Lessons Learned about Planning CI Days Events

The following paragraphs provide details of what worked well, what didn't work as well as we had hoped, and what we think would have helped us be more successful.

Venue

• Clemson University's Madren Conference Center is convenient to campus and a lovely, spacious environment. The staff is competent and their service is reliable. However, the demands of CI Days required upgrades to the wireless network and additional Ethernet cabling to provide the level of connectivity expected at such an event. We also set up temporarily the technology necessary for a faculty member to demonstrate how he used Access Grid with five display screens when teaching at Dalhousie. The time, talent, and money expended to create the technology environment we needed was a wise decision.
• Reserving a small meeting room that served as an office for the event was critical to our success. We were able to safely store door prizes, materials, personal possessions, computers, etc., and we had a printer just in case we needed additional materials.
• The close proximity of the Madren Center meant more people could attend the event, but it also meant they were freer to leave as well. A lot of faculty and administrators came to sessions between their meetings and other obligations on campus. This scenario created some difficulties in other areas: door prizes and food. Too often when we called someone's name to come forward and receive a door prize, that person had just run to a meeting or had to go teach and would be back later. We definitely needed another way to award door prizes. Many attendees knew when they registered that they would only be able to attend certain sessions or days. We did not have any way for them to indicate that information on the registration. As a result, we had almost 100 box lunches leftover on the last day. A program committee member made arrangements for the lunches to be delivered to a non-profit organization where people in need of a nutritious lunch appreciated the good food. The food was not wasted, but if we had requested specific information about attendance, we could have avoided the expense.
• Having one person who is the contact for the event planner helps eliminate confusion, but two more people may be needed. We had one person who was the contact for the caterer at the venue and another person who was the contact for all AV/IT at the venue.

Agenda

• The poster session was a huge success. We had more than 30 posters and demonstrations by faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and IT staff. The layout of the ballroom (actually three ballrooms opened into one) was enough space to accommodate all the posters, food stations, and a few round tables where people could sit to eat if necessary. Our goal was to keep people on their feet, moving from poster to poster and talking with people they had not met before or don't get to see often. The festive atmosphere created by the excellent food and interesting conversations led many to mention that the poster session was the most rewarding part of the event. People were amazed by the breadth and depth of work that is happening at Clemson and thoroughly enjoyed the evening. But the poster session was not without flaws. We had one faculty member whose name was missed when compiling the list of posters, and because we requested digital copies of all posters (for the website), this same person expected to arrive and find the poster printed and mounted. If we had created an online database application where those presenting posters could have entered their own information and uploaded their poster file, we would not have missed anyone and we could have allowed presenters to indicate if they would bring their printed poster with them or if they wanted us to print their poster for them, thus avoiding any confusion.
• A combination of national and local speakers worked well for us. No one was invited to speak without high recommendations from people familiar with their work and/or their public speaking.
• Reports from the breakout sessions were mediocre. Opinions on why vary. Some thought the groups were too large for meaningful discussion where everyone has a chance to contribute. Others thought the facilitators needed more time to assemble, organize, synthesize, and present the materials. Probably, the solution involves both those possibilities.
• Birds of a Feather did not work but nobody seemed to care.

Audio Visual

• We used a contractor in addition to services available through Clemson's Communications Center and our own IT staff. Everyone worked well together and we were able to provide everything we planned: streaming video on the web and into the overflow room, immediate vodcasts in iTunes U, video recording that was later edited and then replaced the poorer quality immediate vodcasts, and two large screens in the primary room. We also video recorded the demonstration of teaching with Access Grid and made it available in iTunes U.
• With individual presentations, panel discussions, and audience participation, we needed a variety of microphones. We had a microphone at a lectern for individual presentations, six microphones set up at a long table for panels, and two wireless, handheld microphones (Phil Donohue style) for audience participation. Everything worked as we planned. Note that we had two people charged with quickly taking the microphones to audience members.

Evaluations

• At the end of the first day of presentations, we distributed a paper evaluation with questions for Clemson faculty, Clemson staff, Clemson students, and those representing other institutions/organizations. Their answers gave us a good view of what we had accomplished so far and where we needed to focus. But we had not planned how we might integrate what we learned from those evaluations into the next day of the event.  The schedule was tightly packed for the last day, but perhaps we could have set aside a few minutes to comment on the evaluations.
• We planned for another evaluation at the end of the event. It was only a blank piece of paper. We intended to ask everyone to reflect on their experience at the event. Our thinking was that we would already know many of the highs and lows of the event, but we would not know what the attendees were thinking if we didn't give them a chance to tell us. This idea was agreed upon at the last minute and we forgot to ask people to do the writing. We needed to have that last-minute piece of information in the detailed agenda/script.
• We also decided the day the event began that we could use MessageGrid, a web-based application created by Clemson's School of Computing Associate Professor Roy Pargas. Users can enter text, images, digital ink, etc., in the cell of a grid. Our last-minute thought was that people could enter questions and comments about specific sessions, the overall event, their own CI needs or ideas. We could then respond to their entries quickly and effectively. Unfortunately, we repeatedly forgot to tell the audience about it.  The lesson learned is to remember to add last-minute additions to the detailed agenda/script.
• The primary lesson learned about evaluations is to develop the plan early enough for it to be included in the detailed agenda/script that the emcee uses to stay on track from beginning to end.

Pre-Event Workshops

• We offered training workshops the first day, before the poster session that evening. These were held in a training lab on campus, were well attended, and quite successful. However, a lot of rushing around was happening behind the scenes.  We forgot about attendees needing parking permits to be on campus, and we decided at the last minute we should serve some refreshments at the workshops. We managed to solve both issues successfully, but planning these things early in the process would have reduced stress and workload for several people.

Communication

• A lot of work went into communicating information about CI Days at Clemson University. Print materials (such as post cards and bulletin board posters), the website, templates, video of the IT Center, video of welcoming remarks of two vice presidents, signage, publications - all of those many pieces, as well as the eye-catching graphic, contributed to the success of the event.  To see some of the materials, click here.

Committee

• We had 12 people on the program committee, but many more people were working fulltime on the event before it was over. Administrators need to understand how much work this kind of event really is and be prepared to acknowledge that work. Jim Bottum wrote a personal thank you note to each person who contributed to the event and held a lovely, off-campus luncheon for all contributors, from undergraduate students who schlepped computers from campus to the Madren Center to his executive director who had at least a dozen employees working on the event in some capacity.

Event Documentation

• Having someone from outside the university attend the event to observe and document everything is a good idea. Program committee members of course made mental notes of things that were happening or not happening, but knowing that someone was creating an official record of the event allowed us to relax and focus on the immediate things in front of us. The person had a reserved seat where we were sure he would be able to hear and see what was happening, a wired network connection, and access to anyone on the program committee. He also joined the program committee (via phone and listserv) so he knew most of the members at least by voice and email before he arrived on campus. He also arrived early enough to spend time with the committee chair to get a better understanding of Clemson and with CIO Jim Bottum for final questions. His deliverables were written proceedings, a glossary of terms, and contributions to the post-project review.