Today's Meeting -- Quick Update from Jane

["Jane Harnad" <jane.harnad@oasis-open.org>]

Hello Everyone,  

Since I'm going to be a few minutes late for today's meeting, I wanted to be
sure to pass around a few updates and items for your review.  I'm hoping to
join the call around 11:15 to discuss all these issues further.  Thanks,
Jane

Venue:

As you all know, our September dates won't work at the NOAA facility.  I
spoke to the conference manager yesterday and discovered two key issues that
are listed below.  As a reminder, this facility is located in Silver
Springs, Maryland (outside DC).  Location details may be found at:
http://www.arl.noaa.gov/ss_directions.php

* Dates - No dates available in September; only dates currently available
for both the auditorium & science center at NOAA are the 15 & 16 of October
(Note: Other EM events we're hoping to avoid include: IAEM Annual Conference
(Oct. 31-Nov. 5) in Orlando, FL & NEMA 2009 Annual Conference (Oct 10-13) in
Columbus, OH)

* Internet Access - Despite what we were initially told, Internet access is
a problem at this facility.  The speaker will have access to the internet
via a hard wire connection at the podium.  No wireless connectivity will be
available for guests, as well as Interop demonstrators.  

I have put a hold on the space until Monday morning.  We need to decide very
by COB Monday if this space will work the event, or if we need to continue
our search.  

Program Development:

* Event theme & title - the current front runner is:  Emergency Management
Interoperability Summit:  "Demonstrating Emergency Response Coordination
through Open Data Standards".  

I ran the above through a few folks here at OASIS and they had some concerns
about its length, attractiveness, and redundancy. In addition, it was
suggested that we consider building brand awareness through the title.  This
would mean we should consider selecting an event title that could be used
when doing summits, webinars, golf tournaments, or other.  

One suggestion made was to call the event:  "Emergency Open" Summit --
allowing us to do a series of other things relating back to the "Emergency
Open" title.  Thoughts?