LSA Annual Meeting Albuquerque 2006, initial invitation list

[Jeff Good]

> cf Heidi, I'm also concerned at the number of imports unless we know
> they're going to attend LSA. Probably a better question is how long this
> will actually go for - how many hours are we looking to fill ?

The upper limit on hours is four hours or so. (The organizers say anything
longer is hard to schedule.) We certainly don't want to go longer, and
could go shorter. Heidi suggested--and I agree--it would be nice to allow
longer presentations this year than last year. (We had intended that for
last year, but then were told to shorten the total length of time from
five to four hours.)

I have to say I'm not too worried about the number of imports as long as
we ask them soon and make it clear they can say no. (So, for example, I
wouldn't e-mail them on April 13 and say, "Can we please use your name?")
And, I think it's good to at least try to have representatives from DoBeS
and Rausing, if possible, because I think involving these groups in an
American event is a good thing. And, though it's difficult, it can also be
nice to have a representative of the Australian linguistics community
since, in my opinion, they're a few decades ahead of the Americans
when it comes to documentation issues.

That being said, I'd be more than happy to aim for more participitation of
people likely to be at LSA--the biggest problem is that there are so few
qualified people and I have trouble thinking of anyone for some of these
talks--let alone someone who would otherwise go to LSA. So, if anyone out
there wants to can think of any good, relevant  names, please let me know.

> Another suggestion would be an open qa session using a panel, which might
> invite more interaction than just presentations.

This, in principle, seems like a good idea. Last year, though, I noted
that the question periods were a little quiet during the tutorial. While
there should probably be some Q&A during the tutorial, I wonder how much
people might react better to one-on-one interactions during office hours
for this sort of thing. (I suspect it will take a few more tries at this
before we discover the right mix of presentations, open Q&A, and office
hours...)

Jeff