[sc34wg3] WG3 Meeting Schedule

[Ann Wrightson]

We have a UK committee meeting on 3/3, & doubtless will discuss this.

The main reasons that the colocated meetings have worked well for me are:

- I find that the intensive f2f format enables me to get my head (back)
around the complex subject matter (that does not form part of my daily work)
& contribute to discussions. 

- the package of meeting/conference has been v. much easier to sell to my
recent employers as a worthwhile use of my time, than either would be alone.
Kal's point about the difference between week-end days and weekday billable
days is well made, too. How many actual and potential members would we lose
if we changed?

- the presence of standards folks at the conference increases its
intellectual content, & access to knowledgeable folks that are not members
of the SC/WG, in foyer chats, is valuable for the standards work

- colocation of the WG and SC meetings allows combination roles of expert
and head of delegation from the BSI perspective

- colocation of the WG and SC meetings has allowed Jim Mason to contribute
to the WG discussions, and this has been v. valuable

I strongly support this arrangement continuing. I would be happy to use a
couple of days after this next conference for WG meetings.

Do we know why IDEAlliance have pulled the plug on our week-end meeting
space?

Ann W.

-----Original Message-----
From: sc34wg3-admin@isotopicmaps.org [mailto:sc34wg3-admin@isotopicmaps.org]
On Behalf Of Kal Ahmed
Sent: 22 February 2004 18:31
To: sc34wg3@isotopicmaps.org
Subject: [sc34wg3] WG3 Meeting Schedule

In light of the recent difficulties facing Ken in organising a place for us
to meet, I began to wonder about the whole tradition of aligning meetings
with the IdeAlliance conferences. I realise that this is an arrangement that
precedes my participation by quite a few years, so I hope I am not speaking
out of turn.

Anyway, it seems to me that this arrangement is giving us less benefit and
causing more problems as time goes by. The principle of alternating sides of
the Atlantic is not a bad one, but why necessarily tie ourselves to the
schedule and locations of the conferences ? Also, I think that there is a
lot more that we can do by teleconference and email than we currently do. So
what I would propose as an alternative would be:

1) Just one F2F meeting per year. Alternating US and Europe (perhaps that
should be US/Europe/Asia). The F2F would maybe, but not necessarily, be
timed and located to coincide with a conference, but the principle guiding
factor would be having a meeting room big enought to hold all the attendees.

2) Monthly teleconferences - limited in time to maybe 2 hours maximum with
an agreed agenda that focusses on discussing one or two key issues.
The teleconferences could/should be followed up with IRC sessions.

3) More email traffic. Not just calls for review of documents, but also
editors raising issues *before* writing down their solution.

One last thing, I think I agree with what Steve says about us being close on
parts 1-4 and I would not suggest that finalising those issues could all be
done by concall/IRC - but maybe now is the time for the issues to start
being raised - and maybe a pre-meeting concall (say in March some time)
would be useful ?
 
Thoughts ?

Cheers,

Kal

--
Kal Ahmed <kal@techquila.com>
techquila

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