Agenda and notes for first meeting on 03 February 2019

Introduction of new members

·         Attendies:

o    Derek (Co Chair)

o    Adriani

o    Ashley

o    Ethan (co chair)

o    florianionascu7 (Florian Ionașcu)

o    Larry Wang

o    laura cornwell

o    Zaronn (shaun)

Short stats update of last year’s conference

·         Audio file stats: Clicks/Unique

·         The JAWS scripter tackles NVDA addons: What I’ve done and plan to do: 236/213  

·         Introduction to ClipSpeak: 143/139

·          SentenceNav and IndentNav: 256/222

·          NVDA-friendly, highly accurate OCR using ScanSnap(R) document scanne: 336/307

·         2018 Promo: 894/724

·         Building and managing a Virtual Community: 454/290

·          2018 Tech Support and Investing for the Future: 216/205

·          2018 Opening Forum 2: 236/223

·          2018 Opening Forum 1: 383/361

·          2018 Keynote: 304/275

·         A few files were not uploaded from last year. Adriani is looking into what we forgot to upload.

·         Page stats from February 3, 2018 - February 3, 2019

1.       Home

Visits: 19,677

2. Past Conferences

Visits: 5,313

3. 2018 program and schedule

Visits: 4,371

4. How to join us

Visits: 2,546

o    A major goal for NVDACon 2019: Bring the conference to more people, minimize technological barriers.

Date of the next conference

This line item will need revisited after we talk to mick. Tentatively late Jun / Jul.

Conference software (Teamtalk, Meet, Zoom)

o    Thinking of using google hangouts meet or zoom, or tt to phone bridge.
Shaun and Derek Mentioned meeting later to discuss setting up a phone system that could connect to teamtalk.
Derek owns looking into who else could advise on setting up a phone to computer system.
Information we found out about Zoom:
14.99/mo for monthly service on zoom pro. per moderator.
webanare cost. About 160 USD for 500 attendees.
Cost for dial in from all countries is extra.
Pros:

o    connection to phone line provided.

o    Used by businesses around the world, Some of our users already know how to use zoom.

o    Known to be accessible. The zoom team has even gone so far as to give us technical details about what they are doing so we could script NVDA to read their chat messages.

·         Cons:

o    cost.

o    Switching our users.

o    moderators need training.

o    we have expertese for keeping our conference secured from spammers with teamtalk.

·         Options on the table: Zoom, tt, google hangouts meet

·         Funding sources to fund zoom:

o    Sponsorships:

o    gofundme: Could be done, there are logistics involved in making it happen.

o    Fundraising is hard and challenging. Getting blind people to pay for something is also challenging (although it can be done). It would sink time away from actually improving the conference.

·         Consensus: stick with teamtalk, build a bridge to the phone system, or look into streaming the conference via a live youtube link or a hangouts meet.

Conference format (open and closing forum, streaming tutorials, interactive workshops etc.)

• Forum sessions are very popular
• Lightning talks allow users to pitch an idea or show a piece of technology in a shortened formm.
• Musical intro to the keynote:  yes
• Various music resources were discussed:

• musopen.org
• archive.org
• fundraising or donations could fund a piece of music (as we’ve done in the past).

• Panel discussion:

• Panels have larger than normal adminastrative overhead for setup
• The committee thinks it could be interesting.

• Misc:

• Format: put filler content between sessions to prevent the blind kayoss from ensuing. (last year, between sessions, things got a little crazy).
• NVDA blast to the past lightning talk (including a demo of CIRCA 2007 NVDA running on an xp VM).

Promo strategy (promo excel sheet, official e-mail address, G-suite, streaming etc.).

·         Promo:

·         Things we have successfully promoted our conference with in the past:

o    eos.

o    Main Menu

o    Laura promotes on some radio stations

o    Twitter has been successful

·         adriani created a promo spreadsheet that has categories of places to promote.

·         Facebook Adriani promotes on FB.

o    Derek and at least one other team member refuses to use facebook for data privacy and responsibility/ethical related reasons. Therefore, it will be managed entirely by other team members.

Gsuite

·         Gsuite account for the NVDACon org is being setup currently.

