Pawan's input and suggestions

Pawan had sent his input and suggestions during the HFES meeting. I realized that we did not get a chance to review all of the items during the ITG business meeting. I am reproducing part of his email below -

For the ITG meeting, I'd like to propose the following:

1. Get nominations for the following positions: ITG president, Program Chair, and Newsletter Editor. I'll set up the Website to do a vote next month. And I'd like to nominate Gavin Lew for the ITG President position.

2. If possible, I'd like to see if anyone is willing to sponsor the ITG conference. We haven't had one in a while... and it'd be good to get started again. My company would be willing to co-sponsor it if we can find another co-sponsor.

3. I am still spending a few hours every week to post the jobs on the Website. Currently I post at least 5 positions a week. I am hoping to spend some time in a few weeks to automate this.

4. People are still registering on our website... I have stopped keeping a count! I will formalize it a little more, if we find a need.

5. We need some passionate members to revive ITG. I just started my company about 2 years ago... and we're growing, so I am quite occupied and don't have enough bandwidth to do a good job! But I'll continue to support the website and the job bank.

6. I think the blog was a good idea, but I don't see a lot of activity. Please e-mail me the details and I'll post it on the ITG Website... perhaps that will get us some traffic to the blog.

7. We need to revive the newsletter... and need a good newsletter editor. I can help in putting it up on the Website, but need someone to take the lead in putting it all together. I'd like to Nominate Marc Resnick and/or Ajoy for the position.

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copyright 2004 ITG membership. all product names, websites, brands and articles referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners.

ITG Brochure

I noticed that ITG did not have a brochure for distribution at the HFES Central booth. I spoke to Marc about it, and volunteered to draft something up. I'll post it here for review and edits in a few days.. I'm hoping we can get it done and sent on to HF as soon as possible.

Ajoy
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copyright 2004 ITG membership. all product names, websites, brands and articles referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners.

isn't networking great !!!

Isn’t networking great? When I got to the Human Factors Conference last Monday, I accomplished more in the first 24 hours than I usually do in a month. For example:

1. I bumped into a usability engineer I had met at a previous conference and got a lead on a consulting gig for his company.
2. I met an old colleague who is writing a book and we discussed me perhaps co-authoring it with him.
3. I met a contact from NASA who may be able to use my help on a project in January.
4. I bumped into a usability engineer who I have known for several years and mentioned that I would be in his city next month. He asked me to give a presentation to his group, which could possibly lead to a future collaboration.
5. I met a Canadian consultant who may be able to introduce me to some Canadian companies with expertise that I need.
6. In a hallway discussion with my grad school advisor, he gave me the contact information for a Korean lab that is working on something I am also trying to do. I never even thought to ask him.
   

I also helped out a few people:

1. I found out a student chapter needed help creating some marketing materials and I offered to help.
2. I asked a colleague to apply for a job at my institution, and he decided to apply.
3. I found a summer internship for one of my students.
4. I helped a student at another school decide on a grad school to attend.
   

And all this was just on the first day!! On the other hand, there are some things that go nowhere. At one lunch I attended, I spend 90 minutes talking to a guy about a potential project and he wouldn’t even give me the time of day. And who knows what will happen with the 10 items listed above. But it was worth the five days in Orlando if even one or two come through !!

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copyright 2004 ITG membership. all product names, websites, brands and articles referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners.

Human Factors Conference Report

At the Human Factors and Ergonomics Conference, the Internet Technical Group Business Meeting was held and we discussed a bunch of issues related to the TG. Here is a brief summary of what was discussed. I hope that we can generate some strong interest in submitting content for next year's conference. It is a great venue (see below).

1. We had a small, but high quality program this year. The papers were all excellent. I recommend to anyone practicing in the area of Internet HF to read the papers in the Proceedings.

2. For next year, we are currently soliciting submission proposals. The conference is in San Francisco, so it is convenient for you west-coasters and a great place to visit for us in the East or Central. There are a wide variety of submission types (lectures, panels, demonstrations, etc). One of my jobs for the conference overall is to re-engineer the submission types to be clearer and to make them better fit what people want to submit. I will keep our discussion at the TG meeting in mind as I do this.

2a) Lectures - these can be research studies, case studies, new tool descriptions, field studies, or really anything else you can talk about in 15-20 minutes.

2b) Full session (90 minutes) submissions. These can be panel discussions on a general theme, invited addresses of very prestigious people, demonstrations of new technologies, poster presentations where you can interact with other attendees, or special meeting requests where you want to create a real work product like a book outline or a grant proposal. Since next year is the 50th Anniversary of the Conference, the powers that be are hoping to get more of these. So feel free to be creative and submit something innovative.

2c) Workshops or Tutorials. These are half- or full-day sessions that you get paid for. They are supposed to teach a valuable skill to attendees.

As part of our discussion, we talked about co-sponsoring with other groups on content that is in another domain but using the Internet channel. For example, Internet-based health information systems or web-based education. If you want to participate in this, let me know.

Another specific request was a session on email types (mobile, web, corporate). If you or someone you know can talk about the human factors of these, let me know.

Another final specific request was for usability of document types (PDF, MS office, etc) for sharing information. Again, let me know if you want to participate or know someone else who may.

One last thing we talked about was strengthening our mailing list. Please send Pawan Vora (pawanvora@msn.com) to get your email added. This is a great resource for us and we should use it more.

If you have any questions about anything else related to the ITG, please let me know. You can reach me at resnickm@fiu.edu or (305) 348-3537.


Marc


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copyright 2004 ITG membership. all product names, websites, brands and articles referenced are the copyright or trademark of their respective owners.