ACM SIGGRAPH EC Meeting
Friday, August 4, 2006
Marriott Copley
Boston, MA

Attendance: Rick Barry, Jim Kilmer, Jeff Jortner, Tony Baylis, Alain Chesnais, Scott Owen, Rob Cook, Jessica Wilmers, Mk Haley, Alyn Rockwood, Masa Inakage, Jackie White, Thierry Frey, Gregg Talley, Stephen Spencer, Fran McAfee

Guests: Michael Pique, Marshall Pitman, Bruce McDiffett

The meeting was called to order at 9:00AM.

E-Mail Votes Reviewed (Owen)

March 30, 2006
Motion to Apporve the ACM SIGGRAPH FY 2007 Budget
For: Tony Baylis (Motion), Stephen Spencer (second), Colleen Case, Alain Chesnais, Rob Cook, Fran Mcafee, Mk Haley, Jackie White, Alyn Rockwood, Masa Inakage

June 19, 2006
Motion to approve November, 2005 Minutes:
For: White (motion), Case (second), Mcafee, Chesnais, Rockwood, Spencer, Baylis, Haley
Abstain: Inakage, Cook

June 27, 2006
Motion: The official publication date for papers accepted for presentation at the ACM SIGGRAPH annual conference shall be one week prior to the start date of the conference, starting with the ACM SIGGRAPH 2007 conference.
For: Spencer (motion), Rockwood (second), Chesnais, Haley, McAfee, Case, Baylis, White, Cook
Abstain: Inakage,

July 3, 2006
Motion to approve the March, 2006 EC meeting minutes.
For: Barry (motion), McAfee, White, Haley, Frey, Jortner, Rockwood, Cook
Abstain: Chesnais, Spencer, Kilmer,

July 6, 2006
Motion to approve EC Reserve Fund Proposal for $9,800 to support travel to CGE '06 in Vienna (submitted by Colleen Case).
For: White (motion), Haley, (second), Jortner, Kilmer, Frey, Spencer
Against: Rockwood
Abstain: Cook, Barry, McAfee, Chesnais

July 13, 2006
Motion to Approve the June, 2006 minutes.
For: Barry (motion), White (second), Rockwood, Haley, McAfee, Jortner, Kilmer, Spencer, Cook

CAG Report (Jackie White)

SIGGRAPH 2006

John Finnegan reported that 2006 was a great success. Computer World was quoted as stating SIGGRAPH was spectacular. The total attendance was 19,764 with 230 exhibiting companies and 76 new exhibitors. John thanked everyone for their time and support.

The live broadcast of S2006 content to Tokyo was very successful. Thanks very much to Masa Inakage for his assistance in setting things up in Tokyo. The time difference seemed to be the biggest challenge. A full time Japanese translator (Manabu Sakurai) at E-Tech was a success.

MOTION: The SIGGRAPH 2006 conference was a resounding success, thanks to John Finnegan and the SIGGRAPH 2006 Conference Committee. (White (motion), Inakage (second), all in favor unanimous)

SIGGRAPH 2007

Joe Marks reported that he had a meeting with each of his program chairs and things are moving smoothly.

SIGGRAPH 2008

Jacquelyn Martino reported that she conducted 25-30 interviews over the week and ran a mini rev and mini wrap meeting (strategic brainstorming sessions about S2008) which proved successful. Thanks went out to the EC and she looks forward to the conference restructuring.

SIGGRAPH 2009

Ronan Barzel reported that some of his committee will most likely come from S2007.

Conference Reserve Fund (CRF) Proposals

Jackie White discussed the Conference Reserve Fund (CRF) proposal for the conference restructuring process. Funding of $63,000 for 5 meetings has been requested. The last meeting will probably include the conference contractors.

MOTION: CRF proposal for restructuring costs be approved (White (motion), Cook (second), all in favor unanimous)

The CRF for Customer Loyalty Survey was discussed. Jackie White reported that the last survey was conducted in 2000, but was focused on industry directions, not attendees.