Election of cochairs

·         Elections will be held in our next meeting. (Derek is thinking about changing this to be done entirely online, via a google form, with a non-bias, and non-voting observer doing the counting). The issue with voting at a meeting is that so many people cannot vote during meetings, because timezones prevent everyone from being in attendance. Please state whether this would be acceptable.

·         Prepare to state why you want to be chair / cochair of org.

·         There will be a basic Resume requirement.

·         The reasoning for this is to ensure the bar to run for chair is high enough that only people who are serious about running NVDACon apply.

·         By Friday, February 8, Derek will send out an email asking for submissions. 24 hours before voting opens, candidates should submit a resume (can be a fairly simple one) and a quick letter stating why you would like to run for cochair. The following should be demonstrated or stated in the letter:

o    Leadership skills.

o    Commitment to the NVDA project, and to serving the NVDA community.

o    Clear smart goals for the conference over the next year. Smart goals are specific, measureable, attainable, and timely.

o    anything else the committee should know.

Board structure

·         The following positions have been agreed upon:

o    Promotions manager: Is responsible for delegating and managing the promotion of the conference.  The promotions manager should be prepared to ensure promotion goes smoothly, and should expect members of the planning committee to organize promotion through your leadership. The goal is to ensure promotion goals are met, and objective data is gathered about promotions. We also want to make sure that the conference is efficiently promoted, and ensure too many committee members aren’t promoting to the same places.

o    Audio editing director: This person is responsible for the post-production of the conference. The audio editing manager should be prepared to work with our entirely volunteer audio editors, to ensure the work of editing the conference is fairly delegated between available editors. This position is also responsible for ensuring the turn around on audio files is reasonable, and for recruting volunteer audio editing staff.

·         Please note, these are leadership positions, and the member in charge of them should do diligence to ensure they delegate tasks effectively to the committee, rather than taking on all of the work themselves.

Tasks to be done until next meeting

·         Prepare position pitches

·         Set up agenda for next meeting.

·         Prepare GSuite with NV Access

·         View promo sheet.

Thanks for your time. We look forward to the 4th anual NVDACon!

Cheers,

The NVDACon Chairs

Agenda and notes for first meeting on 03 February 2019

Introduction of new members

·         Attendees:

o    Derek (Co Chair)

o    Adriani

o    Ashley

o    Ethan (co chair)

o    florianionascu7 (Florian Ionașcu)

o    Larry Wang

o    laura cornwell

o    Zaronn (shaun)

Short stats update of last year’s conference

·         Audio file stats: Clicks/Unique

·         The JAWS scripter tackles NVDA addons: What I’ve done and plan to do: 236/213  

·         Introduction to ClipSpeak: 143/139

·          SentenceNav and IndentNav: 256/222

·          NVDA-friendly, highly accurate OCR using ScanSnap(R) document scanner: 336/307

·         2018 Promo: 894/724

·         Building and managing a Virtual Community: 454/290

·          2018 Tech Support and Investing for the Future: 216/205

·          2018 Opening Forum 2: 236/223

·          2018 Opening Forum 1: 383/361

·          2018 Keynote: 304/275

·         A few files were not uploaded from last year. Adriani is looking into what we forgot to upload.

·         Page stats from February 3, 2018 - February 3, 2019

1.       Home

Visits: 19,677

2. Past Conferences

Visits: 5,313

3. 2018 program and schedule

Visits: 4,371

4. How to join us

Visits: 2,546

o    A major goal for NVDACon 2019: Bring the conference to more people, minimize technological barriers.

Date of the next conference

This line item will need revisited after we talk to mick. Tentatively late Jun / Jul.

Conference software (Teamtalk, Meet, Zoom)

o    Thinking of using google hangouts meet or zoom, or tt to phone bridge.
Shaun and Derek Mentioned meeting later to discuss setting up a phone system that could connect to teamtalk.
Derek owns looking into who else could advise on setting up a phone to computer system.
Information we found out about Zoom:
14.99/mo for monthly service on zoom pro. per moderator.
webanare cost. About 160 USD for 500 attendees.
Cost for dial in from all countries is extra.
Pros:

o    connection to phone line provided.

o    Used by businesses around the world, Some of our users already know how to use zoom.

o    Known to be accessible. The zoom team has even gone so far as to give us technical details about what they are doing so we could script NVDA to read their chat messages.

