Re: [EXTERNAL]Re: [SECURITY] Conference in April -- concerns?

["Nevin, Dave" <Dave.Nevin () OREGONSTATE EDU>]

I’m in a similar boat, with a complete ban of travel taking effective Monday.

While it is a long time, I have a great deal of sympathy for our event organizers—moving this to a virtual event, when 
all the virtual event resources will already be stretched, might be to big an ask for our organizers. I will happily 
participate however it is made available to me (if allowed) but just want to be sure that we manage our expectations, 
and don’t create great hardships for our friends involved in planning. If need be, I can wait a year for the next one.

Dave

From: The EDUCAUSE Security Community Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU> on behalf of Kevin Wilcox 
<wilcoxkm () APPSTATE EDU>
Reply-To: The EDUCAUSE Security Community Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>
Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 6:33 PM
To: "SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU" <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] [EXTERNAL]Re: [SECURITY] Conference in April -- concerns?


On Wed, 11 Mar 2020 at 19:23, Alan Bowen <abowen () fandm edu<mailto:abowen () fandm edu>> wrote:

The conference is 40 days or 5 1/2 weeks from today.  That’s a long time.  I’d hate for there to be regret later for a 
hurried or emotional decision now.  I personally wouldn’t want to see the conference become a virtual event because of 
the immersion and face to face networking.  Now, I better get started on my presentation…

We have no confirmed cases in Western NC and at 7PM this evening we made the call to extend Spring Break another week 
and move to "alternative delivery mechanism" where possible, with a complete ban on out-of-state travel and 
non-essential in-state gatherings of > 100 people.

Five and a half weeks is nothing. It's less vacation time than I earn in a calendar year. It takes us longer than that 
to buy something from a vendor who is already approved by the State. Unless you're _really good_ at online conferences, 
that's hardly enough time to make sure all the prep work is done and things are tested and folks know how to use <x 
platform> and ... and ... and ...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's probably better to have a virtual conference with good attendance than 
either 1) an in-person that only a select few can get approval for at this time or 2) no conference at all.

When a pandemic has been declared, and your event is less than two months away, especially when every other conference 
in the country is postponing or being virtualised, making the decision to virtualise it (or to not attend) isn't 
"hurried" or "emotional decision <making>", it's informed and rational.

kmw

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