Behind the Scenes of IEEE VIS 2024: Change is Hard
The following is part of a blog series that I’m putting together to record and express some of my thoughts and experiences from my time as a General Chair at IEEE VIS 2024. These experiences are presented from my perspective, but I want to emphasize that many/most decisions were made collectively with my co-chairs, Kristi Potter and Remco Chang, and many, many people were involved in the execution of the conference. All the credit for making the conference happen goes to these wonderful people.
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Being the General Chair of VIS looked like a great opportunty to fix all the things that I thought could be improved with the conference. We started with ambitious goals, but reality of time, effort, and enthusiam really kicked back. During the first two years of planning for IEEE VIS, much of our time was spent discussing ways to improve the conference. Some changes required approvals from the VEC and VSC, and while they approved some, others were denied. Certain modifications, however, fell within the general chair’s purview. Through this process, we learned a valuable lesson—change is hard. Despite our best efforts, we accomplished around 25% of what we set out to do. It was frustrating at times, but ultimately, it was worth it.
Engaging Industry and Practitioners
VIS has long faced challenges in engaging industry participants, and we spent considerable time discussing how to address this issue. While we had numerous ideas, ranging from introducing industry tracks to rethinking the program, none materialized into a singular, actionable plan this year. Nevertheless, we made some progress with practitioner communities. In the spring, we formed a partnership with the Data Visualization Society (DVS), including exhibitor space at the Outlier conference, which will be reciprocated at VIS. DVS representatives are also participating in a VisInPractice panel this year. Additionally, we partnered with HETUG (Higher Education Tableau Users Group), which will host a VIS watch party. These partnerships are exciting, and we hope they will continue.
Program Changes
General Chairs have limited control over the program, but thanks to close relationships with two program chairs (Kate, who works a few doors down from me, and Lane who is a friend and former student of Remco), we managed to make some positive changes. One long-standing issue was the structure of Tuesday’s program, which we have now rearranged to enhance the attendee experience.
We moved the Test of Time (ToT) awards to Friday, splitting them from the VGTC awards, to avoid a 1.5-hour awards block that could feel excessive for non-regular attendees. We also pushed for an earlier keynote on Tuesday to avoid filling the first session with administrivia. We streamlined non-essential elements to reduce the overall time, and we made adjustments to the VIS Arts Program (VISAP) and poster session, ensuring both events received better attendance by aligning them in adjacent spaces with exciting content. VISAP has an exciting keynote speaker this year. So, we decided to have the VISAP keynote right after the main program (making it easier for attendees to stick around). Immediately after that, the VISAP reception and poster session begin in adjacent spaces.
Social Events
While the program is largely out of our hands, General Chairs have full control over social events, which, happens to be one of our specialties. Networking is a major reason people attend conferences, so we ensured plenty of opportunities for attendees to connect. In addition to the standard morning and afternoon breaks, we organized evening events like the conference reception on Sunday, the VISAP reception on Tuesday, and the banquet on Wednesday. We’ve also added happy hours on Monday and Thursday after the sessions. Coffee will still be available first thing in the morning, but due to cost, we can’t offer food.
Virtual Participation
The virtual component of VIS has been an ongoing conversation. Personally, I dislike attending virtual conferences, but I 100% believe in providing the option, as it enhances inclusivity and expands the community. After fully virtual events in 2020 and 2021, a hybrid model in 2022, and a purely in-person event in 2023, we aimed to strike a balance this year. We went into this year thinking that it was our job to find a model that might be sustainable longer term. However, in retrospect, I don’t think it will be, at least not entirely. Our approach was to split the virtual and in-person components to provide flexibility. While there were many pros and cons to this model, and we have many conversations about them. However, I still believe it was the right decision.
Argh Matey Get Ye Swag
A personal initiative of mine was the introduction of a swag shop using a print-on-demand supplier. Uptake hasn’t been great, but I’m looking forward to sporting some VIS 24 swag at the conference.
Simple Changes
We asked a lot of committees for “simple” changes. Some of these were genuinely easy. Some of them look easy but were actually hard. The biggest ones that come to mind are first poster printing. I went out and found us a good deal for having posters printed at VIS. Now, we are printing all of the main track posters. Note that the poster chairs are manage a whole bunch of new logistics, so thanks to them. The other big one that comes to mind is the website. The virtual/content site is now integrated into the main site. It is a square peg, round hole situation that took a lot of effort to connect, but the web team made it look realtively seemless. There were many other suggestions we made along the way, some we were taken up on, some were ignored (which is fine). Some changes are completely community driven, e.g., there are a couple of new demo tracks this year that come to mind.
Administrative Changes
Most administrative adjustments often go unnoticed or unappreciated by attendees. These changes are essential, but not always visible. Of course, each year there are minor stylistic adjustments, such as how meetings are conducted. One of our major goals was to streamline the organization by combining certain committees. For instance, we merged Inclusivity and Accessibility; Community, Meetups, and Elections; and Panels with Tutorials. We aimed to go even further, as VIS has an expansive organizing structure relative to its attendance. However, of the seven major restructuring proposals we made, only three were approved.
Retrospective
Looking back, we accomplished more than it might seem at first glance. Every change, even small ones, took a huge amount of time and effort, not only from us but also from those who reviewed and implemented the changes. We are immensely grateful to everyone who contributed to making this possible. Next time we’re in charge (not happening), we will make even more progress!
The good news? Most attendees probably won’t even notice the bulk of these changes—and that’s okay. There’s comfort in familiarity. We look forward to seeing everyone on the beach soon!
