Update on the 2000 Conference

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Update on the 2000 Conference

Paal Davidsen

Conference Chair

29 March 2000

We have had an emormous response to the call for papers for this year's conference. Participation by our "mailing partners" has helped in this success. We have received 334 abstracts. The review process has been completed and plenary papers are currently under consideration.

For the first time this year, abstracts were available for review on an unpublished website. Reviewers were assigned abstracts, visited the website, and could download their assignments. Reviewer responses were then electronically submitted to the home office and a master abstract spreadsheet was updated and maintained, and sent to the program committee for their use. Accepted abstracts will be published on the conference site.

Abstracts by country of authors:

Asia: 12%

Australia/New Zealand: 7%

Middle East and Africa: 5%

Eastern Europe: 4%

Western Europe: 38%

North America: 30%

Central and South America: 4%

We have also received a handful of workshop proposals and this year we have a Workshop Coordinator volunteer. In addition, a member has volunteered to organize a job exchange at the conference.

A group of students is proposing to gather in Bergen a day before the conference to discuss student-related issues. The students in the System Dynamics Programme in Bergen will be organizing this under the sponsorship of the Department of Information Science. If this is successful, this conference will be rich in student attendance.

We have had wonderful support by conference sponsors this year. Conference sponsors include:

A.T. Kearney Ltd.

Andersen Consulting

City of Bergen

High Performance Systems, Inc.

HVR Consulting

Intel corporation

John Wiley & Sons

McKinsey & Company

Pegasus Communications, Inc.

Powersim

PricewaterhouseCoopers

Pugh-Roberts Associates, Inc.

SDSG LLC, The Strategic Decision Simulation Group

University at Bergen

Ventana Systems, Inc.

Vestec AS

Currently our conference sponsorship totals $18,000, with the possibility of $2,000 - $5,000 more.

The social program includes an informal gathering on Sunday night, the welcome reception at the Bergen Castle Monday night, hosted by the City of Bergen, a concert at the home of Edvard Grieg and the conference banquet at a well known fjord hotel Wednesday night.

The first conference information and registration brochure was mailed the end of February, and we immediately started to receive registrations.

Usman Ghani is working with PricewaterhouseCoopers who will be this year's host for the Consultants' Roundtable.

The Society home office will produce the printed abstract proceedings and CD this year. We are currently investigating CD manufacturers that do this type of work.

Future Items

April 15 deadline for completed papers submission distribution of 2nd registration brochure including travel information and instructions updated conference schedule mailout with new information keep website updated.

It has been stressed by the conference Chair, Professor Pal I. Davidsen, that it will be very important for participants to make their hotel reservations as early as possible due to the large number of tourists visiting Bergen in August and the limited availability of hotels in the city center.

Pal I. Davidsen also expresses his great appreciation for the work completed so far by Roberta Spencer and her great staff at Albany and by Prof. David Ford who has had the enormous task of sorting out the abstracts, appointing abstract reviewers, review the abstracts himself, and organizing the responses in a form that made it possible, on time, to design a program in its current draft form. Moreover, he would like to thank all reviewers who have contributed to this process and Professor Ali Mashayekhi who will have the responsibility for the plenary paper selection process. He realizes that this work has been far more comprehensive than what one could expect and that the Society through this process has established a very efficient way to organize the programme committee work.