Dear Basie and Leon, dear TC6 delegates,
I had circulated a request for comments on the "New IFIP" document.
Only a few responses were obtained until now, namely from (in alphabetic order): - Finn Arve Aagesen (Norway) - Peter Radford (UK) - S V Raghavan (India).
Since I feel that I'm not allowed to make a combined document out of those I attach them below.
I hope that this may help for a constructive discussion in Lonon.
Best regards Otto
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From Finn Arve Aagesen finnarve@item.ntnu.no
1) The document needs to reflect an appropriate and accepted analytical and creative method applied in the strategic process.
2) Any strategic process method needs a status decription. The document needs a status decription of the landscape to-day concerning the landscape that IPIP is a part of and intends to be a part of in the close and far future. This landscape must be structured. I am confused about which landscape "IFIP" is talking about.
Reading the document made med feel that IFIP in the future should be better than IEEE in the academic conference production field, better than INRIA (a.o) in the research production field and better than ERCIM (a.o) in the research project coordination and acquisition field.
3) In addition to having a status, vision and objectives -- the document also needs to discuss "implementation" .
Concepts such as money, cost, "IFIP" cost, non-"IFIP" paid cost, "IFIP" paid labor, non-"IFIP" paid volontary "free" labor, non-"IFIP" paid travel costs, "IFIP" incitaments, "IFIP" career should also be a part of the document.
The reality is that the real working forces of IFIP that contributes with non-"IFIP" paid travels and labor are located in various parts of "the landscape" at the same time.
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From Peter Radford peter.radford@logicacmg.com:
I would have liked to have sent a much more detailed response to the revised strategy paper but that needed more time than I have available.
Instead let me support Finn Arve's comments, particular point 3. If IFIP is going to sell its services to outside bodies, from where are the resources going to come? People give a lot of their time in support of IFIP but, if that time is going to be generating revenue for IFIP, will they still continue to give that time freely (in both sense of that word)? Indeed, for people from outside the academic community, might there not arise conflicts of interest between the interests of their employers and the interests of IFIP?
The strategy needs to be supported by a business model that deals with things like money, resources and people's time.
Maybe (to be more positive) there should be some examples of how IFIP could operate in the way proposed in the strategy. WITFOR and TC3 are areas which might be drawn upon to demonstrate that the strategy could work.
If there is an opportunity to get "late contributions" into the meeting next week, then I might (emphasis "might") be able to do more.
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From S V Raghavan svr@cs.iitm.ernet.in
I have following the recent discussions on "New IFIP" with a great deal interest. Here is a suggestion - Methinks it will work in India.
Introduce INDIVIDUAL membership in addition to Country Membership. Provide a list of Digital Services. If TC6 desires, we can run the Portal for a while. With a modest INR 500 per annum, India can generate 100,000 members; i.e. annual revenue of 50 Million Indian Rupees (INR) or just under 1 Million Euros. We may need to share it with organizations such as Computer Society of India.
If it is interesting, we can proceed further.