Re: 5th and 6th f2f locations

thx for the work on this topic.
I am happy with either solution.
In the spirit of compromise, let me provide a few data points that I have
participated in large meetings via videolink (from stanford's video
teleconferencing facility) that have worked well, small meetings via video as
well (via stanford's facility as well as kinko's).  Kinko's was extremely
professional and very effective.
Also we have used white board pens effectively for remote work.

with a good speakerphone, irc, wireless lan, and some way to see a white board
(pens or video),
I think this could work well.

Given that for some of us, this means not having to add an extra 2 days onto a
trip for a 2 day meeting,
that is enormous.
in order to get to manchester for a mon meeting (without a redeye flight)
departure must be on sat instead of sunday for an east coast meeting on monday
and return would be on wednesday instead of on tues eve thus making the trip
cost sat - wed instead of sun-tues.

Given that i think the split meeting can work, I would like for all of us to
use our time efficiently and I would support the compromise.

deborah



Christopher Welty wrote:

> 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

--
 Deborah L. McGuinness
 Knowledge Systems Laboratory
 Gates Computer Science Building, 2A Room 241
 Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-9020
 email: dlm@ksl.stanford.edu
 URL: http://ksl.stanford.edu/people/dlm
 (voice) 650 723 9770    (stanford fax) 650 725 5850   (computer fax)  801 705
0941

Received on Thursday, 29 August 2002 02:19:59 UTC