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

["Harm-Jan van Burg" <harmjan@vanburg.net>]

I agree with you that we have to find solutions for the teleconferences. I
think we have to divide the burden amongst the TC members. 
I am certainly not going to rely on face to face meetings. It is my idea to
hold only a fey each year spread over all continents so that members can at
least visit one each year not to far away.  Because people spend money and
effort to come to face to face meetings, there must be something extra. I
have spoken individually to members who said that balancing the effort of
coming in relationship with attending meetings via the phone made them
decide not to come. Certainly not for meetings of only one day. It is my
personal view that face to face meetings with more people on the phone than
in the room are not working. Face to face is about interacting. Especially
for non English speakers it is a huge burden to get your views across on
teleconferences and in writing. That is a reason (in my opinion that is one
of the reasons why we see relatively little participation from non English
speakers)
Besides that I have the experience that organisation, governments or private
have no problem in providing meeting space on their premises (they save the
travel cost for their employees). However setting up teleconference
facilities in room where those are normally are not available is costly.

I think this global participation could be a good issue in the board,
because I cannot solve this. Hearing this conversation I fear that my
activities in this TC will have to end pretty soon.

Harm Jan van Burg



-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Borras, John [mailto:John.Borras@legsb.gov.uk] 
Verzonden: woensdag 31 augustus 2005 9:29
Aan: Harm-Jan van Burg
CC: egov@lists.oasis-open.org
Onderwerp: RE: [egov] Groups - London Oasis E-gov conference added

Harm

The question of full participation in the e-Gov TC was a problem from day
one given its very nature of being of global interest, and whilst it was
reasonable to align European and USA time for meetings, it was clearly very
difficult for members from the Far East and down under to participate, apart
from Colin Wallis who used to phone in the middle of the night from NZ!
This was one of the reasons I attempted to get an Asia/Pacific branch
established to ensure we got full input from colleagues in that part of the
world.  Clearly for something like e-government it is essential to provide
the opportunity for everyone to participate and the concept of regional
sub-committees is something you might consider for the future.

I have to disagree with your assessment that our meetings did not work.  I
alternated the meetings between Europe and USA and allowed dial-ins to each
meeting, and I like to think that provided for successful meetings.  The
fact that UK Government paid for all the teleconferencing is another matter,
so you will need to find a sugar daddy to pay the bills.  I would suggest
you have to allow teleconferencing to meetings otherwise you will not get
the global input that is essential.  Relying on only F2F meetings will not
work in my opinion.

If you would like me to raise again this issue of global participation in TC
meetings with the OASIS Board please let me know.

Regards
John

-----Original Message-----
From: Harm-Jan van Burg [mailto:harmjan@vanburg.net]
Sent: 30 August 2005 20:48
To: 'Farrukh Najmi'; 'Rex Brooks'
Cc: Jon.Bosak@Sun.COM; egov@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [egov] Groups - London Oasis E-gov conference added


This TC started almost two years ago with face to face meetings in a
extremely tight schedule. In later instances this TC had meetings with only
a few people in the room and the rest on the phone. Anyone can see that does
not work. In my opinion and I wrote that to the TC when I accepted the chair
it would be good if we have a minimum of ftf meetings and rely on telecoms
for the rest of the time. 
In my experience it is necessary to work together in a face to face from
time to time. Most hosts for meetings regard setting up dial in facilities
during ftf extremely costly and it is frustrating for those who took the
time and the cost to travel to see that only a handful did come. 

It is my aim to try to set up face to face meetings in a way that the time
spend is in balance with the travel time and cost. If meetings are planned
well in advance it is possible to limit the amount of money spend.

Because I am currently only chairing this TC, I have to abide by the TC
decision-making. I am trying to set up a telecom. Up till now no single
member of this TC has offered to set up the bridge. In my organisation we
don't have telecom facilities. So I have to rely on members.

In this telecom we can decide not to have the face to face meeting. I would
have liked to hear it after my mail about two months ago, but these things
happen.

I realise working in organisations like OASIS cost time and money, so mostly
it is not doable for true individuals, but at the other hand if we want to
influence anyone (any government, software company etc) it will take
efforts. I personally think there is a good business case for working on
standards. That is the reason that this work is difficult to do for any
individual I think.

Perhaps I am not doing the right thing for the committee lets talk about
that at next week telecom. Via Skype or whatever means I do not care

Harm Jan van Burg


-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Farrukh Najmi [mailto:Farrukh.Najmi@Sun.COM] 
Verzonden: dinsdag 30 augustus 2005 20:57
Aan: Rex Brooks
CC: Jon.Bosak@Sun.COM; egov@lists.oasis-open.org
Onderwerp: Re: [egov] Groups - London Oasis E-gov conference added

Rex Brooks wrote:
> I concur.
>
+1

I have seen us make substantial progress in past meetings where even 
telecon option was used very effectively. I very much rely
on telecons as an alternative to travel and would really like us to have 
the choice remain for TC members.
Why change if something has worked well so far?
Thanks.
> Rex
>
> At 10:09 AM -0700 8/30/05, jon.bosak@sun.com wrote:
>> [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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>
>


-- 
Regards,
Farrukh




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