[CCGT] Community Activities at Meetings

[Geoffrey Fox]

Thank you -- I think we agree
Julie will try to analyze sign up sheets to find for each participant how
many hours they spent in different GGF activities and so document synergy

I believe in 2006 there is bound to be a Gridworld in fall 2006 but
what standards/community activities are associated is unclear --
partly as nature of Geneva GGF is unclear (maybe it moves to 2007?)

However I believe that just one uncertain GGF event in USA in 2006
and at end of year is not sufficient. We need a USA activity between
the 2005 and 2006 Gridworlds.

Craig Lee wrote:

>
> Geoffrey,
>
> Your analysis raises several recurring themes together.
>
> 1) The synergy between standards and community is one of the
>    key strengths of GGF.  {I have asked academics why they
>    come to GGF (a standards body) and it is because GGF
>    is where interesting things are happening.}
>
> 2) Meeting cadence can greatly determine community building
>    success.  As you say, it is hard to build and keep
>    momentum if groups meet infrequently.
>
> 3) Regional GGFs.  Travel support is an issue and if there
>    were more "local" GGFs, we could perhaps increase our
>    routine/repeat participation.  (People would not have to wait
>    for GGF to "come to town").  Regional GGFs would certainly
>    have a regional emphasis, as determined by the participants.
>    Hence, the onus would be on the Global GGF ;-> to integrate
>    and coordinate their activities.
>
> This raises the dilemma of no US meeting in 2006.  With no US
> meeting in 2006, a significant segment of our constituents may
> not be able to participate in a meeting.  But a US regional
> community meeting without the standards people will be lacking.
>
> We could do nothing and concentrate on our current plan, or
> we could, as you say, experiment with a community-only, regional
> US meeting, perhaps partnered with GridWorld.  If we do do this,
> we should really target those groups that need to have a US
> meeting, regardless of whether they are existing or in development.
>
> Looking at the current groups, this might include HASS, ACE,
> GCE, PGS, and UPDT.  The could also be an opportunity for the
> Telecom group to get US companies to participate in a meeting,
> e.g., the AT&Ts, and the Sprints, etc.  The proposed Reliability RG
> had a great BoF in Brussels but then fizzled before getting to
> Seoul.  Maybe this could help them get started again.  We could
> also use this as an opportunity to organize meetings in areas
> such as pharma, NCO, or whoever else that would attend a GridWorld
> as opposed to a GGF.
>
> --Craig
>
>
>
> At 02:19 PM 8/16/2005, Geoffrey Fox wrote:
>
>> Please comment on the analysis below that is meant
>> to summarize my thoughts on what we have learnt so far
>> It was requested by Mark at last events steering group call
>> Below I view Enterprise as a particular (large important)
>> community and so I don't differentiate it.
>>
>> GGF Community Challenges and Strategy
>> -------------------------------------------
>> I think the CC (Community Council) has as promised successfully
>> developed and executed a community focus for GGF14
>> and should probably succeed in similar way for GGF15.
>> We have not published as promised a community participation
>> guide or charter documents for all areas. (Industrial
>> Applications are one where a draft exists)
>>
>> Let us discuss the nature of community activities and why
>> there are difficulties in putting participation and
>> charter documents in writing. First note that currently
>> at least, all GGF-related community activities are
>> associated with GGF meetings although of course
>> communities associated with GGF do lots of things outside
>> GGF.
>>
>> Communities are attracted to GGF meetings presumably
>> partly due to the effectiveness of organization of an
>> event at GGF meetings but other organizations can compete
>> here. I suggest that dominant attraction of communities
>> to GGF is the synergy between the community event and
>> other GGF meeting activities. This synergy comes from both
>> standards and other community activities. In particular a
>> particular community member benefits from attending other events and
>> individuals primarily attracted to GGF for other reasons,
>> attend the community event and so enhance it.
>>
>> Given the synergy observation, it suggests that we need
>> to think about the community from both particular
>> functional areas as now but also from the synergy point
>> of view. The need to have synergy implies
>> a) The main role of area director is to to catalyze the
>> interest of communities to have GGF related events
>> b) The success of the events is partly connected to
>> contacting people within given community but also in
>> having other synergistic activities
>> c) The attraction of a particular GGF meeting depends on
>> its geographical area and the existence of both standards
>> and community activities or some other synergy as
>> explored in 4) below.
>>    1) Thus it is doubtful if GGF events outside USA
>>    will succeed unless there is effort and people
>>    devoted to exploiting geographical synergies --
>>    we saw this working in last Korea GGF meeting.
>>    2) It is not going to be easy to make events
>>    successful unless they have both standards and
>>    community components. Thus partnering community
>>    with a standards-free Gridworld in 2006 seems
>>    challenging as we will miss standards people
>>    synergy.
>>    3) It is not clear if communities can get
>>    momentum with one event per year; it is certain
>>    that they need at least one per year. 2006 with
>>    at most one event in USA will be challenging and
>>    after GGF15 we will be challenged to maintain
>>    momentum with the next USA event at least a
>>    year away. This is not to say Athens and Japan in
>>    2006 will not succeed but rather their community
>>    events will have a regional flavor and will have
>>    significant input from local people. I discuss the
>>    challenge to maintain interest in communities
>>    with a USA bias in 2006.
>>    4) I think it is important to experiment with a
>>    low-key regional GGF event in USA (the mid-west
>>    or equivalent such geographically focused event.)
>>    This could be community only, held in late spring
>>    2006 (six months after Boston), and have a mix of "international"
>>    communities interested in a USA meeting then but
>>    with main drive from Grid communities in the
>>    chosen geographical region,.
>>    5) We need to structure the community council with
>>    people able to deliver on synergies. We need either
>>    directors or advisers able to deliver on geographical
>>    synergies.
>>
>> Please comment
>> Thank you!
>>
>> -- 
>> :
>> : Geoffrey Fox  gcf at indiana.edu FAX 8128567972 http://www.infomall.org
>> : Phones Cell 812-219-4643  Home 8123239196 Lab 8128567977
>
>
>

-- 
:
: Geoffrey Fox  gcf at indiana.edu FAX 8128567972 http://www.infomall.org
: Phones Cell 812-219-4643  Home 8123239196 Lab 8128567977