our reputation as a place to publish experimental CS work. Conference attendance at this event has seen a steady decline of 10% each year from 2000-2002, with a 37% decline from 2002-2003.

The proceedings have been successful in academia (ranking on citeseer is high), and freenix is a "melting pot" that has been well-received. However, most felt that we still have a problem in attracting working engineers/Open Source folks (esp. the Linux crowd). Most agreed that we should try to figure out a way to attract (and in some instances pay for) key members of the Linux/OSS community to attend. It was also pointed out that we continue to compete with ourselves in that our smaller events are drawing off some of the core community.

The lower attendance has also made it necessary for USENIX to reduce its room block commitments at future hotel properties, and this involves giving up meeting space. Therefore, until we can attract more attendance, the tech sessions will have two tracks per day for technical sessions, and no big exhibition is planned.

There was also a lot of discussion about what has to be done to market this event, e.g., promote more interaction/access to experts/big names; promote Linux/Open source in materials; look at reducing fees; choosing venues that are convenient for a regional IT community to attend; survey people to see what they want; emphasize training; figure out what the sweet spot is for our audience (working engineers, grad students, generalists, system builders, trainees/wannabees, sysadmins) to get them to return and help them convince their managers to let them come; have invited retrospective/lessons learned talks.

II. New Format  back to top

2004 Annual Tech will be held June 27-July 2, 2004 in Boston at the Marriott Copley Place. See https://www.usenix.org/usenix04/usenix04format.pdf for the new format which will consist of a 6 day conference with:

• One track for 5 days of general and freenix sessions
• One track for 5 days of content from SIGS (see below)
• Up to 6 tutorials per day for 6 days
• Keynote/plenary talks held on 5 days in a.m.
• Evening events (TBD)
• Gurus/BOFs as usual
• Vendor exhibition (might be downsized or eliminated)

III. Future Timing of Annual Tech  back to top

For 2005 and beyond we are planning to have a similar format as above, but we will be moving Annual Tech out of the summer timeframe in order to avoid a lot of the Linux and OSS conferences, e.g., OLS, O'Reilly, etc. This will also allow us to spread the USENIX conference program out more evenly, which will benefit the staff. Here's the new dates:

• '05 Anaheim — April 10-15
• '06 Boston — March 12-17
• '07 Monterey (mid-March - in negotiation)
• '08 — Baltimore or San Diego (mid-March - in negotiation)

IV. USENIX 2003 Attendee Survey Results  back to top

These are located at:
https://www.usenix.org/XS/Survey/atc03.pdf

V. The 2004 Organizers  back to top
(all below are on a mailing list usenix04organizers@usenix.org

General Sessions: Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau and Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, University of Wisconsin, Madison usenix04chairs@usenix.org

Freenix Session Chairs: Bart Massey, Portland State University, and Keith Packard, HP Cambridge Research Lab freenix04chairs@usenix.org

Plenary/Invited/Keynote Organizers: John Ioannides and Peter Salus usenix04it@usenix.org

Uselinux SIG chair: Ted Ts'o ted@usenix.org

UseBSD SIG chair: Chris Demetriou chrisd@usenix.org

Client Cptg SIG Chair: Keith Packard keithp@usenix.org

Security SIG Chair: Avi Rubin avi@usenix.org

Beowulf/clusters SIG Chair: maddog to find a chair asap

Tutorials: Dan Klein dvk@usenix.org

Guru is In: Clem Cole clem@usenix.org

USENIX Board Liaisons: honeyman, maddog, and mckusick

Other USENIX Staff/Mgmt:
Ellie Young
Jane-Ellen Long (production)
Cat Allman (Sales/Marketing)
Paula Larink (new conference director)

VI. General Session/Freenix  back to top

The Calls for Papers are now live, and we will start posting these this week. The web site is being built and is at:
https://www.usenix.org/events/usenix04/

From discussions with Keith Packard regarding Freenix, the program committee will be run as more of an ongoing concern than a single-meeting group working together to find interesting projects and solicit content. He also feels that last year's committee's use of a phone tree to collect submission worked well, and they'll be pushing their program committee to invite people early on.

