Conference Calls

Schedule (all times East Coast)

Workgroup calls:

• Reference Implementation : Tuesdays 12pm-1pm (Bi-weekly)
• Communications : Tuesdays 1pm-2pm (Bi-weekly)
• Implementation Geographies : Wednesdays 12pm-1pm (Bi-weekly)
• Best Practices: Thursdays 1pm-2pm (Bi-weekly)

Call-in: 1-866-816-4209
Participant Code: 3980879

IMPORTANT: The conference call limit is 100 simultaneous line. If you are not a signed-up member of the Implementation Group or otherwise committed as a part of a Workgroup, please free up a line if the limit is reached, and use the notes published after the meeting is over. If more than one person at your location is joining, please attempt to share a line.

Making Conference Calls Work For Us

To ensure our efforts stay focused and unified, it's important to put some guidelines in place for how we use telephone conference calls and wiki pages together. Conference calls are a great way to generate a "heartbeat" in a process, to discuss nuanced issues that might be more difficult to hash out in text, and make sure dedicated participants are following through with their commitments. However, conference calls are difficult to archive and search, require everyone to be ready at the same time across all time zones, and can become time sinks if not managed well. For this project to get the most out of conference calling, we propose some guidelines:

• Workgroups should create a wiki page for each meeting ahead of time, using the "Meeting Notes" template.
• Before the meeting, the workgroup should use this as a place to collaboratively build the agenda for the upcoming call.
• The call details should be posted publicly. Participants who are not workgroup members are allowed to participate in the call, though workgroup members and the agenda are given a priority.
• Any proposals of non-trivial complexity should be made ahead of time using the wiki pages and comments associated with the workgroup, and linked into the agenda, perhaps with a wiki page created associated with the proposal. This allows everyone the space and time to provide input, and optimizes the time spent on the call.
• During the meeting, the designated note-taker for the meeting should edit the page directly in the wiki, perhaps saving intermittantly to avoid losing information and to share data or links amongst the call participants.
• At the end of the meeting, the note-taker should publish the notes in final form as soon as possible, no more than a few hours later.
• Other participants on the call should review the notes as soon after the call as they can to ensure it accurately represented any decisions made.
• Edits made to the page should focus exclusively on capturing the content of the meeting, or supplementing it with links related to what was discussed. Changes to mark progress against commitments made during the meeting, for instance, should not be made here, nor should follow-on comments be posted directly on this page.

Overall, use the conference calls for those tasks that really benefit most from doing so, and ensure that they don't inadvertantly compromise the public transparency and participation that this project requires.