MOTION: CRF for survey be approved (motion denied with discussion and recommendations)
The concerns that were mentioned were whether 6-8 phone calls are statistically significant. Jim Kilmer raised concerns on whether we are looking backwards and whether we should try and get information from possible future attendees rather than attendees who may have attended a couple of conferences. How would future attendees be determined? Everyone agreed that the intent is good, but would like further information and details on the plan. Scott Owen advised that the CAG should investigate paying for a detailed plan, analogous to an NSF planning grant.

EC Representative to the CAG

Rob Cook's position as EC representative to the CAG officially ended June 30, however due to an oversight his position was not replaced. Since the CAG is in the middle of an intense effort on Conference restructuring, it was decided that this was not a good time to change people.

MOTION: Rob Cook to continue one more year in his role as EC representative to the CAG (White (motion), Frey (second), all in favor unanimous)

Vice President Report (Alyn Rockwood)

SIGGRAPH in Asia

Alyn Rockwood reported that he met with several affiliated societies and reported positive feedback on the idea of a SIGGRAPH Conference in Asia. The Japanese professors present at the DCJA meeting were enthusiastic about this possibility.

ACTION: Scott Owen to setup a steering committee for further discussion on SIGGRAPH in ASIA, Alyn Rockwood to chair the committee.

Co-Located Events to SIGGRAPH 2006

APGV had an attendance of 90 and Sandbox (Video Game Symposium) had an attendance of 207. Tina Ziemek, the Sandbox conference manager, reported that the event was a great success. They received support from Sony, ETC, RIT and Harmonics. Sony offered additional support post conference. The Sandbox committee wants to co-locate with SIGGRAPH in 2007.

There are a large number of conferences and organizations requesting in cooperation status and in cooperation agreements. In cooperation and sponsored conferences require a better review process. 10-15 groups want to affiliate and have space in the ACM SIGGRAPH village. Scott Lang recommends a possible relationship tier structure. Jessica Wilmers advised Scott Lang to look at SIGPLAN and SIGMOBILES for in cooperation practices model.

ACTION: Scott Lang to work with Thierry Frey on posting benefits to societies having conferences in-cooperation with ACM SIGGRAPH.

ACTION: Scott Lang and Kirsten Cater to modify in cooperation agreement to state that a booth will be supplied only if requested. The booth must have a representative at the station during conference hours.

Communications Report (Mk Haley)

Mk Haley reported the Southeast Michigan Chapter wants to conduct web casting of their meeting. MK Haley secured a quote of $4,000. It was decided that this was too much money to pay for the experiment.

The Student Volunteers did a great job interviewing during the week of SIGGRAPH 2006.

MK Haley raised the issue of whether it is valuable for committee members to dedicate their time for booth duty or should there be a dedicated booth manager. Rick Barry mentioned that he talked to a couple of interested individuals that wanted to learn more about ACM SIGGRAPH. Some of the suggestions were a “Meet the EC” schedule posted near the booth so that individuals who have questions will have a better idea as to when they should stop by or a “Get Involved” in a more public forum. A question of whether or not the ACM, membership, and future year booth should be combined into one was raised.

A total of 534 surveys were collected and the survey will also go out as an email blast and in the E-Quarterly. The lobster keychain giveaways were a great success. The Job Fair in conjunction with CreativeHeads was well attended along with many of the career symposia.

Mk Haley reported that there have been some issues with our beta test social community software and that the company's response time on questions have been slow, however they are ready to go live with 400 student volunteers. Mathilda Czarnecka, SIGGRAPH 2007 student volunteer chair, is going to create an alumni program.

Education Committee Report (Rick Barry)

Rick Barry reported that the education meeting was held earlier in the week and a proposal was generated to better integrate the activities of the Education Committee and the Conference Educators Program. There is concern that education on the EC and at the conference are two distinct different activities even though Rick Barry proposes to integrate the two. Jackie White recommended to Rick Barry that he should speak with Jacquelyn Martino regarding S2008. Scott Owen advised Rick Barry to submit his proposal to the CAG for discussion.

ACTION: Jackie White to distribute the report to the CAG for discussion at the restructuring meeting in September.

Rick Barry reports that he plans on sending out a survey via Web Monkey. Jackie White suggests that there shouldn’t be more than 20-25 questions and recommends that Rick Barry secure advice from marketing media.

