Advisory Group Meeting Notes and Afterthoughts - 20050202a.txt Meeting on Thursday, January 13th, 5-7 P.M. ++, Grimm's residence. Present: Bob and Bobbie Grimm, Tino Bellanca, Audrey Mang, Rachel Fix, Bill Marx, Jim Whitlock With us in spirit: Hank Bromley, Tony Klejna, Joe Bach, Susan and David Ellis, Faizan Haq, June Licence, David Seltzer, Judy Fix New Additions: Paul Reitan Overview of technology & applications: -------------------------------------- - The overview and background component of our meeting consumed the first hour or so. Continuing work on identifying ways to reduce background familiarization time and to improve the effectiveness of such presentation components will be of great value as we proceed. - One excellent suggestion was to begin such overviews with video clips rather than with verbal descriptions -- this capitalizes on the known effectiveness of experiential approaches to communicating the nature of the promise and benefit potential for high quality IP video. Needs & Action Items: --------------------- - Greatest immediate needs that the group homed-in on for possible help revolve around legitimization and acceptance (if not support) of project and methodology within UB and possibly also with prospective Palestinian principals. Any material produced in this regard could also clearly serve to accelerate the awareness and acceptance of this effort in general -- think PR and attracting other prospective early adopters in the WNY region, in the global community and in Palestine. We all agreed that simple non-technical English prose expressing the public benefit visions and methods used to achieve them will go a long way towards finding support for the effort. Tino offered to attempt to draft and circulate a short discussion starter based on prior attempts of my own that have never turned out to be either short enough or simple enough. The objective would be to keep it to a page or less. - Rachel offered to begin working on identifying early-adopter candidates at Bennett Park Montessori School. She will also try to identify an appropriate technical support contact. - Time on the ground and funding for ground needs will rapidly become the critical success determining and rate limiting factors. Housing, ground transportation, guide/translation support and miscellaneous expenses now dominate immediate practical needs. Costs for early short visits have been running about $5-6K each and available funds sources are now overextended. The most critical resource, however, is time on the ground to work and build relationships with those associated with the project. While I have been given permission to use my project related university equipment, I can now only use vacation time for ground work in Palestine and I will have exhausted reserves at the end of my visit in late February. Working to try to effect greater legitimization of the effort at UB could have the greatest impact on both issues with least requirement for additional funding since lengthier visits would make it practical to start using dramatically lower cost rental housing, a low cost leased or purchased vehicle and so on. - The group expressed resonance with my proposal to start some topically and interest-centered "Conversations" between WNY and Palestinian counterparts, making use of now-possible low-grade IP-video connections. My own sense is that the group can help significantly with the development of this project component. I'd like to continue this discussion soon and to flesh-out additional possibilities and plans. The two Conversation series now envisioned are centered on college-level Nursing faculty and K-12 teachers. Religious leaders are another possibility. We would hope that these Conversations lead not only to the development of specific trial and demonstration projects but also to identification of new early adopter project principal candidates. Follow-up notes to self: ------------------------ - Tino offered to draft a short "plain-English" introduction and overview based on material from some of my earlier attempts. Find and forward prior efforts to Tino. - Locate and distribute links to I2 VidMid Scenarios (in the Cookbooks?) The scenario description approach has proved exceptionally useful and effective within the Internet2 community for communicating the practical functional benefits of complex technology to non-technical people. - Circulate notes on the project development process/methodology from a recent draft proposal outline. Also circulate the introductory section of the earliest project proposal draft in addition to forwarding it to Tino. - Draft the blunt un-kind form of arguments for normalization of this project within UB: - Past successes of the project director, including a SUNY Chancellor's Award, for application of these development methods within the WNY region - Efforts in Palestine as simple extension with even greater benefit potentials, not only to same constituency within WNY but also to institution, region and peacemaking efforts in general -- not to mention directly to the Palestinian public - The project director has permanent appointment and clearly can be expected to pursue this project regardless of the level of university support and approval. Why not maximize the benefit and credit for UB? - The University has an opportunity to take large credit for what is generally seen as valuable innovation for humanitarian aid and assistance and as a contribution to regional peacemaking - The University will be positioning itself well to take advantage of post-conflict educational development opportunities - The project appears to be consistent with the intent of UB's Community Engagement Task Force. This needs to be investigated further. See: http://www.buffalo.edu/ub2020/com_charge.html - While not discussed at the 1/13 meeting, the group could clearly also help with an articulation of answers to "What's in it for us?" and other Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's). In fact, that could be one of the single most effective contributions of all -- collective work on a general FAQ sheet. Question include "What's IP video?" "What can you do with it?" and "Why should we support this?" TTD --> start developing a list of questions while the early-exposure memories of the group are stall fresh. - Re-start work on another project proposal draft with a focus on time allocations and anticipated outcomes -- some of this may already be in my first un-circulated travel report - Consider including one or more Palestinian colleagues in the WNY advisory group for liaison and confidence building - Consider an on-line videoconference "Conversations" series for WNY advisory group, Palestinian principals and the Palestinian early adopter community. This would not only give the advisory group the best sense of immediate limited IP videoconferencing capabilities but could help build broader shared project visions and strategy. - Prepare a list of advisory group participants and their interest constituencies - Develop a separate list of known potential organizational and corporate sponsors and interested parties for group use and reference -- ranging from Cisco and Nortel to IEEAF, TERENA, DANTE, MEPI and Internet2 and on through Global Nomads, Palestine Children's Relief Fund, the U.S. Consulate General Jerusalem and MECA. Include direct and indirect interests, local and remote, etc. - Consider trying to host these meetings at different locations each time. That might add value for the participants. We could meet at UB and include demonstrations and a facility tour. Similarly, Daemen College and ECMC come to mind as interesting locations. - Follow-up with Audrey to see if a write-up of her contact and experience with the telemedicine facility at the Wende Correctional Facility might be of value in communicating with others. The sooner that voices other than my own can be heard, the better. Similarly, follow-up to see if there's any suitable available material on Dr. Ellis' Southern Tier network and the pediatric psychiatric service project he's developing. - One of the ways that this diverse group can help significantly is to dispel the common perception that IP-video technologies *reduce* services and isolate people. Rather, they improve services and provide them where service delivery would otherwise have been impractical. Prison telemedicine facilities, for example, deliver service more rapidly and make it practical and possible to make use of higher skill levels and more specialized practitioners. Pediatric psychiatric consults in local rural areas deliver services that would otherwise be unavailable. And it's obviously impractical for large numbers of school children to travel the globe for inter and cross cultural exposure and experiences. - Develop a project news update and circulate it to the group for review. - Audrey noted the general applicability of the project and its methods to global underserved regions in general. This is a theme that we've promoted in regional efforts in the past but that is even more appropriate now that enabling satellite communications technology is closer. It's also proximate to the missions of a number of prospective resource providing groups like IEEAF. - Consider tying this project in to a general revival & re-activation of the WNY Partnership for Regional Internetworking (WNY-PRI). Follow-up with Carol K. and the new BISSNET director. This activity should help increase regional IP-video interest and awareness and could help to promote the ongoing quiet dark fiber build and help to focus it more on public benefit applications.