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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:
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- 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:
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- 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:
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- 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 professional 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.
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