April 10, 2015, 1 PM EST
Attendees
Dean B. Krafft, Jon Corson-Rikert , Kristi Holmes, Melissa Haendel, Paul Albert, Mike Conlon, debra hanken kurtz, Jonathan Markow, Robert H. McDonald
= note taker
All attending
Dial-In Number: (209) 647-1600, Participant code: 117433#
Agenda
Item | Time | Facilitator | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Review Updates | 5 min | Mike, All |
2 | Budget Update | 15 min | Mike |
3 | Membership Drive | 15 min | Debra, Jonathan |
4 | Leadership Meeting Planning | 15 min | Dean |
5 | Virtuoso support contract | 5 min | Paul |
5 | Future Topics | 5 min | All |
Notes
Present: Mike, Jonathan, Debra, Dean, Robert, Jon, Kristi, Paul
I. Updates
Mike's updates:
- Tech lead job position posted. See http://vivoweb.org/blog/2015/04/were-hiring-vivo-technical-lead. We already have applicants. Position is open until filled.
- Task force on user stories is forming. Julia is facilitating and writing a charter.
- Task force on inclusion of apps and tools in VIVO releases is forming. Chris Barnes and Ted Lawless will facilitate and will write charter.
- Task force on VIVO assets met yesterday. See charter and notes from meeting in Wiki. https://wiki.duraspace.org/x/DZsOB
- Task force on Implementation documentation is forming. Violeta is facilitating and writing charter.
- Upcoming meetings for Mike: ORCID/CASRAI, Barcelona May 18-19. Open Repositories June 8-11, Indianapolis. Researcher Profiles Australia, TBD.
- SURA Project update — very strong progress with all five pilot schools. Further adoption in SURA expected. They will have recommendations regarding improving experience for newcomers.
- Discussion between Jon, Melissa, myself, Alex, and Julia regarding the future of the management team. Future agenda item for Steering.
- First "VIVO Updates" email to the listservs and archived in wiki. See 2015-04-09 VIVO Updates
- Mike's last day at UF is May 13. Party. Everyone invited if you are in town. :-)
Jon's updates
- Expect a 2nd VIVO 1.8 release candidate very soon, and another round of testing
2. Budget update
- Mike circulated a snapshot of 2015 budget reviewed by Mike & DuraSpace
- DuraSpace runs on a calendar year budget, not a fiscal year budget – we're 3 months in
- Walkthrough of the rows ...
- Lost $6K last year – not sustainable
- Goal is to accumulate a cash reserve of 1/3 annual expenditures over two years
- Budget projections for this coming year, to help set membership targets appropriately
- 3 mos. Layne, 7 mos. tech lead, 9 mos. Jim Blake (60% FTE) – $9K lower in aggregate than last year – and may be have less depending on when tech lead is hired
- Some increases in other line items – should do more travel, and would expect that line item to rise more next year
- Differences from the budget presented to the leadership team in February
- Approximately $100K of additional expenses not in summit presentation to Leadership
- Showing a smaller net revenue by $15K
- Showing higher revenue target to cover expenses including net revenue
- More confidence in these numbers since has been reviewed line by line, with staff
- Then looking ahead beyond 2015 to how the project is supposed to run
- Continued growth in membership and corporate sponsorship
- Other sources of income – registered service provider fees, hosted services, training revenue, conference net revenue to project
- Grants are a line item but no dollar amount anticipated
- Grants might potentially offset some fraction of VIVO tech lead or project director salary
- Anticipate having to pay a future project director
- Increases in travel, marketing, and community meeting support
3. Membership Drive
- Duraspace starts the organization membership drive now; with other projects, have begun drafting the letters
- Two tracks – renewals and new prospects
- VIVO is different because we do renewals on a calendar year basis – most have already renewed
- We're in a good position to focus on growth
- We're in a good position to focus on growth
- Format – a personalized email with a direct dollar amount ask
- Tell the story and the return on investment
- Ask for the membership
- Have compiled a list of potential contacts
- Want to get the emails out around May 12
- A brochure about DuraSpace and the membership form go out with the email
- Will cycle back with Mike on renewals toward the end of the calendar year
- VIVO will take advantage of any personal contacts via steering, and vet language of the email here
- Highlight accomplishments from the past year and potential activities for the coming year contingent on support
4. Leadership group schedule
- Leadership meeting schedule. They meet quarterly. Met in March at Summit. Will meet again at conference in August.
- Next meet should be end of May or early June
- Time – 11 am ET accommodates European participants
- Agenda items
- Options for steering group membership augmentation and rotation – could potentially circulate it before and have as an agenda item to discuss and vote. Could then move on it before the Conference
- Revised budget with time for questions
- Membership drive
- Followup from their meeting in March
- Status of tech lead search, task forces, next release, etc.
- Approaches to corporate sponsorship
- Might need 90 minutes
4. Virtuoso support contract
- Weill is now using Virtuoso as it's production triple store for VIVO 1.7. Has alleviated performance and stability concerns.
- Is there some mechanism for soliciting interest in jointly approaching triple store vendors regarding service contracts
- Opportunities for vendor support of conference and membership in the VIVO Project
- Vendors negotiate a price and offer the same price for community members for some time period
- Community interest in Virtuoso, Allegrograph, Stardog, MarkLogic. Release 1.8 provides additional simplicity regarding alternate triple stores
- Communicating the triple store work at Weill
- Weill can create a wiki page – what was done, how was it done, what were the results
- Then blog post, email to groups
5. Future topics
- VIVO partners
- Future conference venues
- Management team
- Items raised by the Leadership group in March
- Developing a training offering for the fall
- A possible summit on the ontology
- Developing VIVO search
Action Items
- Dean B. Krafft will email to leadership
- Jon Corson-Rikert will review and update leadership group mailing list and other assets based on current leadership group membership
- Paul Albert will create page regarding the use of Virtuoso.
- Mike Conlon can turn wiki page into a blog post and other