Presence and IntComm WG

[Jamey Hicks <>]

Andy, Brian and I discussed it this morning.  There are two major 
questions for us: will we be able to make the location-tracking system 
work, and will we get enough people using it to make it worthwhile for 
the work it takes to transport it and set it up.

We looked at the floor plan.  To get the location tracking system 
working well and covering people wireless outside of the rooms, we need 
network drops on the periphery of the space.  We don't need switches 
there, just ethernet cables.  We also need to be sure that we can arp 
all the clients so that we can get IP address for the clients.

If we do not push the system at all, we're not going to get enough 
users.  I don't want to commit us to going down if we're not going to 
push the system.  I agree that VOIP is not working well enough at the 
moment to push it, but I think that presence, location and text 
messaging are the main values of a system like this at a conference -- 
you cannot talk on the phone while in a session, but you can look to see 
where your buddies and colleagues are, and you can instant message to 
them.  I think that the parts of the system to do this are now or will 
be stable enough by the time of the meeting to announce it.  As an added 
incentive for people to try out the rich presence portal, text 
messaging, and/or VOIP, we would like to have a raffle and give away a 
wireless iPAQ on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Anyone who is logged on to the 
portal or registered on the proxy for at least an hour each day would be 
entered into the raffle.

So, assuming that we can resolve the network drop and arp issues, I 
would recommend that we deploy pesence and location system.  I think 
that a BOF for trying out VOIP as well would also be a good thing.

-Jamey