I can offer my opinions/observations, but hope that others in the SC will chime in with theirs (which may differ from mine).
As I mentioned, there are ways to overlay multiple technologies and "make things work" (free screen sharing, with free conf calling and skype). This does work but can be challenging and is distracting from actually getting things done. It's hard to separate the screen sharing and audio since they are two sides of the same discussion. Audio is always required and many times we could probably get by with no screen sharing .. it depends on what's being discussed.
The cost of a "toll" call in the US will vary based on the caller's phone plan .. might be free or might be significant for an hour+ meeting. I don't know what that is for international calls, but it's likely to be significant.
We've been using GoToMeeting in the DITA-Help SC for some time now, and in general it works quite well to have the audio and screen sharing integrated. Webex offers a similar service, but I think that GoToMeeting is probably less expensive.
The problem is that these licenses are assigned to individual organizers. For GoToMeeting, one organizer can hold "unlimited" meetings for $40 per month. Problem is that each group probably only meets 2-3 times per month, maybe just once .. $40 for one meeting is crazy. If this could be shared between multiple groups it would be much more reasonable .. but that comes down to what's allowed by the vendor.
You (OASIS) could buy a license and give the login information to a number of people .. are these people acting as your representative in a meeting so it's OK for them to hold meetings at different times in the month? I'm sure the vendors would say that this isn't allowed. If there was some way to actually pay for each meeting rather than per meeting organizer it would be much more reasonable.
This is all logistics that may be able to get worked out .. or not.
It's fine to rely on members to provide these services, but when the membership changes, a group can be left without access to tools that they had been using (as has happened to us, I believe).
I go back to my earlier thought .. all of the vendors who offer this service are members of OASIS. It seems that there should be some creative way to work out an arrangement that would benefit everyone. The vendor could claim to be supporting OASIS with this tool, and the actual usage would really not be all that much.
Thanks for working on this!
Cheers,
...scott
On 2/28/12 2:22 PM, Scott McGrath wrote:
Hi Scott,
Allow me to share some insights, ask some questions of you and other SC members and perhaps even move a bit closer to a good answer.
first the questions:
I think I see three separate issues:
1. Screen sharing and meeting facilitation
2. Local/domestic call expenses
3. International call expenses
Of these three, how would you rank them - which would be most productive to resolve? I know answering this will take some conjecture if you assume "productive" means getting more folks involved in your work or keeping folks involved in your work. Best guesses are good.
How much of an impediment are these issues? Is resolving any of them imperative to your progress, are they reasonable courtesies to offer, or nice to have?
With your earlier use of Webex, did the integrated audio solve some/all of the phone call issues?
Now, some answers and observations from my experience:
Most TCs have available member provided resources for teleconference, at a minimum, and increasingly screen-sharing. This comes from member's professional courtesy and generous offer. I've heard some large members express that they are happy to provide the resource, because they do want to support the work any way they can--and their large scale economies for teleconferencing is a readily available asset. It is very infrequent that there is not a resource and anyone has to consider pan-handling. Of course, that is no consolation to anyone forced to pan-handle ;-) so we do want to prevent that.
I do know that providing services to all members across the board is not feasible. I did a fairly deep analysis of possible costs in 2006, when we had far fewer TCs. I considered the cost if we provided international conferencing for all TC meetings that had teleconferences on their calendar. The cost would have been nearly 10% our annual operating budget. As a non-profit that shares its costs among all the members, we couldn't rationalize a 10% dues increase to provide a service that was generally being provided already. Honestly, I think many members believe having a few large members carrying the conference costs internally is preferential to sharing it across all members, but that may be a matter of perspective ;-)
We have experimented in the past, and based on your inquiry will revisit, the idea of having limited resources available to fill in the gaps where donated services are not available. It's a delicate balance to provide necessary services without blowing out the budget, but it is more feasible than funding services across the board.
your committee's responses to the questions above will help me maximize the value while containing the cost to something reasonable (hopefully ;-))
Thanks for asking, thanks for reading this and for your reply,
All the best,
Scott...
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Scott Prentice <sp10@leximation.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: [dita-help] Re: OASIS WebEx-type account
To: Chet Ensign <chet.ensign@oasis-open.org>
Cc: dita-help@lists.oasis-open.org
Hi Chet...
