Second VisCom Meeting Minutes

Logistics

The second meeting was held April 27th, 2006. The agenda can be found at Second_VisCom_Meeting.

The meeting was held via conf call (courtesy Daniel), lasting one hour. mpg ran the meeting, as Arnulf was stuck on a train somewhere.

Attendees:

• Michael P. Gerlek
• Dave McIlhagga
• Daniel Brookshier
• Chris Holmes
• Peter Moran

Committee Membership

The current list is out of date / incorrect / wrong. mpg to update as follows:

• check status of Jason, Tyler, Markus, Mark
• remove Sean (as he is doing WebCom)
• add Peter
• add Chris
• add Daniel

Daniel will check viscom mailing list and verify mpg and Arnulf are both owner-moderator types.

Subteam Formation

We have spun off three "subteams" (see original agenda for details):

• "marketing operations/logistics" and "conferences"
  • Peter to own this one, with Dave's help
• "library"
  • mpg to own ("editor")
• "outreach"
• Dave to own this
• Daniel and mpg volunteer to help out

Arnulf will, presumably, be in charge of keeping all these subunits properly aligned.

Of Press Releases and Stuff Like That

Press release issues now fall under Peter's team. He will be setting up a wiki page somewhere.

We have a "request" ("mandate"?) from the Board to define the process for getting press releases out -- who to submit them to inside OSGeo, who they get reviewed by, what the press distribition list is, etc.

There is an expectation of doing a new PR every two weeks or so.

PR fodder can be: project major release, project entered/exited incubation, elections, conference/show attendences, sponsorships, etc.

We note that VisCom is responsible for the "how" and the "when", but not the "what". Our job is to "gig" the rest of the Foundation into coming to us so as to get us to help them shepherd along their good content and ideas.

Side discussion about the want/need for restricted-access wiki pages and/or private mailing list. Not sure we reached closure, but (I think) Chris volunteered to do a Confluence site if need be.

Two press releases are currently in the pipeline (at the beginning of the pipeline, technically): one for Telascience's hosting support and one for MapBuilder's 1.0 release.

We like having volunteers do language translations of the press releases. Autodesk handled some of this for the first two; in future, we would just do it ourselves. I note that simultaneous translation, e.g. on the day of the release, is desirable but by no means required.

Web Site Stats

Daniel has stats available for us, e.g. to see how many hits we got after a press release. He will be sending out a report monthly for us to peruse and ponder.

The Big "TODO" List

mpg to cleanup and refactor a bit, when setting up the 3rd meeting agenda page.

Logos and Slogans

Generally felt the logo contest is being successful, but that the "slogans" might need work. Maybe means another contest.

We will revisit this next meeting, after the logo results are in.

"Start discussion on OSGeo/Project promotion potential"

Further discussion that it is VisCom's job to gig projects to promote themselves, that we are conduit for that communication, that we are the "marketing support" arm of OSGeo, and that we need to advertise our own capabilities.

WebComm and VisComm Charters

Someone (Frank) had said WebComm is tactical and inward-looking, VisComm is strategic and externally focused.

Someone put it another way, essentailly that "WebCom just does what it is told" and "VisCom tells people what to do".

Where 2.0

Nat (aka gnat), the Where Chair, is corresponding with Chris. Our plans are:

• 3 lightning talks by OSGeo folk (Frank, Jody, Chris)
• Schulyer is giving a talk
• Someone (Tyler suggested) to give a 15 minute "Intro to OSGeo" talk
• Autodesk is doing a keynote (Gary Lang?)
• Autodesk is looking into getting a booth; if so, we might try to co-opt some space -- Chris to wheedle with Nat as required
• someone mentioned Tim O'Reilly is interested in our Open Data committee?
• additionally, Dave and mpg both attending
• mpg to set up BOF for "OSGeo members and other interested people"

Next Meeting

We will meet every two weeks, same time and number and channel.

Conf call details:

• US and Canada: 877-326-2337
• International: 303-928 3232
• id code: 3206046#

mpg to set up agenda page.