The focus for the 2008 University of California Computing Services Conference will be IT services new, old and in between. If you have ideas or proposals for presentations, the committee assembling the conference in Santa Barbara wants to hear them.

"If you are contemplating and designing a new service, we'd love to hear about it," said Elise Marie Meyer, associate director for the Office of Information Technology at the University of California Santa Barbara, in an email Thursday to UCCSC members. "If you're managing a new service or a fully operational service, please tell us about your successes, your failures and the challenges you currently face.

"And, lastly, if you're responsible (through no fault of your own) for a 'legacy' service, please share your trials, tribulations and strategies for success or eliminating the legacy (or both)."

The conference will meet from July 20 to 22. Presentations, panel discussions and technical seminars are planned. Organizers want short sessions of 20 minutes, as well as longer ones of 50.

If interested, please prepare an abstract of 200 to 250 words on:
--a presentation on a topic of interest;
--a panel discussion you'd be willing to convene and moderate;
--or a technical seminar or tutorial.

Please estimate how much time your session would need. Contact uccsc2008@ucsb.edu if you have questions, or if you have a proposal that doesn't fit these guidelines. More information on UCCSC 2008 will be available on a Web site in January; the committee expects to accept abstracts via the Web from mid-January to mid-February.

The annual conference gives information technology professionals from all UC campuses a chance to talk shop. The 2007 conference met in Santa Cruz.