RE: [egov] Groups - London Oasis E-gov conference added

["Peter F Brown" <peter@justbrown.net>]

Jon:
I would agree with you but it cuts both ways: forgive me, I don't want to
shoot at the messenger but this is the opportunity to sound off

Many OASIS TC F2F meeting take place in the USA and use dial-in conference
call facilities that are Toll Free from within the USA/Canada only. As in
individual member, if it wasn't for my employer being generous, I would
clock up a phone bill of $100 per dial-in meeting, and *that* is a major
hurdle for participation.

I guess a paid-for dial-in facility for the London meeting would be
acceptable, rather than nothing at all?

I have asked the OASIS Board - through John Borras during his mandate as a
member - to look at "level playing field" rules for participation in all TC
meetings so that there isn't such a US-bias for a supposedly global
consortium. Others have phrased that rather more bluntly: only North
American members complain about meeting costs when there are proposed in
Europe or Asia; you never hear the complaint the other way around (which is
also more frequent).

All the best,

Peter
-------------
Peter F Brown
---
Chair, CEN eGovernment Focus Group
---
Senior Expert
ICT-Strategy Unit
Austrian Federal Chancellery
---
Co-Editor, OASIS SOA Reference Model
---

No trees were destroyed in the production of this message. Many electrons
were however severely agitated.


-----Original Message-----
From: jon.bosak@sun.com [mailto:jon.bosak@sun.com] 
Sent: 30 August 2005 19:10
To: egov@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [egov] Groups - London Oasis E-gov conference added

[h.j.m.burg@minfin.nl:]

| SUMMARY:London Oasis E-gov conference
| 
| DESCRIPTION:The conference is planned after the OASIS adoption forum 
| in The Russel Hotel London. Information about the adoption forum on 
| the OASIS website. The forum is not for free the TC conference is free 
| of charge.  On TC face to face meetings no dial inn facilities will be 
| present anymore.  OASIS members who plan to come please register via 
| an e-mail to the TC chair. The meeting room has a fixed capacity. The 
| reserve the right room it is nessesary that registration is done as 
| soon as possible but no later than september 30, 2005

I'm somewhat taken aback at the decision to disallow dial-ins at egov
meetings.  I am well aware (believe me!) of the cost and logistical
difficulties of setting up telephone access to TC meetings, and even more
aware of the difficulty of hearing anything from a remote location; at best,
it's possible to hear only half the people physically present at the
meeting, and often it's a lot worse than that.  Few people will attempt to
overcome these difficulties and dial in, and absent visual cues, it's often
hard for remote callers to participate effectively.

Having said all that, however, the fact remains that holding egov meetings
without phone access means that attendance will be limited to people with
generous travel budgets, i.e., some government employees and some large
vendors.  As a citizen, I don't much like the thought of my government
employees determining public IT policy in meetings dominated by large
vendors.  And I think that restricting meetings to attendance in person
positions the TC very poorly to cope with travel costs that will be
undergoing drastic increases over the next couple of years due to the
increasing cost of fuel.  We should be working to overcome the obstacles
presented by remote participation, not simply giving up on it.

Jon







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