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Some of our top contributors (Dirk and Josh) are on the committee for R/Finance this month. What are some ways we can help their work?

Jeff Atwood has pointed to the conference sponsorships that Stack Exchange offers. I was thinking that we could also be a general resource available to conference-goers right here by answering any questions that attendees may have. If we're lucky, we'll get some good queries in the R and Software tags.

As for promotion, I'm hoping that anyone else going to the event can point to this site as a resource for the curious. R users make-up a large part of the Quant SE user base, so we should be available to help-out as needed.

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  • $\begingroup$ "Top contributor"? You're too kind to me. $\endgroup$ – Joshua Ulrich Apr 14 '11 at 14:38
  • $\begingroup$ @Joshua I guess after averaging your and Dirk's rep. $\endgroup$ – chrisaycock Apr 14 '11 at 14:42
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I think just talking about it is of great support. The more people are aware, the more the community grows, and the more we all (collectively) benefit.

Certainly attending is of more value (individually and collectively), but for many that is harder than discussing - we get that of course.

So to my first point, THANKS! Adding it into the exchange is quite helpful in and of itself.

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Interesting question ;-)

You (Chris) should hop on a plane and attend the conference. In which case we'd let you give a short spiel on how quant.stackexchange.com is the coolest thing since sliced bread and SO itself.

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  • $\begingroup$ Nah, I just got back from a week in California. And besides, I'd just spend my time there to rail about column-oriented storage and the evils of poor cache efficiency. $\endgroup$ – chrisaycock Apr 14 '11 at 14:01
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    $\begingroup$ Dude, that is why you should come. There are other interesting people here to have a beer with. Oh, and we have talks too ;-) $\endgroup$ – Dirk Eddelbuettel Apr 14 '11 at 14:03
  • $\begingroup$ Two days of talks on a language I don't know... I'm sure I can leave Quant SE promotion in your capable hands. :D $\endgroup$ – chrisaycock Apr 14 '11 at 14:24
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    $\begingroup$ @crisaycock Attendance is what makes the conference a success - very little else matters. So I will second the challenge, and say come to our conference. As someone whose spent a lot of time with columnar solutions - I'd love to chat. Though departing from Dirk's comment - no "official" spiel will be allowed. Only those entities that support the conference with time and money get that opportunity. $\endgroup$ – Jeff R Apr 14 '11 at 14:38
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Well, at a minimum we can send Stack Exchange t-shirts and stickers. Should I contact Dirk and Josh to get those mailed to them ASAP, totally gratis of course?

The t-shirts are a great tool for introducing yourself to other people at the conference, and incidentally acquainting them with quant.se along the way. IMHO, but I'm biased I guess. And hey, free stuff!

Also, during the conference, if you hear any questions (implied or actual) that would make a great question on quant.se -- don't hesitate to ask those questions on the site! Something roughly like this:

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/04/helping-the-experts-get-answers/

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    $\begingroup$ At a minimum, you'd have to sponsor the conference officially - i.e. contribute time and money. Swag is a way that sponsor can offer something to 'take away' - trying to distribute material without sponsoring would take the rights away from the official sponsors - who actually pay with time and money - by diluting the market for attention. $\endgroup$ – Jeff R Apr 14 '11 at 14:35
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    $\begingroup$ In retrospect, I doubt free swag would help the conference, though promoting or sponsoring might. $\endgroup$ – chrisaycock Apr 14 '11 at 15:12
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, we should have thought about ads running here. Doh. $\endgroup$ – Dirk Eddelbuettel Apr 14 '11 at 15:24
  • $\begingroup$ @Dirk I just posted the conference to Quant.ly $\endgroup$ – chrisaycock Apr 14 '11 at 15:37
  • $\begingroup$ Thank you, it is getting late in the game and hopefully we remember next time too. $\endgroup$ – Dirk Eddelbuettel Apr 14 '11 at 15:39
  • $\begingroup$ @jeff I can't find sponsorship info on the website? rinfinance.com $\endgroup$ – Jeff Atwood Apr 14 '11 at 23:10
  • $\begingroup$ Jeff, I emailed you a copy of our info sheet. $\endgroup$ – Dirk Eddelbuettel Apr 15 '11 at 16:48
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Interesting. We were talking on Quantnet the other day about bringing the conference to NYC. With a huge base of quant finance professionals, we should be able to do it, right?

Anyone knows people that can put this things together, feel free to let us know.

See here http://www.quantnet.com/forum/threads/r-finance-2011-chicago-april-29th-30th.6166/

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  • $\begingroup$ Here's the committee. I know that Dirk and Josh are in the midwest already, which is why Chicago is convenient for them. Best bet may be to contact Shane, who's one of the R biggies on Stack Overflow. $\endgroup$ – chrisaycock Apr 14 '11 at 20:31
  • $\begingroup$ Essentially the entire committee is Chicago-based, with Josh providing diversity from St Louis. Maybe you NYers should start by getting some R people together: Chris ain't one, Shane just ran away to Python and I have not come across Andy in R circles either. But thanks for asking ;-) $\endgroup$ – Dirk Eddelbuettel Apr 14 '11 at 23:00
  • $\begingroup$ I'm not in the R community so I don't know anyone. Brian Rowe from 2009 conference presenter list is a member of Quantnet, as mentioned in the thread above. Just want to know the logistical steps and if I can do anything to help. $\endgroup$ – Andy Nguyen Apr 15 '11 at 3:27
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To follow up on the activities of this thread:

We contacted Dirk and Jeff to see about Stack Exchange becoming an official sponsor of the R/Finance conference. But at this late date, they were unable to add us to this year's agenda.

So, after the conference is over, we're going to touch base and see what we can do for next year.

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