Convince Your Boss!

LISA: Where systems engineering and operations professionals share real-world knowledge about designing, building, and maintaining the critical systems of our interconnected world.

The LISA conference has long served as the annual vendor-neutral meeting place for the wider system administration community. The LISA14 program recognized the overlap and differences between traditional and modern IT operations and engineering, and developed a highly-curated program around 5 key topics: Systems Engineering, Security, Culture, DevOps, and Monitoring/Metrics. The program included 22 half- and full-day training sessions; 10 workshops; and a conference program consisting of 50 invited talks, panels, refereed paper presentations, and mini-tutorials.

Want to attend LISA14, but not sure about broaching the subject with your boss? We’ve drafted a suggested “Convince Your Boss” letter to help make the process easier. Feel free to edit it to your liking, and remember to modify the italicized text within the brackets ({ }) to your situation. See you in Seattle!

 

Dear {Boss Name},

I’d like to attend the LISA Conference taking place November 9-14, in Seattle, WA. Created for and by the IT operations and engineering communities, it’s put on by USENIX, a non-profit organization that’s been working with the advanced technology community since 1975.

Here are three ways in which I envision my attendance at LISA14 strengthening {Company Name}:

  • 22 half- and full-day training sessions and tutorials cover security, monitoring, and systems engineering—all areas that we need to get up to speed on for compliance and regulatory issues
  • Invited Talks, research presentations, mini-tutorials, and interactive Q & A sessions from industry leaders and researchers will bring me up to date on new and developing technologies, which will help us build and budget for a more realistic and cost-effective short- and long-term technology plan
  • Networking and “hallway tracks” are highly encouraged, so I’ll have plenty of time to chat with other attendees and speakers (likely the creator of the technology) about issues and challenges facing similarly-sized companies. There's even a Lab, where I'll be able to try out technologies discussed in the presentations. 

There is an early bird registration discount, which ends October 20. The cost will vary depending on the number of training days, but having looked at the program, I think {X} days of training at {Y}, plus the technical session fee of {Z}, would best fit our needs. {Note that I’m already a USENIX member, which reduces the fees by $X}. There will be additional travel and hotel costs, but I’ll do my best to stay within a mutually agreed upon budget.

I realize that this is a significant funding request. I would be happy to write a post-conference report detailing what I’ve learned, and a schedule detailing how to best implement any new changes. You can learn more about the event at www.usenix.org/lisa14. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns; I do hope we can make this work.

Thanks,




{Your Name}