[Ccsds-omg-liaison] [OMG] 2021Q3 TC Meeting - The rumors are true... we are Virtual once more!

Sat Sep 4 05:52:42 UTC 2021

Greetings, everyone.

The only constant we have at the moment is change, and once again we have a doozy.

As you may or may not have heard through the grapevine today, the OMG 2021Q3 TC Meeting is once again completely virtual.

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.

We agreed. We're as eager as any of you to get back to face-to-face, but now is not the time. 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.

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.  We hope that this will provide more of you an opportunity to do so.

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:

 *   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.
 *
 *   The entire platform is browser-based, and has a mobile app to optimize access on an iOS or Android phone or tablet.
 *
 *   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.

 *   Attendees have access to all sessions, just as when attending in person.
    *   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.
 *
 *   Video Conferencing is built in, no need to put that burden on the chairs any longer.
    *   The video conferencing is built into the site, and is also browser-based, no apps to install on your desktop.
 *
 *   Chat is ubiquitous, and should add some much-needed dynamicism.
    *   There is not only a chat within each session as you would expect, but also a conference-wide public 'lobby chat'.
    *   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.

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.

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.

Additionally, we are pleased that we can offer this new foundation to the community for a substantially lower registration cost of 195US$.

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.

If you have not previously registered, please consider doing so now at the usual place: https://www.omg.org/events/2021Q3/index.htm 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. (You can also now register and pay for multiple colleagues within your organization at one time, contact us at events at omg.org for further information.)

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!

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.

In the meantime, best of health to everyone, and as always, it is all of you who make the community.

[cid:91768111-4b1e-471b-a20a-c54267b8ed13.jpg]          Jason McC. Smith
CIO ; VP / Technical Director (SDO)
Seattle, WA, USA UTC-07
+1 781 444 0404,,138
jason at omg.org<mailto:jason at omg.org>     [cid:omgsdo_326195ab-b01f-47a0-b252-08a76758cb34.png]
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.ccsds.org/pipermail/ccsds-omg-liaison/attachments/20210904/888f5fdb/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: omgsdo_326195ab-b01f-47a0-b252-08a76758cb34.png
Type: image/png
Size: 37270 bytes
Desc: omgsdo_326195ab-b01f-47a0-b252-08a76758cb34.png
URL: <http://mailman.ccsds.org/pipermail/ccsds-omg-liaison/attachments/20210904/888f5fdb/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 91768111-4b1e-471b-a20a-c54267b8ed13.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 36072 bytes
Desc: 91768111-4b1e-471b-a20a-c54267b8ed13.jpg
URL: <http://mailman.ccsds.org/pipermail/ccsds-omg-liaison/attachments/20210904/888f5fdb/attachment-0001.jpg>