April OASIS Symposium sessions for TC leaders: talking in public about your TC

[James Bryce Clark <jamie.clark@oasis-open.org>]

OASIS Committee Chairs:
     As you know, we're encouraging TCs to schedule F2F meetings in 
conjunction with the OASIS Symposium and Annual General Meeting in New 
Orleans, LA, US the week of 24 April 2005 
(http://www.oasis-open.org/events/symposium_2005).
     We hope to see many of you there.  To make the event as productive as 
possible, we're planning several special events, including two that relate 
to your TC leadership role and so worth a mention here:

>Effectively Leading an OASIS Committee
>[Wednesday evening]
>     OASIS staff will join new, existing, and prospective TC leaders to 
> discuss issues surrounding the operational issues in running a TC, 
> including the TC Process, IPR Policy , Kavi, membership, interops, 
> publicity, spec testing, and more.  We plan some conversation about the 
> best practices for building consensus, promoting adoption, coping with 
> legal realities, and taking advantage of Consortium resources.  All TC 
> chairs, secretaries, and editors are strongly encouraged to attend this 
> session. Anyone with an interest in a leadership role in a new or 
> existing TC is also welcome.
>
>OASIS TC Lightning Round.
>[Tuesday late afternoon]
>     This year's Annual General Meeting for members will feature an 
> overview *of* the TCs, *by* the TCs--lightning round updates on each 
> OASIS Committee.  It promises to be a great opportunity to educate 
> members on what your TC is accomplishing, find out the status of related 
> work, appeal for input, and identify areas for liaison and 
> development.  Each TC may (and should) designate one representative to 
> deliver a short presentation on their work.  Presentations will be 
> compiled and posted on the OASIS site following the AGM.

Jamie's comments:
     For the Lightning Round, given >60 TCs, we are hoping for 3-4 slides' 
or 2-3 minutes worth of compact status data and pointers per committee.  We 
think it will be a great chance to cross-fertilize and learn.  Would each 
TC please identify someone to represent the TC at this session or, if 
that's not possible, provide material in advance.  We will talk about each 
TC briefly, in any case;  and of course we'd rather hear about it from its 
own members.
     For the TC Leadership session, we should have plenty to discuss, as 
the imminent revisions to our TC Process and IPR Policy are rolled out, 
along with OASIS membership database upgrades and other feature 
improvements.  It's even possible that a few of our members will think of 
tough questions for us.  Live microphone.  Guaranteed non-boring.
     For both sessions, I hope you will be able to join us for an 
interesting discussion.  Please feel free to send us any suggestions for 
specific issues you'd like us to address.

     I want to emphasize how important co-location and community-building 
is to our work.  Standards work is significantly improved by broad 
cross-fertilization.   Intellectual hybrid vigor consistently works better 
than a "bell-jar" project that keeps its heads down throughout its 
lifecycle.  Our co-location F2F experiments at OASIS are 
positive:  participants say they're energized and more likely to actively 
contribute.  Some other standards groups do much more to cluster F2F 
activity.  Doing more with co-location at OASIS may be worth further 
discussion.
     The OASIS Technical Advisory Board meets later this week in Phoenix, 
AZ USA.  Once Mary and I return, we'll have more to report to this list, 
about priorities, successes, failures and predictions for our standards 
development infrastructure at OASIS.

     Best regards  Jamie

~   James Bryce Clark
~   Director, Standards Development, OASIS
~   +1 978 667 5115 x 203 central office