In the runup to EAG SF I’ve been thinking a bit about travel funding allocation. I thought I could take this opportunity to share two problems and tentative solutions, as I imagine they hold across different conferences (including EAGx Boston).
Thing 1: Uncertainty around how much to apply for
In conversations with other people attending I’ve found that people are often quite uncertain and nervous when working out how much to apply for.
One way to improve this could be to encourage applicants to follow a simple procedure for working out how much funding to apply for. E.g.:
1. Go to Google Flights, and find a typical cost for a return flight on the conference dates. 2. Open Google Maps and find a rough lower bound of hotel prices near the conference venue, and multiply by the number of days you plan to stay. 3. Add £x slack to cover possible price rises and incidental costs.
Thing 2: Slow travel funding approval leading to higher prices
Another experience I’ve had is that the delay in approving travel funding was quite long (>2 weeks). In this period, the prices of flights rose significantly, and accommodation availability dropped, so the cheap options weren’t available any more. Some other attendees I know needed to apply for more funding in response to this, which also took a few days to be approved (in which time prices rose further!)
My guess is that bringing in an extra person to let you respond to funding requests faster might therefore pay for itself. It would also reduce the uncertainty for attendees, which may let them spend less total time on arranging logistics for the conference. In particular, if there is a simple formula/heuristic for travel funding requests, then someone with little prior experience would be able to quickly and easily respond to requests.
I’d be interested to hear if you’ve considered these ideas—I’m sure there are a bunch of extra constraints I’m not aware of, conference planning sounds very complex!
Great to see this writeup, thank you!
In the runup to EAG SF I’ve been thinking a bit about travel funding allocation. I thought I could take this opportunity to share two problems and tentative solutions, as I imagine they hold across different conferences (including EAGx Boston).
Thing 1: Uncertainty around how much to apply for
In conversations with other people attending I’ve found that people are often quite uncertain and nervous when working out how much to apply for.
One way to improve this could be to encourage applicants to follow a simple procedure for working out how much funding to apply for. E.g.:
Thing 2: Slow travel funding approval leading to higher prices
Another experience I’ve had is that the delay in approving travel funding was quite long (>2 weeks). In this period, the prices of flights rose significantly, and accommodation availability dropped, so the cheap options weren’t available any more. Some other attendees I know needed to apply for more funding in response to this, which also took a few days to be approved (in which time prices rose further!)
My guess is that bringing in an extra person to let you respond to funding requests faster might therefore pay for itself. It would also reduce the uncertainty for attendees, which may let them spend less total time on arranging logistics for the conference. In particular, if there is a simple formula/heuristic for travel funding requests, then someone with little prior experience would be able to quickly and easily respond to requests.
I’d be interested to hear if you’ve considered these ideas—I’m sure there are a bunch of extra constraints I’m not aware of, conference planning sounds very complex!