·         Cons:

o    cost.

o    Switching our users.

o    moderators need training.

o    we have expertise for keeping our conference secured from spammers with teamtalk.

·         Options on the table: Zoom, tt, google hangouts meet

·         Funding sources to fund zoom:

o    Sponsorships:

o    gofundme: Could be done, there are logistics involved in making it happen.

o    Fundraising is hard and challenging. Getting blind people to pay for something is also challenging (although it can be done). It would sink time away from actually improving the conference.

·         Consensus: stick with teamtalk, build a bridge to the phone system, or look into streaming the conference via a live youtube link or a hangouts meet.

Conference format (open and closing forum, streaming tutorials, interactive workshops etc.)

• Forum sessions are very popular
• Lightning talks allow users to pitch an idea or show a piece of technology in a shortened form.
• Musical intro to the keynote:  yes
• Various music resources were discussed:

• musopen.org
• archive.org
• fundraising or donations could fund a piece of music (as we’ve done in the past).

• Panel discussion:

• Panels have larger than normal administrative overhead for setup
• The committee thinks it could be interesting.

• Misc:

• Format: put filler content between sessions to prevent the blind kayoss from ensuing. (last year, between sessions, things got a little crazy).
• NVDA blast to the past lightning talk (including a demo of CIRCA 2007 NVDA running on an xp VM).

Promo strategy (promo excel sheet, official email address, G-suite, streaming etc.).

·         Promo:

·         Things we have successfully promoted our conference with in the past:

o    eos.

o    Main Menu

o    Laura promotes on some radio stations

o    Twitter has been successful

·         adriani created a promo spreadsheet that has categories of places to promote.

·         Facebook Adriani promotes on FB.

o    Derek and at least one other team member refuses to use facebook for data privacy and responsibility/ethical related reasons. Therefore, it will be managed entirely by other team members.

G Suite

·         G Suite account for the NVDACon org is being setup currently.

Election of co chairs

·         Elections will be held in our next meeting. (Derek is thinking about changing this to be done entirely online, via a google form, with a non-bias, and non-voting observer doing the counting). The issue with voting at a meeting is that so many people cannot vote during meetings, because timezones prevent everyone from being in attendance. Please state whether this would be acceptable.

·         Prepare to state why you want to be chair / co chair of org.

·         There will be a basic Resume requirement.

·         The reasoning for this is to ensure the bar to run for chair is high enough that only people who are serious about running NVDACon apply.

·         By Friday, February 8, Derek will send out an email asking for submissions. 24 hours before voting opens, candidates should submit a resume (can be a fairly simple one) and a quick letter stating why you would like to run for co chair. The following should be demonstrated or stated in the letter:

o    Leadership skills.

o    Commitment to the NVDA project, and to serving the NVDA community.

o    Clear smart goals for the conference over the next year. Smart goals are specific, measureable, attainable, and timely.

o    anything else the committee should know.

Board structure

·         The following positions have been agreed upon:

o    Promotions manager: Is responsible for delegating and managing the promotion of the conference.  The promotions manager should be prepared to ensure promotion goes smoothly, and should expect members of the planning committee to organize promotion through your leadership. The goal is to ensure promotion goals are met, and objective data is gathered about promotions. We also want to make sure that the conference is efficiently promoted, and ensure too many committee members aren’t promoting to the same places.

o    Audio editing director: This person is responsible for the post-production of the conference. The audio editing manager should be prepared to work with our entirely volunteer audio editors, to ensure the work of editing the conference is fairly delegated between available editors. This position is also responsible for ensuring the turn around on audio files is reasonable, and for recruiting volunteer audio editing staff.

·         Please note, these are leadership positions, and the member in charge of them should do diligence to ensure they delegate tasks effectively to the committee, rather than taking on all of the work themselves.

Tasks to be done until next meeting

·         Prepare position pitches

·         Set up agenda for next meeting.

·         Prepare G Suite with NV Access

·         View promo sheet.

Thanks for your time. We look forward to the 4th annual NVDACon!

Cheers,

The NVDACon Chairs

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