$JSM2013 - Sponsorship Proposal

Question

This meta post is the placeholder for discussion of how CV will be represented on JSM 2013. Let me start by addressing the information requests in the SE Meta post that suggested the ways to have StackExchange involved:

1. Who is going -- I guess we shall sign up in the comments or answers.
2. What it is -- JSM stands for the Joint Statistical Meetings, an annual meeting of several major North American statistical societies: American Statistical Society, Statistical Society of Canada, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and International Biometric Society (Western North America Region, Eastern North America Region). With ~6,000 attendees, mostly from US and Canada, of course, but also from around the world, this is the largest statistical event in the world. This year, we may see additional boost as 2013 is announced to be the International Year of Statistics.
3. When the conference is running -- August 3-8, 2013. We need to take certain actions much earlier: the abstract submission closes February 4; the event requests need to be submitted by March 28 to be placed on the program. (SE would want to sponsor a mixer, I imagine, so if there is any money to spend, it should go towards free food, IMO.)
4. Where the conference is located: JSM travels around North America. In 2013, the meetings will be held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (This is arguably a more expensive location than the median; there are only about 20 cities in North America that have the capacity to support a conference of 6,000 people, though, and few of them can be called inexpensive.)
5. Why should SE support sending people to this conference -- as I said, this is the largest statistical event of the year, and is a must to attend, at least from time to time. I will go as far as to say that if you've never been to JSM, you are not quite a statistician. Of the many SE sites, CV has been found to have lower than usual voting activity, probably due to not-so-active involvement of the discipline professionals. Showing up at JSM will increase SE visibility in statistical community, awareness of this resource, and hopefully bring new people to CV.

In the space below, please answer 1 The Who, 4 How you are going to get there, 5 The Why if you have additional ideas on top of what I mentioned above.

Update: last chance to respond before the meetings!

Answer 1

1. I will be there; 4. my employer is paying for it, as I bring a good deal of visibility for the company with my presentations and business meetings; 5. I am running for a Program Chair post in one of the largest sections, Survey Research Methods Section, so I will be looking at how things are working from an internal perspective. I am also organizing a mixer of Russian statisticians, and deliver a couple of presentations. If there aren't any other volunteers, I can submit a meeting request on behalf of CV.

Answer 2

1. I will normally attend this conference. 4. My employer is partly paying for it, fees and travel (August almost amounts to public holidays for me and I will most likely be traveling with my family because Montreal is great :-). 5. Not sure I will submit any abstract, but I'm open to any suggestion to increase CV visibility; this already has been discussed in the past: Does CV slow down during big meetings like the JSM in the US?, Possible Conference Speaking Sponsorships — 2011, Can we recruit more statisticians to participate in CV?. (That's for reference actually because I am sure you already browsed these threads.)