Monday, May 12, 2008

Projection Dejection

I'm getting ready for RSA in Seattle next week, entering data for years eight and nine of what will be a twenty-years thick map, when I realized that I've been calculating the grid coordinates all wrong. The place markers draggg to the south and east with each new instance. Then again, that's the point (of one of the two panels I am involved with): wallow in your amateurism.

About RSA: Seattle from NY is a long, expensive trip. I called the Westin (i.e., the conference hotel) today to learn how much I would be paying for six nights of parking--six because we are making an extended family trip of it. The Westin gets $35 for parking. Eeeach night. Oh? That's more than the rental itself costs. I also read this about their Business Center on the Westin web site:

The following services are available in the Business Center:

Pricing:

• $5.95 per 15 minute session.

The following services are available in the Business Center:

• Time countdown window that allows each guest to see exactly how much time they have left in their 15 minute session.

I wouldn't quibble over a few bucks, normally, but my 07-08 conferencing fund was sapped by CCCC, and since RSA's theme is "The Responsibilities of Rhetoric," I have a conference-goers obligation to question whether it is responsible of me to shell out better than 200 chips to park a rental car for less than a week. After some thought, I decided: it's not. So I jumped on Priceline.com, grabbed a better deal (much better, in fact: two room suite for less per night than the Westin's "conference rate" and $10 parking), and doing so simultaneously motivated me to drop in a bid on a cheaper rental, which shaved $170 off of the bottom line of the vehicle rental for the six days we'll be out there. I can hear the Space Needle scratching up a grungy melody already. (Yes, consider this a plug for Priceline.com).

Did I mention that this is my first RSA? Another first: the first time in four years that I will give a paper without projection of any sort other than vocal. No projector, no slideshow. Just me and my crumpled, sweat-dampened paper. And! a handout. Since 2004, since we moved to Syracuse, I have done eight live-in-person conference presentations. LED projectors have been available at every one of them. But my co-panelists and I learned last week that RSA could accommodate only 80% of the A/V requests. The conference provides six projectors (one is the old shadow-on-the-wall, bright-bulb-and-transparency type, another is a TV w/ VCR), so that makes six rooms with projectors and each room will hold panels during nineteen different time slots (A-S sessions, right?): 114 panels with projectors. And with just one more projector, another 19 panels would be accommodated (in this, the HQ of Microsoft). I suppose it sounds like I am grousing about this. I don't mean to. It's just that I find it surprising and a little bit disappointing, even if the total ratio of projectable panels, at 114/266, is over 40% (.429). Better than most conferences?

Posted by Derek Mueller at May 12, 2008 10:00 PM to Slouching Toward