Chapters Report (Fran McAfee)

Fran McAfee mentioned that a DVD was produced over the course of the week, it will be distributed to the local chapters. The Chapters party reported the highest attendance in years, a total of 4200. The Chapters party integration with the fashion show was a success.

The proposed new structure for the chapters and membership issues was discussed earlier in the week at the chapters meeting, Fran McAfee received good feedback.
ACTION: Fran McAfee to post feedback and comments from the chapters meeting.

Fran discussed that he needs administrative help for the large amount of chapters administration.
ACTION: Fran McAfee to contact Lauren Ryan at ACM for support

Nominating Committee Report (Alain Chesnais)

The Nominating committee conducted numerous interviews during the week and Alain Chesnais reported that there are some very strong candidates. The following positions are up for the June election: Director of Communication, Director for Chapters, and Director at Large.

One of the questions the Nominating Committee asked in the interviews was what the potential candidates like best and least about ACM SIGGRAPH. The answer to the Best was “People”. The answer to the least was “capacity of the structure to be effective”.

Alain Chesnais recommended that prior to elections Scott Owen send out a letter to the members on the importance of voting. Last year it was possible that e-voting emails and instructions got lost in spam filters so a suggestion was made to post the instructions on the ACM SIGGRAPH page. Gregg Talley recommended a town hall meeting within the chapters to try and get a better voter turnout.

Publication Report (Stephen Spencer)

Stephen Spencer reports that ACM SIGGRAPH and Eurographics are working to faithfully implement the terms of the existing cooperation agreement.

The full conference DVD will be mailed out post conference through Sheridan. There was a delay in the processing of the Paper's Video files and Discmakers was unable to produce DVD’s prior to the conference date.
ACTION: Jessica Wilmers to work with expo exchange on securing an appropriate mailing list
ACTION: Jessica Wilmers and Gregg Talley to supply a list of potential vendors for future work.

A discussion was held on what needs to be done in order to ensure having the DVD on site. There is great concern since this is the second consecutive year this has happened. Stephen Spencer reported that deadlines have been moved up to accommodate possible delays. Jackie White requested that better communication may help and if there is any risk in delay that it be reported as quickly as possible so that the conference can prepare accordingly.

Thierry Frey reported that the course notes were placed on line during the Conference., however there was some delay as there are too many people involved in the process. Thierry Frey will make sure that key volunteers are in constant communication to make this process smoother.

Rob Cook raised a concern about ACM copyright policy. Specifically, can a paper author hold both a third party and first party copyright. The issue comes up in regard to images and/or snippets of computer code created by the author. Currently, if a copy right is held by a third party, such as a film company, ACM does not have copyright control. But if the image/code is produced by the author of the paper. then the author loses copy right control of that to ACM.

Motion: ACM SIGGRAPH recommends to the ACM Publications Board that if an author wishes to retain copyright to an object embedded in one of their papers, they be able to do so, even if that copyright owner is also the author or their employer (Cook (motion), Rockwood (second), 10 in favor, Spencer abstain)

Finance Committee Report

Scott Owen reappointed the finance committee for FY 2007 which consists of the treasurer (as Chair), President, and Vice President.
Jeff Jortner reminded everyone that the FY 2008 budget is coming due.
ACTION: Jeff Jortner to send out reminders to committee with FY 2008 budget time line

Miscellaneous Issues

Jeff Jortner suggested a direct link on the ACM SIGGRAPH home page to the ACM Digital Library, since our members have free access to all ACM SIGGRAPH related material in the Digital Library. He also suggested implementing a better site map.

The question was raised as to why it takes 3 months for the SIGGRAPH Video Review (SVR) to be delivered when ordered in the ACM E-Store. Alain Chesnais mentioned that the SVR can be ordered through Amazon with a 6-8 week delivery window; however it is only available at the non member rate.
ACTION: Jessica Wilmers to follow up with ACM HQ on the appropriate process.

Scott Owen requested that anyone who received input or feedback regarding the restructuring of EC email him for further discussion at the EC meeting in September.

Motion to Adjourn at 3:15: By Acclamation.