February 27, 2003
The other day I wrote that the MnSCU IT conference had been cancelled. Matt called me on this today, so I should clarify: strictly speaking, it has not yet been cancelled. Everything but, though. It is not yet official, or perhaps even firmly decided yet. From what I can tell, it's 95% certain that the conference will be cancelled, or at the very least postponed.
You might think that it would cancelled for budget reasons. Yes, but only indirectly. A number of Minnesota state agencies have been taken to task recently by the local media for what seems to be outrageous spending practices. Things like conferences and meetings being held at resorts or hotels rather than in State-owned buildings. Even though almost all the expenses at our conference are picked up by vendors, there's concern that even the appearance of overspending would be damaging to MnSCU's public image. We could probably set things up so that the vendors pick up all the expenses, but that probably wouldn't come across in a ten-second spot on TV news.
Oh well. Anyway, for the one or two people who care, now you know what I know.
