From the Chair Kevin Schofield chi-Chair@acm.org Taking Care of Business I just briefly wanted to touch on two pieces of SIGCHI business, both critically important. First: SIGCHI elections will be held imminently. It is essential that you, as a member of SIGCHI, cast your vote so that your voice is heard in deciding the future of the organization. We will be voting for a new set of officers. We will also be voting on approval for a set of changes to the SIGCHI Bylaws that aim to streamline the operations of the organization and give us some much-needed flexibility while still keeping us accountable. Second: it has become clear that the CHI conference, as a whole, is no longer serving the SIGCHI community as well as in the past. The CHI 2004 co-chairs are working with the leadership of SIGCHI to think through some significant modifications to the conference to bring it back in-line with the core needs of the community. You will hear more about it in the near future, but I want to let you know that this process is underway and that your thoughts and ideas on how we can make CHI a better conference are much appreciated. One last note: this will be my last column as chair of SIGCHI. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve this community. Cheers, Kevin Local SIGs Raquel Oliveira Prates, Editor chi-Bulletin-Local-SIGs@acm.org Times of Change For SIGCHI, 2003 is a year of change. New bylaws are being proposed and the SIGCHI Bulletin that has been distributed to its member for so long, will now go online only. The changes reflect SIGCHI s growth and development along the years. For SIGCHI Local Chapters CHI 2003 will be the beginning of new times with the discussion of the organization of the Council of Chapters and hopefully its creation. SIGCHI Local Chapters have been growing and developing since the first one was created. Now we have 69 local chapters in 30 countries. Each one of them has different characteristics, different activities and different priorities. However, all of them have a common goal: support the local HCI community. Thus, it has always been useful to hear about success and failure stories other chapters have experienced. The sharing of experiences has always been one of the main benefits of the Local SIGs workshop at the CHI conference, when representatives from all chapters meet to discuss their chapters activities and relevant issues. However, this is not enough since it happens only once a year, and also not all the representatives can attend every year. The Local SIGs column has played a critical role for local chapters communication. It has offered them an easy way to exchange experiences and learn more about each other, to which all chapters have access. It has also allowed SIGCHI members to learn more about what the local chapters around the globe have been doing. That won t change with the end of the paper version of the bulletin. On the contrary, it may even offer new ways of interaction, and more opportunity for sharing among the chapters. We welcome SIGCHI Bulletin s change and we are looking forward to the publishing of the online version. Our opening at the online version will most likely be the report of the Local SIGs workshop at CHI 2003. For those who unfortunately won t be at CHI 2003 make sure you read it. To the others, see you at CHI! http://www.acm.org/sigchi/local-sigs/ SIGCHI Bulletin May/June 2003 5

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