Thursday, 12 Aug, 2 PM CST... Chautauqua1 Post-mortem

[John Towns - NCSA Cog]

While I saw all the right kudos, there is one glaringly absent.  

Margaret--  You have been a tremendous leader in pulling this together on a
national scale.  The first event has gone fabulously.  The bar has been set
for UKy and BU.  All of us in the Alliance owe you a great deal of thanks
for pulling this together.

I very much look forward to participating in the next two events.

-John

At 09:22 AM 8/11/99 -0500, John Toole wrote:
>All,
>
>You really set a new level of capability, collaboration, and performance
>for the access Grid.  We received  great comments from ACCESS-DC.  thanks
>to eveyone for their pioneering work and dedicated support.  It was a very
>successful first step in an exciting year ahead!! 
>
>We really have a world- class  team effort!!
>
>--John
>
>
>
>At 01:51 AM 8/11/99 -1000, Margaret Lewis wrote:
>>All,
>>
>>Outstanding job! It is amazing to see the progress that was made from our
June
>>session at Argonne. The video and audio were very good -- and there was very
>>little delay with video so mouths mostly moved with the sound! 
>>
>>I talked to a number of attendees to get their reaction. Most people were
>>appropriately amazed. The UNM audience was very engaged with Rick's
speech and
>>Rick's and Larry's Q&A session with live and remote sites. Rezuna's
speech and
>>the tour of the Access Center were also excellent -- walking through the
>Access
>>Center really proved to the group the capabilities of the system. The
>video was
>>amazing for a moving camera (and it was nice camera work). The interaction of
>>Ken Bishop with NCSA, followed by Nestor's presentation once again had the
>>audience totally engaged. Driving the microscope via the Internet while
Nestor
>>interacted was another high point. The audience also enjoyed watching set up 
>>for
>>sessions in the morning and between breaks and a majority of the attendees
>came
>>over to the "command center" to see the tech staff in action.
>>
>>I won't be able to make the Access Grid meeting on Thursday -- but in talking
>>with UKY folks we'd like to see if we could more formally arrange for remote
>>audiences at various sites for different presentations. The interaction of
>live
>>and remote audiences with speaker was one of the most engaging parts of the
>>demonstration. UKY is only hosting a few remote sessions -- right now it
looks
>>like it is Rick's speech, a tour of Access Center, and the possibility of a
>>couple of demos -- so remote audiences will provide the majority of
>interaction
>>opportunities. If we can get at least one site on-line with at least a small
>>audience (and a few planted questions) for a majority of their
>presentations --
>>this should take us to the next level.
>>
>>UKY will only have one projector so they will arrange their screen
>differently.
>>Power Point will be displayed in 1/4 of the screen -- I am assuming this is
>>doable since there was a practice session at UKY a few weeks ago? Also -- we
>>need to get smoother with distributed Power Point. We did much better
>today but
>>it was a bit rough start yesterday. 
>>
>>Also -- a site without echo cancellation definitely presents a problem. While
>>they might receive good audio from other sites -- their transmissions
back are
>>very annoying. We need to limit the interaction with these sites to bare 
>>minimum
>>-- and mainly have them talk to main site and have them muted when we talk to
>>them.
>>
>>I think speakers who stay in one spot (like a podium or are seated at a
table)
>>provide the best video. I know people don't like to limit speaker's travel 
>>space
>>-- but Larry, Rick, and Access Center speakers came across very well because
>>they were all in fixed spot. I would recommend that we try and limit 
>>speakers to
>>a fixed spot.
>>
>>Once again -- many thanks to the entire tech group for an outstanding job! A
>>special thanks to UNM for being the pioneers -- it took lots of guts --
and to
>>those wild folks at Argonne who had this crazy vision!
>>
>>FYI -- We got an excellent clip on a local TV channel and a great article in
>>Albuqurque Tribune -- with a picture of Larry talking to a screen with eight
>>remote shots. 
>>
>>Margaret
>>
>>
>>Mark Hereld wrote:
>>> 
>>> All,
>>> 
>>> At the risk of jinxing it all, I think that we all really pulled the
>>> AccessGrid together.  Despite some glitches, yesterday's demonstration went
>>> quite well.  The backchannel was quite well used, and many of the
>>> interactions went very smoothly.  We learned a lot.  And today it showed.
>>> The audio was exceptional for the most part, and I think we applied a great
>>> deal of experience to finding the best way to work with the network and
>>> tools to good effect.  To a large degree, I think that the tech disappeared
>>> into the background from the perspective of the meeting attendees.
>>> Exceptional performance, IMHO.
>>> 
>>> We should get together and capture the lessons learned from this experience
>>> before they fade from our memories.  I suggest, after some small
>>> consultation on the mud, that we meet on the AccessGrid at 2 PM CDT on
>>> Thursday, 12 August, two days from today.
>>> 
>>> If you participated in the tech support, please attend this meeting: your
>>> input is valuable.  Anybody else who witnessed the events is also welcome
>>> to participate.  Just head to your nearest AccessGrid Node and coordinate
>>> with the Local Node Operation Crew.
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> Mark