Virtual face to face options

Uncertainty over the prospects for live attendance at the upcoming face to 
face meeting has led to the decision to switch to a virtual face to face 
meeting for June.

We already have a virtual day set for Thursday, June 4, but we were also 
going to have three days in London June 8-10.

There are a couple of properties of virtual face to face days that should 
be considered.

1) a virtual face to face day only gives us 5 hours to work together 
rather than 7 or 8.

2) a virtual face to face is challenging for those on the west coast of 
the US who must attend from 6am to 12pm, and it is also challenging for 
Europeans, who must attend into their evening dinner hours and family 
time.

Point 1 causes me to propose to the group that the 3 days of actual face 
to face time could be replaced by 4 virtual days (i.e. not counting the 
one on June 4).

Point 2 causes me to propose to the group that the days need not be run 
consecutively, which also might make the proposal for point 1 more 
palatable.

We could, for example, run virtual days for 5 consecutive Thursdays 
beginning June 4? 
Or we could seek to concentrate the time by meeting on June 4 and then on 
two days each within the weeks of June 8 and 15?

Somehow, I suspect we would get more benefit and higher attendance if we 
could spread it out a bit more, but what do you guys think?

Thanks,
John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
STSM, Interactive Documents and Web 2.0 Applications
Chair, W3C Forms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com 

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer
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