TRACK II
Call for Hot Topic Proposals

Come to ChiliPLoP and spend three days working on your favorite patterns and pattern languages! At ChiliPLoP, experienced patterns people have a chance to break new ground in specific pattern areas, or Hot Topics.

The organizers of ChiliPLoP invite proposals for Hot Topic workshops for the 2000 conference. You may propose a new Hot Topic, or you may propose to reconvene an existing Hot Topic.

Hot topics will be selected by the program committee based on current relevance, interest in the community, and the quality of the workshop plan. It helps if you also can provide a list of certain, probable, or possible participants up front. Naturally, you'll have plenty of time to invite participants once your Hot Topic proposal is accepted, but we try to encourage those people already focusing on certain pattern areas to bring their work to ChiliPLoP.

Submit your proposal to Don Olson (see contact information below), the program chair for ChiliPLoP 2000, by November 15, 1999. The program committee will announce its selections to all proposers by December 1, 1999.

Horizontal Rule

Proposing a New Hot Topic
Send a two- to four-page proposal that includes:
  • a description of the Hot Topic area, and why you think it is hot.
  • a plan for the workshop, including an outline of expected activities during workshop sessions and a description of the intended result. For example, you might explore the existing patterns of the Hot Topic in order to form a pattern language, or you might workshop new patterns in your Hot Topic area.
  • optionally, a list of people who you believe might be interested in working on your Hot Topic, either because of related work they may be doing or because you are already collaborating. This list might be useful in recruiting people once it's posted to the ChiliPLoP web page. Let us help you get the word out.
Please submit your proposal via e-mail as a URL, in HTML, or in ASCII.

If your Hot Topic is accepted, you will be expected to provide a short call for participation by December 15 and to select the participants for your Hot Topic by January 15.

We are hoping for small groups of around six people for each Hot Topic. Please let us know if you expect more or fewer people. If you know of pattern experts who will certainly want to participate, or those whom you wish would participate, please let us know that, too.

Proposing an Existing Hot Topic

ChiliPLoP aims to promote ongoing communities of patterns people working on important topics over an extended period of time. To this end, it encourages continuation of previous Hot Topic groups at the 1999 conference. Unless informed otherwise by the program committee, existing Hot Topic groups that comply with the requirements listed here and that submit a short proposal of the form listed here can proceed with reasonable expectation that they will be invited to return.

In order to be considered an existing Hot Topic, a workshop group must:
  • inform the incoming Program Chair of the group's intention of returning to ChiliPLoP. This communication should occur at the close of the conference or as soon as possible thereafter.
  • provide, in a timely manner, a summary of the group's ChiliPLoP work to the outgoing Program Chair for posting on the ChiliPLoP web site.
To propose an existing Hot Topic group, send a short proposal that it includes:
  • the name of the group
  • the name of the group's leader for the 2000 workshop. This person will serve as the contact person for the group to the Program Committee. This person will also be responsible for organizing the workshop and recruiting workshop participants.
  • reasonable assurance that a minimum of five people will attend the Hot Topic. This may consist of a list of confirmed participants and a list of likely participants.
The program committee may accept a smaller group if it deems the topic sufficiently hot or if it accepts more Hot Topics than expected. The committee also reserves the right to restrict Hot Topic attendance in order to accommodate more Hot Topic groups.

If the existing Hot Topic is accepted, the group's contact person will be expected to provide a short call for participation upon request and to select the participants.

Contact Information for Proposers

Don Olson
AG Communication Systems  olsond@agcs.com
2500 W. Utopia Road (623) 581-4978
Phoenix, AZ 85027 (520) 774-2181

Note: PLoP is a trademark of The Hillside Group, Inc.