ACM Chapter Workshop - November 19, Chicago

On Saturday, November 19th, I spent the day with other ACM local chapter leaders. We met with ACM staff and talked about how we can work together better. I guess it was an historic event - it has been over a decade since ACM staff and local leaders had gotten together. I was there representing ACM's newest revitalized chapter, NWOACM.

Local chapters and their representatives:

• Atlanta SIGCHI (CHI*ATLANTA) - Molly Stevens
• Chicago SIGCHI (CHI-Squared) - Brian Maggi
• Ft. Lauderdale SIGGRAPH - Markus Vogl
• Greater Boston - Peter Mager
• Greater Dayton - Bill Davis
• Los Angeles - John Halbur
• Los Angeles SIGGRAPH - Sharon Eisenberg
• Minneapolis/St. Paul SIGGRAPH - Murray Holloway, Susan Holloway
• New York City SIGGRAPH - Michael Hosenfeld
• Northwest Ohio (NWOACM) - Keith Instone
• Portland SIGCHI (CHIFOO) - Anne DeRidder
• Poughkeepsie - Bill Collier
• Princeton (Princeton Joint Chapters - ACM / IEEE Computer Society) - Dennis Mancl
• Rocky Mountain SIGGRAPH - Monika May
• San Diego - Peter Fryscak
• San Francisco Bay Area - Martin Stein, Greg Weinstein
• San Francisco SIGCHI (BayCHI) - Steve Williams
• Silicon Valley SIGGRAPH - Ken Turkowski
• Syracuse - Phil Murray
• Washington DC/Baltimore SIGAda - Thomas Panfil

ACM representatives (staff and volunteers):

• John White, CEO
• Pat Ryan, COO
• Lillian Israel, Director of membership
• Terry Coatta, Chair, Membership services board
• Steve Teicher, Membership services board
• Wayne Graves, Director of Information Systems
• Lauren Ryan, Local activities coordinator

I'll have to go thru my notes later and summarize, but one thing that struck me was that several of the things we local leaders were asking ACM (wikipedia) for were already available in some form. We just did not know about them, could not find them, or they were too hard to use. Let me point out a few of them in the short term just to help us all see what ACM is already doing to help local chapters.

• Wiki, blogs, mail, etc. - local chapters can use ACM resources for their web site and mailing lists
• MemberNet - online publication where local chapter news can be shared
• Professional chapter listings - find general interest and SIG chapters, by state / country
• Local activities calendar - local leaders can submit their events, but the calendar is not very useful until we can have local views (e.g., show me all of the events within 100 miles of Toledo, Ohio)
• Distinguished lecture program - get ACM to pay for a great speaker at your local chapter (a new program is in the works)
• More 'for' and 'about' local chapters - includes link to admin user interface, where local chapters can manage membership lists

Stay tuned for more, especially after the final report is issued.