Re: F2F agenda ideas

On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 11:51 AM Siegman, Tzviya <tsiegman@wiley.com> wrote:

>
>
> I’ve had a bit more of a chance to think through how we can come away from
> the F2F with specific action items, and I’ve been thinking about what the
> SC and the Publishing Activity with has been struggling with the most for
> the past few years. Here are a few thoughts.
>
>
>
>    - The IDPF was fundamentally a standards body. Markus did more than
>    many people realized in leading the technical work. He had a remarkable
>    skill of leading people to think that they had come to the conclusion that
>    they wanted to create change on their own. When it came down to the nitty
>    gritty work, it was done by maybe 15 people. The same 15 people (with a few
>    changes) are still doing the work today. Matt Garrish has been the editor
>    of the EPUB specs for years. Without Matt, EPUB would not exist as it does
>    today.
>
>
Yes.


>
>    - Let’s consider what the role of IDPF board was and how that
>    transitions into leadership in the BG and whether we need an SC. The IDPF
>    board approved spec work but was not involved in spec writing. Some members
>    of the board participated in the WG, but that was by choice. The board
>    worked on fiscal issues, conference planning, and proposed new work at
>    times. Perhaps the role of the SC/ BG leadership should focus more on
>    building community? We have seen successful events in Fukuoka. Should we be
>    looking at workshops? Webinars? Community building? What would conferences
>    look like? Who will fund them? How often? How do we avoid competing with an
>    already competitive conference industry? (ebookcraft, EDRLab’s summit,
>    etc). Building community can also mean learning to fit in with the W3C
>    culture. That is new for many of us.
>
> We feel like a standards organization that's trying to be a trade
organization. I think there was some of that in the IDPF days, too. Bill
McCoy very much operated as an evangelist for EPUB. But it's hard to be a
trade organization without a budget.

I sometimes think of how we compare to the world of web development. There
are standards organizations, user agent vendors, and content providers just
as in the world of ebooks. But one thing that is missing in ebooks is the
idea of developer relations. I think a fair amount of the work of
identifying business needs and bringing them to the standards organizations
and browser vendors is done by DevRel people. We don't really have that in
our world.


>
>    - The SC is not functioning as a committee. We are several people who
>    often have conflicting goals with no leader to provide vision or help us to
>    come to agreement about the goals. Thus, the Publishing Activity has no
>    clear goals and no clear direction. Should we appoint a chair? Should we
>    close the SC? The SC and BG often overlap significantly. Let’s consider why
>    and how to manage this.
>
> I am often frustrated by discussing a particular issue in a SC call, and
then discussing the same issue in a BG call, and then discussing the same
issue in a different BG call. At times 90% of the attendees of a BG call
are SC members.


>    - If we don’t make EPUB a REC (at some point), then why are we in the
>    W3C?
>
>  This is an excellent question, worthy of much thought. I suppose I should
write up my thoughts sooner rather than later...

Dave