ORF 2009 - Second Organizational Meeting

Greetings:

Fair Isaac has been kind enough to provide a clear land-line with an 800 number call-in for most countries. Please use the applicable 800 number below with the appropriate access code.

+ 800 867 8062 (USA)
+ 800 0030 6406 (International)
Access code for call in: 9187008
See https://g8.cfer.com/g8.jsp?an=8008678062&ac=4466003&login=true for all of the call-in numbers

We're changing the time a bit to make it easier for our European counterparts to participate. Unfortunately, this makes it really early for AU, Japan, Hawaii, etc. but so far we haven't had anyone wanting to call in from there so until someone tells me differently, we don't have a problem.

Friday, January 30th
8:00 a.m. PST (San Jose etc)
10:00 a.m. CST (Chicago etc)
11:00 a.m. EST (NYC etc)
4:00 p.m. UK
5:00 p.m. France and Germany
3:00 a.m. Saturday (AU and parts of Asia)

Here's the problem: How technical can we become without losing attendees and/or sponsors? I would like to have seen more code and far less "typical PPT" screen presentations last time but that isn't what we got. Also, if we're going to have a Conference Proceedings publication, then we need "real" white papers. We need some talks on Prolog, Rete++, Hyper-Rete, performance enhancement methods, what makes life easier for the KE (Knowledge Engineer), etc. Rule-Based Forecasting will delve into what you forgot about statistics. What about Neural Nets married to a rulebase?

Also, the tutorial idea is good but we need to discuss if the vendors can do that or should we arrange for a separate time for that. Personally, I think that we can do the tutorial part with just Rolando, Larry, myself and one or two others on Monday morning, and start the "real" conference on Monday afternoon and finish up Friday noon. If the vendors want to do "full blown" demos then maybe we can arrange for them to be doing that in another room near the conference as a second "track" kind of thing.

Location: The votes are 11 for Dallas and 11 for France. (I voted for France.) However, from a practical point of view the exchange rate will probably put it back in Dallas. Also, if anyone so desires, they can go directly from ORF to BRF. This is especially helpful for our European attendees and it has been one of their many requests. (But, consider, that our conference is for the technical guys and BRF is more for business guys - not the same audience at all.)

We expect the group call this Friday to last only about an hour but here is a tentative agenda of topics:

Start on Monday with Tutorials and Monday afternoon with Conference?
Conference on TWT or WTF
(TWTF stopping Friday Noon?)
Abstracts are due April 15th
Papers are due June 15th
Conference Proceedings to be published (paper or on-line only?)
Sponsor Demos in another room on Tuesday
Sponsors (who?) need to sign up now
Where (It's beginning to look a lot like Dallas)
Promotions (T-shirts, mugs, etc.?)
Pub Nights (any preferences? Hotel room, conference room, what?)

Anyway, this might be the last (or penultimate) group call since most of the arrangements. Whatever we decide has to be done before the end of February.

SDG
jco