5th and 6th f2f locations

WOWG:

In my previous message I pointed out that there were problems associated 
with the decision to have the 5th f2f in Manchester, and proposed that we 
revisit the issue.  While the group clearly expressed a consensus for NY, 
this was done in the absence of new information regarding the 6th f2f. 
Basically, there is a large set of W3C meetings in March in Boston, and 
the chairs believe we will have to hold our March, 2003 f2f in conjunction 
with those meetings.  It is likely that the group may feel differently 
about a Jan. meeting in NY if we must have a March meeting in Boston.

I am proposing here two reasonable solutions given this new information, 
and suggest we discuss this at the phone call tomorrow.

Proposed solution 1 ("the do-over")

1) Let's FIRST decide on the location of the 6th f2f.  There are strong 
arguments for having it in Boston, let's get those out in the open and 
come to an agreement. 

2) Given a location for the 6th f2f, let's then decide where, in general, 
the 5th f2f will be.  By "in general" I mean let's decide between Europe, 
the eastern US, and the western US.

3) Given a general choice for the location of the 5th f2f, we will once 
again accept proposals and vote for our favorite location.


OR

Proposed solution 2 ("the compromise")

1) Have two f2f meetings, one in the eastern US and one in Manchester. The 
two meetings would be linked by video/tele/etc. conferencing technology. 
Attendance at one of the two locations would be "mandatory", splitting the 
meetings up into any more locations would be unmanageable.  We could share 
video, voice, and a computer screen for the plenary sessions, and then 
split into smaller working groups which may not have video, but would have 
shared voice and screen. 

While this compromise solution results in a less effective meeting than a 
full f2f, I think it addresses a lot of people's concerns.  It means a 
little more work for the local organizers, but I, at least, am very 
interested in trying to make this work since this problem comes up often. 
I've participated in smaller meetings (4-8 people) using only 
teleconferencing and shared screens/whiteboards and they were all 
extremely effective  (The quality of the speakerphone is absolutely 
critical).  I'd be interested in seeing if it scales to a larger meeting.

Regarding the time difference (5 hours), a slight shift in the normal work 
schedule (which will be much easier than dealing with jetlag) can give us 
six hours of overlap:  Europe meeting convenes at, say, 10AM and breaks at 
noon for lunch.  Returning at 1.  US meeting convenes at that time (8AM) 
and both run together for the next six hours (until 7PM Europe and 2PM 
US).  Europe group adjourns for the day, US group breaks for (a late) 
lunch, reconvening for a couple of hours after lunch.

Or, obviously, if we feel joint time should be stretched, we could 
compromise on the meeting times, pushing the US meeting time to 7AM-3PM, 
and the Europe meeting time to noon-8PM, with working meals when 
appropriate on each end.


Finally, Ian is collecting information on how many people we'd actually 
lose if we go ahead with the Manchester choice, please let him know 
positive or negative ASAP.


-Chris


Dr. Christopher A. Welty, Knowledge Structures Group
IBM Watson Research Center, 19 Skyline Dr.
Hawthorne, NY  10532     USA 
Voice: +1 914.784.7055,  IBM T/L: 863.7055
Fax: +1 914.784.6078, Email: welty@us.ibm.com

Received on Wednesday, 28 August 2002 13:25:56 UTC