The conference needed to change dramatically. It was also important not to ignore the
conference successes when making changes. The increased fees are part of that change.

First I will review the history and second discuss the specifics of 2006. I?ll also address
the student fees and finally present an overview of conference expenses.

However, I want to begin by apologizing to the community at large for not providing
some earlier notice of the planned increase in fees. Such a warning would have provided
more opportunity for people to plan.

Background:

It became clear in 2003 that the conference needed to change.

* CHI 2002 and CHI 2003 had collectively lost 600K which effectively wiped out the
SIGCHI fund balance and put the overall status of the SIG in jeopardy. This was
dramatic change from years past when the conference had contributed to the overall
financial health of the society.

* The tutorials program had been shrinking for several years. While it had contributed
significantly conference surplus in years past, that too had disappeared.

* An ever increasing number of submissions had resulted in acceptance
rates for submission dropping to arbitrarily low levels. Everyone recognized the
importance of maintaining the high quality of the accepted papers in the CHI
proceedings. However, acceptance rates had gotten so low that a case could be made
that acceptance ran the risk of becoming a semi-random process.

* Diversity of participation was at risk with sponsors, practitioners, designers, and non-
traditional researchers (e.g. ethnographers) leaving. While we had a loyal following,
almost half the people who attended the conference each year were new attendees.

Response:

The first step was to reduce costs and preserve as of the value of the conference. We cut
costs very aggressively, removing hundreds of thousands in expenses. To address the
concerns regarding the right ?cut? point for accepting submissions, CHI 2004 raised the
target threshold for number of papers accepted; this was continued for CHI 2005. CHI
2005 continued aggressive cost cutting and saw an increase in attendance which lead to
small surplus. However small and focused changes were not going to address all the
issues that had arisen. We needed to make significant changes to the conference while
preserving its strengths. For 2006 we did the following:

* We continued strong support for the technical elements of the conference, by: adding
software to support the reviewing process, continuing to support a large papers review
meeting (albeit cutting some travel funds). We added Notes which provides for a
shorter and more-targeted submissions. We also extended the duration of the
conference to four days which allows for more technical content.

* We eliminated traditional tutorials and their fees and replaced them with courses which
were embedded into the conference and had a new more flexible structure and only
nominal fee. Part of the long term intent is to provide a venue for ?short? courses
which may cover new areas of research and practice.

* We added a evening reception and job fair to serve anyone looking for job but aimed
particularly at students

* We increased our outreach to a range of communities including design, education,
engineering, management, and research. It?s important to point out here that broader
participation in the conference benefits everyone. It provides a greater audience for
every accepted work, it opens opportunities for cross fertilization, it serves the
society goal of advancing the field, and it spreads the fixed costs of the conference
more widely.

Student fees.

The increase in student fees is particularly painful and it was a decision we made very reluctantly. Here is some of the background for it

* The data shows, that we kept increases for students to a minimum for a number of
years despite increased costs and massive losses.

* The proportion of students attending the conference has been increasing dramatically
in the last few years. This is great.

* Historically, fees paid by other attendees and tutorial fees had helped support keeping
student fees low.

* Taken together an increasing proportion of students and a low student fee were
unsustainable.

* This year we more than doubled the number of student volunteers and we are
increasing their housing support.

We regret the hardship for people who cannot afford to attend. For those who need to
choose between attending CHI and attending other conferences, we urge you to take a
careful look at the entire program (courses, technical content, job fair) and then make a
decision regarding the whether or not to attend. We hope you will find sufficient value.

Attendance:

To provide some further data regarding attendance, here is some data on registration to as of 8-Mar

* 671 (39%) are ACM members paying full early reg fee
* 560 (32%) are students paying full early reg fee
* 326 (19%) are non members paying early reg fees
* Other categories are 5% or less

These numbers are quite positive. The number of students registering is exceeding our projections, which is good.

Expenses:

In addition, some people have raised concerns about the costs of the conference. While
we have made significant cuts in the overall conference budget, it?s worth providing data
on how the conference dollars are spent (these are direct expenses only and don?t
represent percentage return allocated to cover ACM and SIGCHI?s expenses)
:

* 40% represents facilities costs (space, av, computing etc)
* 26% represents food and beverage costs (break food, reception etc)
* 16% represents all committee expenses (including all meetings, etc)
* 10% represents publications (including conference proceedings and program, etc.)
* 6% represent technical program (including reviewing software and courses, etc.)

I should point out that these are dollar costs only. We have a much more socially and
financially significant contribution from all the volunteers on the conference committee,
all the reviewers, the Executive Committee, the Conference Management Committee, the
sponsors, the course instructors, all those who submit to the conference and all those who
attend.

Volunteer:
Finally, I would urge anyone and everyone to get directly involved. CHI is a volunteer
organization and conferences are designed and run by volunteers. The strategy of the
society and the conferences is set by volunteers. The conference is a partnership of the
volunteers, the attendees, and the society as whole. It is nothing other than what we (yes
YOU) make it.. As a first concrete step I would urge any and everyone to attend the
SIGCHI business meeting on Wed evening. In the meantime, I welcome any and all
feedback.

SIGGRAPH has a massive tradeshow that (if run correctly) brings in a ton of money from exhibitors. CHI has never had even close to that kind of exhibit floor, and the CHI attendees have said repeatedly that they don’t want it. And there’s a price to pay for that.

I will completely grant you, however, that complementary and discounted registration are a great way to make sure that you attract an audience.

Don’t worry, I don’t feel blamed. Personally, I blame the CHI community, which vacillates between trying to be so broadly inclusive as to deny itself any kind of defining character, and trying to tear itself apart through infighting between the polar opposites (researchers vs. practitioners, psychologists vs. designers, formal models vs. empiricists). The community doesn’t know what it wants to be, and the leadership is unwilling to take a stand one way or another. At least the chair of CHI 2006 decided to try creating real discipline-based tracks, so that you can find a community of kindred souls and content that it important to you. You don’t have to stick to the track that was designed for your discipline, but it’s there if you want it.

The one constant in the universe is that no one is ever happy with the CHI conference. Including me.

Don’t get me wrong – i didn’t expect CHI to be free. But i did have an understanding of costs based on last year and was completely shocked when i went to register.

I totally understand that this is a complex puzzle and i’m not blaming you or Rob or anyone, but i think that it needs to be publicly acknowledged that there are consequences to this move. If CHI wants to be a professional conference, by all means, go for it. But if it’s meant to be the academic center of HCI, and if HCI is meant to be interdisciplinary, this is very problematic. Remember, most social science national conferences cost about $50 for students who are utterly shocked when they think of attending CHI.

I did say “in most cases” — there are certainly people who crash on friends’ couches.

SIGGRAPH lost lots of money over a stretch of years — into the millions. CHI definitely lost money for a few years, though not as much as SIGCHI. There was a point when well over 25% of the attendees at CHI got complimentary registration, too. When CHI cut back on comp registration several years back, there were tons of complaints, amazingly enough from people who essentially had no justification for free registration other than that they had the boldness to ask (not implying that you are one of those). But at a conference where participation is encouraged and a significant fraction of the attendees present, it’s very easy to end up in a situation where hardly anyone is paying. When I was co-chair of CHI 96, this was a major pain for everyone.

These changes were made with a ton of customer input and feedback. The organizers knew that it wouldn’t please everyone, of course.

Funny thing: practitioners can get funding to go to the tutorials but not the conference. Academics can tend to get funding for the conference but not the tutorials.

By the way, in most cases travel + hotel costs are far more than conference costs.