I've also used multiple combinations of "free" services to organize meetings like this, but you often end up spending the first 15 minutes getting everything set up and working properly. Once everyone has figured it out it goes a bit smoother, but any time there are new people or changes, it's a real hassle. Not to mention that the "free" is not really free since people typically have to call in to a single number in the US, which just pushes the toll charge on each caller (we've got members in Australia, India, and Europe). Yes, you can use Skype to call into the number, which reduces the cost, but increases the layers of technology that can fail or distract from the focus of the meeting.
It seems that OASIS could buy a few GoToMeeting licenses and let groups sign up for time slots .. might just need two licenses to handle everyone (I don't know the frequency of overlap, so this might not be accurate). Also, I'm assuming that most TCs do use some screen sharing app and not just audio (where a "free conference call" service may be a more reasonable option). If you split this cost up over the number of TCs, the cost is likely to be quite minimal.
It just doesn't seem right that TC members would need to "beg" for a slice of a corporate or personal license from another member. OASIS is a professional organization and seems like it should be providing the tools for its members to do their jobs as efficiently as possible. Has this been discussed before? I can't imagine that I'm the first person to bring it up.
Thanks,
...scott
On 2/27/12 7:02 AM, Chet Ensign wrote:Hi Kris,
No, we really don't. I use my Free Conference Call and my Free International Conference Call accounts for meetings that I organize. There is also a Freescreensharing facility from them although I haven't used it yet. And of course we have the Soaphub chat room facility (e.g. http://webconf.soaphub.org/conf/room/dita-help). But we don't have a web conferencing facility for TC use.
/chet
On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 11:11 PM, Kristen Eberlein <keberlein@sdl.com> wrote:
Chet, does OASIS have a WebEx-type account that the DITA help SC could use for their meetings? Please let us know.
Best regards,
Kris
Kristen James Eberlein | DITA Architect and Technical Specialist | SDL Structured Content Technologies Division | (t) + 1 (919) 682-2290| keberlein@sdl.com
Santa Clara | March 5-6 www.sdl.com/innovate
From: dita-help@lists.oasis-open.org [mailto:dita-help@lists.oasis-open.org] On Behalf Of Scott Prentice
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 10:43 PM
To: tself@hyperwrite.com
Cc: dita-adoption-help@lists.oasis-open.org; dita-help@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [dita-help] Re: [dita-adoption-help] Meeting Scheduled for Monday
Hi Tony...
I've got a GoToMeeting account (not corporate, just the base model) that we could use if needed until a proper replacement is found.
Never really thought about his before, but it seems that OASIS should be providing this for these meetings, no? We shouldn't need to scrounge around for a method to communicate. Am I out of line in thinking this?
Cheers,
...scott
On 2/24/12 3:24 AM, Tony Self wrote:Greetings colleaguesIt looks like we might have lost access to the GoToMeeting service thatwe've been using for the past couple of years, and I have been consequentlyunable to set up the meeting for next Monday afternoon (US time). Could Isuggest we postpone the meeting until we've found a replacement WebEx orGoToMeeting service?Does anyone have a corporate GoToMeeting or WebEx service that we could use?Best regardsTony SelfChair, DITA Help Subcommittee and DITA Adoption Help Subcommittee---------------------------------------------------------------------To unsubscribe, e-mail: dita-adoption-help-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.orgFor additional commands, e-mail: dita-adoption-help-help@lists.oasis-open.org
--
/chet
----------------
Chet Ensign
Director of Standards Development and TC Administration
OASIS: Advancing open standards for the information society
http://www.oasis-open.org
Primary: +1 973-378-3472
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--
/chet
----------------
Chet Ensign
Director of Standards Development and TC Administration
OASIS: Advancing open standards for the information society
http://www.oasis-open.org
Primary: +1 973-378-3472
Mobile: +1 201-341-1393
Follow OASIS on:
LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/OASISopen
Twitter: http://twitter.com/OASISopen
Facebook: http://facebook.com/oasis.open
--
Scott McGrath
COO
scott.mcgrath@oasis-open.org
Tel +1 781-425-5073 x202
Fax +1 781-425-5072
Follow OASIS on:
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