To: ozsoy@alpha.ces.cwru.edu, hanson@cise.ufl.edu,
    franklin@uffish.cs.umd.edu, levell@hq.acm.org
From: rts@cs.arizona.edu (Richard Snodgrass)
X-url: http://www.cs.arizona.edu/people/rts
Subject: draft minutes
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 97 16:50:03 -0700
Sender: rts
X-Mts: smtp

Meral, Eric, Mike and Heather,
	Here are preliminary minutes. Please send corrections. See questions in
[brackets].

Thanks,

Rick
**********
Attendees: Rick, Meral, Eric, Mike, and Heather

We met from 9:30am to 5:45pm in a conference room in the Computer Science
Department at the University of Maryland, with everyone present for most of
the discussion. Mike and the Department were kind enough to provide lunch
and a cookie break to meet faculty and students.

...

* Membership initiatives

Declining membership is a major problem.

Eric listed several possible initiatives.

	- membership drive
	- SIGMOD posters, like SIGGraph
	- Regional student scholarships
	- Get more members from industry
	- Get industrial sponsors
	- co-locate with an industrial vendor show

Meral listed some possible initiatives.

	- promote SIGMOD to undergrad students and student groups
	- increase web page

We then went to lunch. These initiatives need to be discussed further via
email.

Rick proposed what was termed a "radical plan":

	- make the web page more of a "publication", with an Editor in Chief
		and an Editorial Board. Rationale: publishing info via
		the web is where things are going; we need to distribute
		this effort; titles and prestige are our currency to pay
		volunteers

	- produce an "Anthology" CDRom of all past SIGMOD (and perhaps
		PODS) conference papers, digitizing the images and
		allowing full-text search, at a cost of $10-20K. This CDRom
		would be given to all current members, and would be used
		to promote new members. There would be an Editor of this
		on-time publication (similar to the Proceedings Editor).
		We anticipate that this material would eventually be
		donated to the ACM Digital Library. (Late breaking news:
		ACM has donated the current SIGMOD/PODS digitized
		conferences to this CDRom.) IBM and Microsoft were
		identified as possible sponsors; ideally this would involve
		no cost to SIGMOD.

	- supplement with a yearly "SIGMOD Annum" CDRom with current
		conference papers, demo software, talks from the
		conference (e.g., in powerpoint), etc. to be distributed inside
		Sept issue of SIGMOD record, as a continuing enticement to
		retain members. This publication would have an EIC and
		Editorial Board. Content would come primarily from the
		current conference people: proceedings editor, demo chair,
		tutorial chair

This plan was adopted, subject to further development and budgeting
decisions, with the following changes.

	- The SIGMOD web is now "SIGMOD Online". It will have an "Information
		Director" and possibly one or more "Associate Information
		Directors". It will not overlap the material in SIGMOD
		Record (which will be a separate part of SIGMOD Online).
		The ID and SIGMOD Record EIC will coordinate to ensure
		each understands the division of responsibility. The SIGMOD
		(and PODS?) proceedings will be free to SIGMOD members, and
		will be put on the web in mid-March, several months *before*
		the actual conference, so that attendees can read some of
		the papers and come better prepared for technical discussions.
		In general, in SIGMOD Online, tables of contents will be
		world-readable, but recent (and hence more valuable)
		information, a year or less old, would only be readable by
		SIGMOD members, as an enticement for continuing membership.

	- The SIGMOD Annum will have an "Editor" (not EIC) as well as
		Assistant Editors (or other similar title).

...