Action Items and Notes: Adoption TC Meeting 05-04-2021

["Dr. Stanley Doherty" <stan@modularwriting.com>]

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       ACTION ITEMS - Adoption TC
               May 04, 2021
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Attendees: Stan, Keith, Josh, Kathy, Pei, Kathryn, Gershon
Regrets: Scott

Attendees shared positive impressions of the ConVEx online  conferences last week. Conference e attendees from India were engaged across many timezones. Presentations on DITA 2.0 seemed to be of particular interest. 

1 - We decided to suspend discussion of our OASIS charter for this meeting. 

2 - Instead we discussed the results of TC member research about alternative standards and professional organizations. 

     a. CIDM (Gershon, Kathy): Gershon reported that he had contacted Dawn Stevens and had offered to open discussions about the 
        strengths/weaknesses of hosting the DITA Adoption/Advocacy efforts through CDM. Kathy offered to assist and facilitate.

     b. ISO (Keith): ISO is, like OASIS, primarily a standards development organization without much history or strength
         In the advice and support areas. 

     c. Object Management Group (Keith): OMG is a development standards group similar in charter to OASIS and ISO.

     d. Association of Computing Machinery (Stan): Although ACM has a decidedly academic bent, it has active professional 
         Special interest groups and local chapters to suggest that it might be a good fit for us. 

          In its "About" statement, ACM notes "ACM notes that it brings together computing educators, researchers, and 
       professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources, and address the field's challenges. As the 
       worldÂs largest computing society, ACM strengthens the profession's collective voice through 
       strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. 
       ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for lifeâlong 
       learning, career development, and professional networking."

       Whereas OASIS is a lean-mean-XML-spec-producing-machine, ACM leans toward more academic

        and research-y activities. ACM organizes itself around three groups:

    General industry health and career development
    Special Interest Groups (SIGs) -- AI, software design, graphics, UXD, HPC, cloud, etc..
    Regional chapters -- university and urban chapters (membership feeders). 

            ACM has well-defined processes for creating a SIG or chapter.
            - https://www.acm.org/special-interest-groups/start-a-special-interest-group

            The first step in that process involves auditing existing SIGs and identifying potential charter overlaps. The only SIG with any 

            focus on technical communication (among other things) is ACM SIGDOC (Design of Communication).

            - https://www.acm.org/special-interest-groups/sigs/sigdoc

           Keith, Carlos, Joann, and I (Stan) attended an ACM SIGDOC conference a few years back. I'd say that 90% of the content was 

           UXD/Human-Factors and another 9% professional development. If there were any professional technical communicators in attendance, 

           they were pretty quiet. When SIGDOC members write or present about DITA, they tend to focus on teaching strategies, see Prof. Daniel 

           Card, Micro-Reflections in Markdown: Learning DITA by Letting It Go (October 2020).

           I have been an ACM SIGDOC member for years and value their attempt to make undergraduate education in tech comm to be less superficial.

           Is ACM SIGDOC a fit for our Adoption goals? Probably not. Rebekka Andersen and Carlos Evia are academics and have been very involved

           with SIGDOC; they may have better insights.

           Annual dues for ACM members = $35.  
           AI/Stan - Contact Rebekka Anderson and Carlos Evia to set up a meeting to get their insert view of ACM SigDOC.

     e.  ACM (Josh): Michigan State supported an ACM regional chapter and Josh was involved in writing and developing a SIGDOC paper.
          Good experience. 

          AI/Josh - Reach out to Michigan contact Liza Potts. 

     f.   IEEE(Stan): In addition to developing standards, IEEE has diverse levels of membership involvement, some robust technical community 
          involvement, and a focus on education (academic and professional). The technical communities stuff looks promising . . .
          https://www.ieee.org/communities/societies/about-technical-communities.html.

          IEEE does have an existing working committee on technical communication -- it seems to be as focused on academia as industry.
          - https://attend.ieee.org/procomm-2021/call-for-proposals/
          - https://attend.ieee.org/procomm-2021/ 

          Carlos Evia services on the ProComm conference committee, so he could fill us in on the inner workings if we wished to engage IEEE. 

3 - DITA 2.0 Ramp-up: The DITA TC has reported that it plans to release a preliminary set of DITA 2.0 DUDs in June. The Adoption TC
     Resolved to perform as deep dive on those DTDs and to provide the DITA TC with feedback. 

     AI/Team - take a look at the DITA 2.0- presentations from the ConVEx conference., notably Kris EberleinÂs overview and the
     DITA 2.0 panel.