[Board] ARDC conference?

[Michelle Thompson]

There's a lot going on with what you're asking for here.

"I would love to have a more guided discussion with people in
our community about the future of amateur radio and digital
communications, so that ARDC can best strategize around meeting goals
that meet a more collective vision. We've done some of that with our
survey, but this would be a more selected group of major players in the
space.

I would love it if you and/or others at ORI would be interested in
participating in such a visioning session, and curious whether you would
be open to doing it online vs. in-person. (Consider it may be a 5-hour
event, or a couple 2-3 hour events.)"

This needs a phone call to talk about.

-Michelle W5NYV




On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 6:29 PM Rosy Wolfe <rosy at ampr.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Michelle, thanks for including me on this mail. I agree with many of the
> ideas that you've put forth - particularly that it's a TON of work to
> put on a conference (much less one that happens multiple times a year),
> that it would be helpful to gauge the interest of our grantees before
> inviting them to such a thing, and that there could be a power
> differential at play for the grantees. Additionally, I think we can
> consider using Zulip (an open source version of Slack) for
> communications with the community. There is already discussion of
> setting one up.
>
> re: Phil's email, ARDC is in the *really* early stages of thinking about
> gatherings of any sort, given that we have a ways to go before we are
> truly out of Pandemic Land (TM). One thing is we definitely need to do
> an internal offsite. Additionally, and perhaps in conjunction with the
> offsite, I would love to have a more guided discussion with people in
> our community about the future of amateur radio and digital
> communications, so that ARDC can best strategize around meeting goals
> that meet a more collective vision. We've done some of that with our
> survey, but this would be a more selected group of major players in the
> space.
>
> I would love it if you and/or others at ORI would be interested in
> participating in such a visioning session, and curious whether you would
> be open to doing it online vs. in-person. (Consider it may be a 5-hour
> event, or a couple 2-3 hour events.)
>
> In terms of a networking event like the one Phil is describing, I could
> see doing something like that in conjunction with an existing
> conference, such as TAPR DCC or similar. I've organized similar events
> when I was in the open source mapping world, holding Maptime gatherings
> and karaoke along with State of the Map, for example. PS - one of my
> favorite things is to get a bunch of nerds together for karaoke. You've
> all been warned! And for when it happens - you're welcome ;)
>
> In any case, as this mail indicates, we have some thinking (and hiring!)
> to do before putting together any events. In the meantime, please do let
> me know if you'd have interest in participating in a visioning session,
> online or IRL. Your insight there would be, as always, greatly appreciated.
>
> All the best and 73,
> Rosy
>
> Rosy Wolfe - KJ7RYV
> Executive Director
> Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC)
> ampr.org
>
> On 4/26/21 1:51 PM, Michelle Thompson wrote:
> > Phil,
> >
> > I agree that putting grantees in contact with each other is a great
> > idea, but I think that there are ways to do this which are much more
> > frictionless than a conference.
> >
> > Conferences are generally organized around a shared topic, and
> > networking is a secondary effect. It sounds like you want networking to
> > be the primary reason that people attend, and this leaves me wondering
> > what the common interest is in presentations. What is the
> > motivation/reward for people putting work into presentations? What is
> > the likely outcome?
> >
> > There's a similar ecosystem we can look to for guidance here on
> > networking, and that's the venture capital (VC) community. VCs like Y
> > Combinator (and others) have set up mailing lists and forums (using
> > discord, slack, and other tools) to allow free networking between their
> > 'alumni'. This is a much lower barrier for participation, and allows
> > information exchange outside of a formal process (conferences) that not
> > everyone will have the time or inclination to participate in.
> >
> > Putting on a conference is a lot of work, as is answering the questions
> > in your email. I don't have time to address those for ARDC. You should
> > look to your own board members, who collectively have much more
> > experience than I do.
> >
> > I'd suggest gauging interest among your grantees before planning any
> > conferences. It's their interest that will make a successful
> > conference. Since the power differential between ARDC and grant
> > recipients is so large, any request from ARDC will probably be
> > interpreted as a requirement, and that will complicate the answers. That
> > is one reason why VC firms do the things they do, in terms of alumni
> > support.
> >
> > -Michelle W5NYV
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 1:18 AM Phil Karn <karn at ka9q.net
> > <mailto:karn at ka9q.net>> wrote:
> >
> >     Hi Michelle, we haven't chatted in quite some time. How are you?
> >
> >     At recent ARDC board meetings I've been talking up the idea of a
> >     periodic conference to which all our grantees would be invited. This
> >     would not only help bring the ARDC Board and Grant Advisory
> Committees
> >     up to speed on what they've been doing, but let ARDC grantees meet
> each
> >     other. I personally think this is very important given our focus on a
> >     diverse set of projects and groups.
> >
> >     I will strongly insist on not overloading the schedule with too much
> >     formal time. I have always thought that ad-hoc dinners and late
> nights
> >     in hotel bars are often the most productive parts of any technical
> >     conference. You can always watch a video of a talk or read a formal
> >     paper at home whenever you want, and ask questions by email. I want
> >     people to come to do the things that are best done in person. After a
> >     whole year on Zoom I think we now have a better idea of what those
> >     things are.
> >
> >     There's solid support on the Board for this idea, but it's still at a
> >     VERY early stage of discussion. We have no idea where or even when we
> >     could hold such an event given Covid. (The first would probably be in
> >     the US but we'd definitely want to hold some elsewhere, probably
> >     starting in Europe.) But since ORI is one of ARDC's biggest grantees
> >     (and you have a lot of personal experience in organizing conferences)
> >     I'd like your opinions.
> >
> >     How how big a block of time would ORI need to give *capsule*
> overviews
> >     of all its various projects? Note the emphasis on "capsule". My
> thinking
> >     here is to present in the general style of an article for QST,
> >     Communications of the ACM or IEEE Spectrum, i.e., assume a general
> >     technical background in computers, space, electrical engineering
> and/or
> >     radio communications but NOT specialist knowledge in a particular
> >     subfield, e.g., speech compression or digital satellite
> communications.
> >
> >     I also don't think we'd have time for detailed formal tutorials. The
> >     talks should focus on YOUR work -- the specific problem you're
> trying to
> >     solve, what approaches you took, what you've done so far, work yet
> to be
> >     done, etc. What worked? More importantly, what did NOT work,
> technically
> >     or organizationally? Again, focus on what YOU have done or plan to
> do,
> >     as opposed to general overviews of a field. (Do provide links to
> >     overviews, tutorials, deep technical details, etc, for those
> >     interested.)
> >
> >     How many speakers from ORI would be involved? How many more would
> come
> >     who wouldn't give formal presentations but could benefit from
> attending?
> >     I'm thinking mainly of younger volunteers (especially students)
> without
> >     a lot of experience who could be motivated by an in-person event like
> >     this. ARDC could probably be persuaded to provide financial
> assistance
> >     for travel as needed. As you know, ARDC's very first grant was for
> >     travel scholarships to the 2019 ARRL/TAPR DCC in Detroit that brought
> >     some students with the HamSci project from Case Western. Having
> talked
> >     with many of them, I think it was money very well spent. (I'd
> forgotten
> >     how much energy I had at that age.)
> >
> >     Please forward this to anybody you know who could also provide some
> >     advice here.
> >
> >
> >     --Phil
> >
> >
> >
>
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