Presence and IntComm WG

[Jeremy George <>]

All,

  There were two agenda items yesterday that we didn't get around to.
One is feedback mechanisms and the other is use cases.  I'd like to get
them started even if we don't have time for discussion until after JT.

  I think it's interesting to consider that it may never have
occured before, ever, that we have more technology options today
for communications than people know what to do with them.  For the
first time the relevant question isn't how can a particular new
technology be used, it's how do you people want to communicate given
many degrees of technological freedom?  That, of course, is the reason
for paths-in-the-snow and the need for feedback mechanisms for the PIC
group's work.

  I can think of three methods: questionaires at conference demos, a
roadshow demo in a box that can be sent to members along with a request
for more freeform feedback and semi-permanent experimental implementations
with a controlled user group.  I'm not hopeful that the first is going
to get us anywhere (although we should still try.)  The second might have
value in getting the PIC message out but I'm not sure about getting good
feedback.  The last seems to me our best shot.  Thoughts?  Other ideas?

  Secondly, the concepts of PIC and ALS are so new that many people seem
to have difficulty seeing beyond the negative potential for big brother
like surveillance.  It might be useful for us to develop use cases
for the web site.  Four brief examples follow.  I have a deely-bopper
equipped headset for a prize to the most creative use case anyone would
like to submit.

  A field engineer has left an expensive piece of equipment at a customer
site.  She tells her location assistant (a piece of software on her PDA)
to remind her when she is within 10 blocks of the site.  Two days later
her PDA buzzes and announces the site is three blocks away.  The engineer
makes a short, efficient side trip and retrieves the equipment.

  An executive wants to schedule a conference call with three colleagues
whose schedules are rarely free at the same time.  He tells his location
assistant to execute a “conference pounce” when all four of the
necessary participants are 1) not in a meeting, 2) in their offices and
3) not already on the phone.  The location assistant checks everyone's
on line calendars for possible times.  During those times it looks to
see where the participants are.  When the time comes that all phones are
unhook the location agent rings all phones and announces the conference.

  A freshman is in the library desperately trying to decipher an
assignment from her English professor.  She consults her location
assistant and requests it find all students within 100 feet of her
current location filtered by the attributes "freshman AND English101 AND
Dr. Obscure".  She discovers a classmate two tables away.  After a brief
instant message exchange the two freshman collaborate.  Note that even
if together these two freshman do not resolve their problem, location
services have rendered what is often a forbidding environment friendly.

  It is 1:30 in the afternoon and a traveler is getting hungry but can't
see a restaurant.  He asks his location agent for the location of the
nearest pizza restaurant.  This is actually a more difficult question
than it may seem.  The nearest restaurant in geospatial terms could be
across a canal where the nearest bridge is a mile away.  The location
agent would need to understand distance in human meaningful terms.
Fortunately, it does and the traveler eats.

- Jeremy

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