Conference Committee:

Minutes of the meeting held at Taffy's Restaurant February 15th, commencing at
11:30am

In attendance: Andy Kowalewski, Keith Larson, Glenn Wells, Damon Oran, Ron
Bouchard, Steven Hollingsworth

Apologies received from Paul Olson, Doug Boone.

General issues:

We thought it would be a good idea to document what we're doing for this
conference, with a view to working up a process that will make a second
conference so much easier. We could draw up a project management chart in
hindsight after this conference, making notes on what works and what doesn't and
setting timelines for the various activities. Then we've almost got it made for
the next conference.

See note about our next meeting at the end of this summary under "Later issues
arising".

Technical Issues:

Cerprobe has given us permission to use their design manual. Glenn and Woody
will edit this to remove proprietry information. They will look at any
suggestions for improving the content.

There has been a bit of interest shown by a local IC fab who wishes to remain
anonymous for the time being.

There was a strong feeling that we should have a roundtable discussion between
vendors, designers, users and conference attendees to see where the real
problems are, and how we might work towards resolving them. We'll keep that in
mind when it comes to establishing the technical program for the two days. I'm
sure there won't be a problem getting participants, and there sure won't be a
shortage of issues to discuss.

There was a brief discussion about offering our conference manual to the IPC as
a focus module for the Designers Council. I don't think we came to any
resolution on that issue, but I'd like to have it re-opened at a later date.

Marketing issues:

There was a fear that Cerprobe's input to our conference may be overshadowed by
other sponsors, and may not generate the recognition that Cerprobe deserves by
giving us their manual and Woody to present it.

Our feeling is that the Chapter must be unambiguously seen as the organisation
behind the conference, but that Cerprobe has been a major contributor to our
effort with their permission to use their manual and with allowing Woody to
present the major part of it.

This committee has guaranteed that Cerprobe will get appropriate recognition.
Glenn will try to find the names of the marketing people we can speak with at
Cerprobe at the appropriate level, and Andy and Damon will try to meet with them
next Tuesday to outline our plans and how we intend to implement them.

So far, Cerprobe will be billed as hosting the Conference Dinner on Thursday
night at no cost to Cerprobe, and there will be an opportunity for Cerprobe to
address the conference and present their marketing speil if they choose to do
that.

Damon is outlining a plan for the marketing approach, and will let us all
comment before it goes to air.

Press releases will include a paragraph about our Chapter, outline of the
technical content, and paragraphs about Woody and Cerprobe.

Press releases will be released to coincide with magazine deadlines and will
contain more and more details of the conference as we continue planning.

The marketing will be based around "who, what, when, where and why",  with Andy
to write a brief idea of the "why" and forward it to Damon.

Sponsors will be divided up into three tiers:

The first tier sponsor is Cerprobe, without additional cost to Cerprobe. They
are effectively sponsors of the conference, and have paid for their sponsorship
with letting us use their manual and allowing Woody to present. I might add that
we are getting extraordinary value from these contributions.

There will be two second tier sponsors to sponsor the lunches. We don't know yet
what these costs will be, but Ron thinks that ACD would be keen to be one
sponsor. A second sponsor is being sought. These sponsors will also be offered
twenty or so minutes during lunch to give a presentation on whatever topic suits
them.

The third tier sponsors will pay for a Thursday breakfast, a Friday breakfast,
and coffee and cookies for Thursday morning and afternoon, and Friday morning
and afternoon. Costs of sponsorships haven't been set yet but the feeling is
that twice our cost is reasonable.

No third tier sponsors have been set yet but there shouldn't be any problem.

We acknowledged that it's important to make sure that sponsors get value for
their sponsorship, but that we also make sure that the value they get is
proportional to their sponsorship.

We touched on the subject of how we promote the Chapter, and whether we name
names or just leave it as "officers of the Chapter". We didn't resolve anything,
but I for one would like to see at least a list of people involved and their
function. I believe that the work that is going to go into this and the efforts
of everyone involved should be acknowledged, both at the conference and in the
conference notes somewhere. We'll bring this topic up again at another meeting -
I think it's important for all of us. (Thinks:- if the conference is a roaring
success, yeah man. If not, I wasn't involved....... :-)

I've thought some more about a keynote speaker, and came to realise that what we
have been calling a keynote speaker is in fact more of a dinner speaker. A real
keynote speaker would be talking about the "over the horizon" technical stuff of
the conference while our dinner speaker can talk about anything that might
interest attendees. I suggest we have both if we can - I'm keen on "over the
horizon" technical stuff and I'm sure a lot of other people are too. Most
conferences kick off with a keynote speaker - we could do the same.

Keith has been chasing NASA to find out more about a dinner speaker. From the
number of astronauts in the space program and the enquiries NASA gets for
speakers, our chances should be pretty good. Glenn is also going to speak with
an acquaintance who was a pilot shot down in the Second World War, I think he
said.

We also decided that a registration form should be drawn up and made available
right from the first press release. No one was given the responsibility to do
that, but could I suggest Paul and Keith do that between them for release at the
end of this month. With Keith's experience at SMTA, it should be a snack.

We also spoke about vendor participation, and that we should charge them for the
privilidge. That was agreed to, with a charge of something like twice our cost.
Damon is going to get a package together so that we can approach vendors with a
firm cost/benefit proposal.

Venue issues

Keith has been scouring the city for a suitable venue, and May 4th and 5th was
very difficult. We agreed that May 11th and 12th is ok, so these are now the
firm dates.

The Omni Hotel at Richardson is available and very suitable, but Damon spoke
with his sister about a contact in the InterContinental, and Keith is going to
follow that up. Keith has been given the authority to book whatever is suitable
for that weekend without further consultation with this committee, to save
running backwards and forwards looking for approval.

Later issues arising :

I've also had a couple of thoughtful suggestions from my better half :-

a) Are we going to do anything special for partners of attendees? Most
conferences I've been to have had a spouse social program of tours and/or
shopping trips. I've never needed to use these so I don't know whether they're
popular or not. Should we worry about this?

b) We probably need to make provision for non-conference attendees to be able to
attend the dinner, probably at some additional cost.

c) The dinner speaker should also be non-technical, mainly in respect for
partners who probably get enough technical stuff from their partners already.

I suggest the next meeting of this Committee be at Taffys Restaurant on Tuesday
February 29th at 11:30am.

I've since heard that the people behind "E-Team" software are keen to sponsor a
dinner.

I've since spoken to Woody about meeting his marketing people, and it won't
happen on Tuesday. They're in Phoenix and Woody is going to try to get them to
come to Dallas soon. He'll keep Damon and myself posted.

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Cheers

Andy Kowalewski          (972) 550 6365