VII. Invited/Plenary Talks  back to top

We expect that some of the technical tracks (SIGs) will have invited talks embedded in their programs. It's being suggested that we have an interesting, broad-based talk as the first session (as a plenary) on each of the 5 days. This will involve finding some big names and timely topics (and I think JI and Peter should coordinate closely with the rest of the organizers on their potential candidates for these; or if they need more people with contacts/ideas we can certainly add more people to this task. )

VIII. SIGs  back to top

These are a looser definition than what USENIX has used in the past. SIGS can be informal and formal. Some SIGS are not groups yet or at all. They can be a community of people bound by a common interest vs. an exclusive club, i.e., w/Security there will be overlap in other areas. Some SIGs are not groups yet. A SIG Chair might also want to focus on novel uses of the technology, community building, how to grow the SIG, and get new blood in, etc. One might also view them as confederated "workshops" that will run in parallel with the tech sessions. Each SIG might consist of a day, half day or even up to 2 days worth of presentations/workshops, with tutorials related to that topic happening before or after the workshop days. I will talk to each of the SIG chairs about the amount of space we should allocate in the program.

We have to make sure that key people attend and perhaps have a per-SIG budget for support to make this happen. CFPs for the SIGS might ask for proposals for presentations that don't have to be deeply technical talks. (e.g., for Uselinux Ted is looking for some proposals for presentations for the Linux day(s) that can also be about how you are using Linux in your workplace, or how you were able to convince your boss to accept Linux, etc.)

For the Security SIG (which isn't really a group), the content should stretch the audience's technical expertise and enable them to learn about things going on with security and how it relates to them.

IX. Tutorials  back to top

We need to sync them with the SIGs and perhaps run some more than once. USENIX will look at history on our average attendance in the past, and schedule carefully to avoid competition with the program. Dan Klein will be contacting everyone about the content of their program early on, so he can get going on finding instructors.

X. Other Features  back to top

Guru is in Sessions and BOFS will continue. Most felt that we need to promote more access to speakers/experts, especially for questions. It was suggested that we might want to consider an Expert Q&A session in a room as well (we did this at our Security Symposium and it was sometimes awkward since alot of people didn't come with any questions.)

Someone also suggested we do pre-approved WIPs.

Have more live demos and hands-on areas to try and attract people to the event rather than just the online proceedings e.g., the rocketry talk last June.

XI. Evening Events  back to top

Have a ".org ghetto"/table area on the various projects in OSS e.g., Gnome. Have evening "socials" (beer/ice cram, etc.) every night that are not big receptions and sponsored by companies or groups. Have demos/poster sessions; have people doing cool stuff with open source software.

XII. Future SIGs/Topics  back to top

Several people I talked to suggested that we offer more in the user-space areas. Application level such as perl and python (OSCon doesn't have to be the only venue for this). We might be able to add a 3rd track for more Invited Talks and SIGs after 2004. Possibly co-locate a mini-debian conference (Ted Ts'o will follow up on this).

Possible topics for future SIGs:

• Apple/Mac OS X
• Desktop/Gnome/KDE
• Messaging/collaboration
• Integration
• Tools
• Languages
• Databases
• Web
• Embedded

It was also suggested that we might consider co-locating some of our smaller symposia in order to attract more of the core USENIX people. (This will be discussed in early '04 as a possibility for '05.)

XIII. Marketing  back to top

A preliminary program with prominent members of the community listed and talks will be key in promotion early on (especially to potential authors). I will talk to each of you about this. You, the organizers of this event, are critical in helping us build and promote this event early on. Some felt that we need to focus on our market/audience e.g., core community, academics, sysadmins/integrators. Most felt that we should try to retain our experimental CS flavor, but that we also need to attract "working engineers", esp. in the OSS arena. Our audience wants to hear about technology they will be facing in the future. Developers should find software practice and experience content; software engineering content; how to build and how to integrate, etc.

USENIX will offer a per-day registration fee. Big discounts for registering for entire week.

USENIX will survey attendees who didn't attend this past year's Annual Tech to see why they didn't and what we could offer that would make them attend.

Promote "training all week long."

Make sure there are subsets of attendees to promote to.

IX. Deadlines   back to top

For SIGs, Tutorials, Invited, Guru Sessions:

Sept. 10: Descriptions due (to include composition of your committee) for inclusion in the CFP.

Jan. 16th: Program due to USENIX so that we can get the web site and pre-reg materials. (Note: Since we need to get promotion out about the conference early on, please send us any confirmed speakers/topics as soon as they are confirmed between now and Jan 16.)