Heiner Stüttgen (Director Conference Development ) stuttgen@neclab.eu

1. On Regional Conferences, Incubatorsand small meetings/workshopsExtending ComSoc Conference Portfolio OpCom 9/2011 - Venice Heiner Stüttgen (Director Conference Development) stuttgen@neclab.eu IEEE Communications Society

2. Content • Update on Portfolio • Including surplus reqs for small meetings • Update on new conferences • Some Discussion Items on Regional Conferences • Including discussion on cooperation model and surplus requirements IEEE Communications Society

3. Portfolio Status by Classes I Flagship: • Large conference cvovering most of ComSoc's Technical Scope • Supported by most of ComSoc's TCs • Co-located with ComSoc Governance Meetings Core Conferences: • Significant event - regularly well above 100 attendees • International based target audience   • Long-term life cycle  • Covers subset (but not all) of ComSoc Technical Scope Small Conferences and Workshops • regularly below 100 attendees focusing on a more narrow technical scope • Event often driven by one TC although involvement by other TCs possible Incubator • New, “Start-up" events in their first 1 or 2 years, • shall move to other category after 2 completed events Technically co-sponsored Events • substantial involvement by ComSoc volunteers and TCs • no financial involvement by ComSoc IEEE Communications Society

4. Portfolio Status by Classes II (Financially) Co-Sponsored Conferences • Facilitates collaboration with other societies having fields of interest overlapping with ComSoc • Any size from small to very very big Regional Conference • Conference Occurs always in a Specific Region (Country) • Involvement of IEEE Sections and Chapters, TCs, and ComSoc sister society preferred Open Discussion points Each class has its specific objectives and focus and possibly a different set of rules. For instance, surplus requirements (20%) can vary by class, i.e. • Incubators should try to target 10%, but realistically we may happy if we don‘t loose money. • Similarly for small workshops, a small (10%) surplus target maybe more appropriate here. • It is under discussion wheher we need a special „meetings“ class, where no financial involvement by ComSoc M&C is required (and no surplus) • Discuss motion for BOG2 in Houston at this meeting (classes, surplus requirements) IEEE Communications Society

5. TCS Events I. Conference Categories Co-Sponsored Confs Regional Workshops Core Events Flag-ships + Incubators IEEE Communications Society

6. Portfolio Status (provided by Merrily) IEEE Communications Society

7. Portfolio Status – cont. IEEE Communications Society

8. Objectives when growing our Portfolio • Serving more members in different dimensions • new technical areas will be picked up by ComSoc TCs more or less automatically grow current community i.e. alternative delivery, e.g. online cover more regions i.e. China, India, etc serve new communitiesi.e.industry, standards, etc IEEE Communications Society

9. New Conference Activities – Grow in Regions • Comsnet • 4th time January 2012 • TCS status for 2012 • Cold be suitable target for a „regional ComSoc Conference in India“ • Merrily, Bruce, Heiner would like Vijay to get involved in discussion – target would be 51%-49% partnership with ComsNet Association • Need to clarify status of ComsNet Assoc. - http://comsnets-association.org/ • ICCC • IEEE International Conference on Communications in China (ICCC2012) • Time and Venue: 18-21 September 2012, Beijing, China • Sponsorship: ComSoc (100%), CIC (TCS) • http://www.ieee-iccc.org/ • Naming issue to be resolved for the future - more later IEEE Communications Society

10. New Conferences– Alternative Delivery • GreenCom • First ComSoc Online Conference – Sept 26-27 2011 (next week) • 25 papers selected out of 50 submissions • 3 keynotes • NO patrons – despite earlier positive feedback • Detailed evaluation by Roberto, Gerhard, Jürgene and Heiner after 1st event before GC’11 IEEE Communications Society

11. New Conferences – New Communities • 4G World • Collaboration with Yankee Group to provide technical content on their 4G World trade fair • Adam Drobot/John Pape in the driver seat So far not much progress, see below: The Yankee folks are quite interested in participation from IEEE Comsoc for next years conference - 2012. They have identified the topics of interest. The basic conference is business oriented, and what I heard from the Yankee, there is a hunger for more technical content. The business arrangement would have the format of a co-located conference with the registration and arrangements handled by Yankee. I will send you more in the next few days. There is another opportunity with TIA. They held a conference in Dallas this year called "Inside the Network". They would be interested in participation from IEEE Comsoc in 2012 on a similar basis as the Yankee Group. This was well attended by the service providers and the major equipment vendors. • Women's Workshop on Communications and Signal Processing • Katie driving • Small meeting – can we group it with workshops or do we need a separate category for this type of meeting • Intially „incubator“ – how to deal with financials later IEEE Communications Society

12. New Conferences – New Communities • SIIT • Standardization and Innovation in Information Technology(“Meta Standardization Conference) • Next event in Berlin end of September • Alex proposed to acquire – discussion with conference committee pending • Alex then decided to propose to IEEE SA to acquire IEEE Communications Society

13. Regional Conference Regional (recap from Kyoto) • Extend ComSoc Reach • Conference Occurs always in a Specific Region (Country) • Conference titles derived from a flagship or core conference, must include the name of the region (country) in the conference title but may include "international“ e.g. IEEE Communications Conference in <region> - following the ICC/GLOBECOM • Involvement of IEEE Sections and Chapters, TCs, and ComSoc sister society preferred • Objective is membership development (may co-locate RCCCs, governance meetings) • Main target is new members in that region - conference attendance expected to be greater than 50% from that region (country) • May Include new program elements to promote community building • Varying levels of ComSoc Project Management • Surplus requirement target may depend on strength of region, partnership model, project management needs – 0 or 10% (developing regions: LA, Africa, SE-Asia), 20% developed regions (North America, Europe, Japan, Pacific IEEE Communications Society

14. Regional Conferences – Items for Discussions • possibly followed by motion at OpCom • How to involve, partner with or control other IEEE and non-IEEE entities? • Always involve Regions, Chapters, Sister Societies? • Preferred model: 51% share for ComSoc to avoid any discussions on rules e.g. Review requirements, acceptance rates, papers from chairs, etc.But: do we insist on 51% share? • How to avoid different (local) levels of quality standards? Xplore access is included. • How to avoid competition between multiple organizers – long term MoU? • Note: regions and chapters can sponsor communications conferences without ComSoc‘s approval, even in competition with ComSoc! • Fred Bauer reports that this discussion is also led at the IEEE level. • We cannot force them to play by our rules! • Consequently we must find an attractive model for them to see benefit in cooperation • If we can show several successful examples, this may yet become the IEEE model • Different level of surplus requirements for different regions? • Realistically we can not expect to organize a conference in economically deprived region and draw a profit from it • If it is a membership development activitiy, we should do it for long term benefit, not for short term profit • Are we willing to go for 0 or 10%? • Should we ask for a „ramp-up“ plan to 20% IEEE Communications Society