[AG-TECH] AG as general teleconferencing tool?

[Stewart, Corbin J]

Like many of you, we are still trying to find the correct way to meet
customers needs regarding the management, scheduling and operation of our
node.  Currently our access grid node is available to anyone on site and the
operator remains with the customer for the entire meeting.  Our brief trials
of customer operation created a number of problems and I suspect frustrated
a number of remote operators.

Our operators charge their time to the customer's project and our pricing
scheme is similar to what we charge for our regular videoconferencing
setups.  We are hoping to be able to get to a point where we can initiate
the meeting then monitor/control it remotely.  

We remind all customers that this is not a production videoconferencing tool
and is subject to "querkiness" and down time.  However, word of mouth and
Germantown's use of the access grid has spread enthusiasm for its use. So
far we only have a handful of regular customers but we are hoping to
increase the volume by hosting an Open House in the coming weeks.

Regards,
---------------------------------------------------------------
Corbin Stewart				     cjstewa at sandia.gov

Videoconferencing & Collaborative Environments
Sandia National Laboratories California
925-294-4856


-----Original Message-----
From: Roberts, Ian E [mailto:ian.roberts at pnl.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 1:25 PM
To: 'bernholdtde at ornl.gov'; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] AG as general teleconferencing tool?


We are running our room as primarily science, but "open to all" room. We are
also having to answer the same questions as you. If people choose to use our
lower cost (to them) system instead of the company's video conferencing
system,
will they expect that it will be as reliable as the video conferencing, or
will
they accept that sometimes we will be at the mercy of the Internet?

We are still working on a pricing system to be able to afford upgrades, etc.
For
now, our staff pay for an operator's time to get the meeting scheduled and
started. For most meetings, I charge one hour of time to their project;
enough
to get it going and then be on call if they need me.

I see it as a natural desire to want to hold business meetings on the Access
Grid. Compared to a big screen TV video conference, being able to see so
many
other participants plus the medium of discussion (e.g. PPT) at the same time
makes it a no-brainer. The key for us is to let people know that because
everything runs on the Internet, most of the time it works great, but
sometimes
it fails.

I hope that this thing gets so popular that we have to impose priority rules
for
the DOE Science projects, but so far we've had no conflicts of time.

Hope this helps...
~ian

Ian Roberts
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

-----Original Message-----
From: David E. Bernholdt [mailto:bernhold at trunk.csm.ornl.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 12:46 PM
To: ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
Cc: bernholdtde at ornl.gov
Subject: [AG-TECH] AG as general teleconferencing tool?


We're starting to get a fair number of inquiries about AG from people
here who are more in the administrative or support side of the lab
(and DOE Oak Ridge Operations) rather than the "research" side of the
house.  A lot of this stems from DOE HQ in Germantown using AG for a
budget meeting next week.

So I'm curious if other people have dealt with this kind of interest,
and how? 

I tend to think of "business teleconferencing" as wanting a
plug-it-in-and-it-works appliance, and while AG is good, its not quite
that yet.  I'm not sure how cautious to be with these folks -- I think
its great that they're interested in the new technology, but I suspect
they can be scared off pretty easily too.

Thanks
--
David E. Bernholdt                   |   Email: bernholdtde at ornl.gov 
Oak Ridge National Laboratory        |   Phone: +1 (865) 574 3147    
http://www.csm.ornl.gov/~bernhold/   |   Fax:   +1 (865) 574 0680