Hypertext News
Whither SIGWEB and Hypertext?
Since the founding of SIGWEB (as SIGLINK), the Hypertext conference has been the SIG's flagship event and the site of its annual meeting. But SIGWEB's activities have become more diffuse in recent years and the Hypertext conference is no longer the clear center of mass.
Here is a rough summary of the conferences that SIGWEB is sponsoring this year:
| Name | Attendance | Budget | Sponsorship level |
| Hypertext | 80-100 people | $40K | 100% sponsored |
| DocEng | 50-60 people | $25K | 100% sponsored |
| CIKM | 360 people | $130K | 50% sponsored |
| WSDM | 200 people estimated | $40K | 25% sponsored |
| JCDL | 500 people | $200K | 33% sponsored |
So today, both CIKM and JCDL are at least as important as Hypertext for SIGWEB's conference attendance and budget. SIGWEB is also discussing a sponsorship relationship with the International World Wide Web Conference and that meeting has 1000 attendees and a $1M budget, though I think SIGWEB would only sponsor 25-50%.
When you consider that SIGWEB's acronym also emphasizes "the Web", this picture presents a challenge for the SIG. Our leadership is still drawn primarily from the two smaller meetings that are 100% sponsored by the SIG. The 100% part is exactly right, but the small part is not. I love hypertext (the topic) and Hypertext (the conference), but SIGWEB needs to change something to reflect today's activities.
What should SIGWEB do? We could retrench to a narrower scope in which the Hypertext conference would be the dominant element, but I don't think this makes sense. Rather, I'd like to see two things happen. First, I'd like to see the Hypertext conference grow in intellectual scope and in attendance, perhaps by merging with other meetings. The goal would be to ensure that Hypertext reflects the breadth of interest of SIGWEB's members and can remain a suitable site for the SIGWEB annual meeting. Second, I want SIGWEB to strengthen its ties with the other conferences that it sponsors. These stronger ties should expand the pool of volunteers that SIGWEB can call on for its activities and should increase interaction among the conferences. I think this will benefit both the SIG and the conferences.
posted by: Ethan Munson (SIGWEB Chair) on Wednesday, June 27, 2007