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<span style="margin: 0px; font-size: 12pt; color: black; background-color: white;"><span style="margin: 0px; background-color: white; color: black;"><span style="margin: 0px; background-color: white;"><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Arial,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont">Greetings,
everyone.</span></span></span><span style="margin: 0px; background-color: white; color: black;"></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important;"></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px; background-color: white;"><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Arial,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont">The only constant we have at the moment is change, and once again we have a doozy.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px; background-color: white;"><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Arial,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont">As you may or may not have heard through the grapevine today, the OMG 2021Q3 TC Meeting is once again completely virtual.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px; background-color: white;"><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Arial,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont">I know this comes as a relief to many of you, and will be an annoyance to others who had made plans to join in Burlingame, but the message
we received overwhelmingly from our membership was... this is not the time.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px; background-color: white;"><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Arial,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont">We agreed. We're as eager as any of you to get back to face-to-face, but now is not the time.<span style="margin:0px"> </span><span style="margin: 0px; background-color: white;">We
have come to an arrangement with the hotel and we will meet at the Burlingame Hyatt Regency in September of 2022 instead of this month.</span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px; background-color: white;"><span style="margin:0px; font-family:Arial,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont">This means that we are once more under our Virtual guidelines, and your chairs have been briefed. They will be reaching out to you as
needed. Some of your groups may take this opportunity to adjust your meeting times, some of you who elected not to meet at all may reconsider. </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif,serif,EmojiFont">We hope that this will provide more of you an
opportunity to do so.</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px; background-color: white;">Also, we are indeed unveiling a new unified online conferencing platform this quarter, and we're excited to bring it to you. A few of the improvements over the past few meetings:</div>
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<li>The platform is an all-inclusive environment to host the meeting schedule, sessions, discussions, and networking opportunities in one location. Think of it as the virtual conference hall.</li><li style="display: block;"><br>
</li><li>The entire platform is browser-based, and has a mobile app to optimize access on an iOS or Android phone or tablet.</li><li style="display:block"><br>
</li><li>The schedule is clearly laid out day to day, and you can filter on individual Task Forces, SIGs, and other groups to find exactly what you are interested in, and build your own personal schedule for the week.</li></ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px; background-color: white;">Attendees have access to <span style="margin:0px"></span><b>all</b> sessions, just as when attending in person. </li><ul>
<li style="margin: 0px; background-color: white;">You can 'stick your head in the door' at will, all in the same platform, no more bouncing over to the Agendas page to look up links, and then swapping between tools.</li></ul>
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</li><li style="margin: 0px; background-color: white;">Video Conferencing is built in, no need to put that burden on the chairs any longer.</li><ul>
<li><span style="margin:0px"><span style="margin:0px">The video conferencing is built into the site, and is also browser-based, no apps to install on your desktop.</span></span></li></ul>
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</li><li style="margin:0px">Chat is ubiquitous, and should add some much-needed dynamicism.</li><ul>
<li>There is not only a chat within each session as you would expect, but also a conference-wide public 'lobby chat'.</li><li>In addition, you can chat directly with, or video conference directly with, any other attendee if they accept your request. You can opt-out of this feature at any time, but it's a nice substitute for those hallway conversations, as well as being handy for
tapping someone on the shoulder to join a particular session.</li></ul>
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<div style="margin:0px">There is a lot more to it as well, but these features alone should greatly increase the availability of collaboration opportunities during the week. It may not be as fully personal as face to face, but we see this as a huge step in the
right direction.</div>
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<div style="margin:0px">Access to the platform (and the video conferencing system to join any of the sessions) requires registration. With this, we are reaching parity with physical conferences, where attendance has the same requirement: the meetings are not
open to the general public, everyone must be registered to participate. Our intent is to treat physical and online attendance as evenly and equitably as possible moving forward, both to protect our members' privacy and discussions, and to broaden the opportunities
for colleagues from around the globe to attend meetings without travel, when the need arises. Such as now.</div>
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Additionally, we are pleased that we can offer this new foundation to the community for a substantially lower registration cost of 195US$.</div>
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<div><span>If you previously registered, thank you! You do not need to re-register, your place will be reserved and your information moved over to the new system. We will be reaching out to each of you for adjustment of your payment as needed. This may take
a few days, since as you can imagine, no portion of the meeting planning is unaffected by this development and the staff is addressing the shift as rapidly as possible.</span></div>
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<div><span>If you have not previously registered, please consider doing so now at the usual place: <a href="https://www.omg.org/events/2021Q3/index.htm" id="LPlnk">https://www.omg.org/events/2021Q3/index.htm</a> The new registration takes just a moment. To
register, click the numeric pop-up to the right of the price of the TC Meeting Pass, and select '1', then click Register Now. The form on the following page is simple, and clear. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important;">(You
can also now register and pay for multiple colleagues within your organization at one time, contact us at events@omg.org for further information.)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></div>
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<div>You will receive a registration confirmation at the email address you supply. Since our new platform requires registration to access, make sure that you retain that confirmation email!</div>
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<div style="margin:0px">I know there will be plenty of questions, and please, reach out to your chairs and our staff to have them answered. There will be subsequent emails with further details as we get closer to our meeting, but for right now, registration
is the key next step, if you have not done so already.</div>
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<span style="margin: 0px; background-color: white;">In the meantime, best of health to everyone, and as always, it is all of you who make the community.</span></div>
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</p><table style="WIDTH: 763px" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; WIDTH: 100px" valign="top" data-codetwo-visible="Photo"><IMG border=0 hspace=0 alt="" src="cid:91768111-4b1e-471b-a20a-c54267b8ed13.jpg" width="90" height="90" style="width: 90px; height: 90px" class="C2Picture"></td>
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<td style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; WIDTH: 192px; COLOR: #010101; PADDING-LEFT: 0px" valign="top" class=""><span data-codetwo-visible="Name"><strong style="COLOR: #010101">Jason McC. Smith</strong><br></span><span data-codetwo-visible="Job title">CIO ; VP / Technical Director (SDO)</span><br><span style="font-family: ARIAL; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;">Seattle, WA, USA UTC-07</span><br style="font-family: ARIAL; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><span style="font-family: ARIAL; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;">+1 781 444 0404,,138</span><br style="font-family: ARIAL; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><span style="font-family: ARIAL; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"></span><a href="mailto:jason@omg.org" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(3, 102, 214); text-decoration: none; font-family: ARIAL; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;">jason@omg.org</a><span style="font-family: ARIAL; font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"> </span></td>
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