August 7, 2015, 1 PM EST

Attendees

Steering Group Members

Paul Albert, Jon Corson-Rikert , Melissa Haendel, Kristi Holmes,  Robert H. McDonald, Andi Ogier,  Julia Trimmer, Alex Viggio

= note taker

Ex officio

debra hanken kurtz , Jonathan Markow, Mike Conlon

Regrets

Dean B. Krafft

Dial-In Number:  

(209) 647-1600, Participant code: 117433#

Agenda

Notes

1. Updates
   1. Steering-group@vivoweb.org has been updated.  Andi, Alex and Julia added.  Aliases for this list have been removed.  Please use steering-group@vivoweb.org as the email address for the group.
      
   2. Leadership-group2015@vivoweb.org has been renamed leadership-group@vivoweb.org.
      

Action Items

Budget

• In reviewing the VIVO budget actuals for first half of 2015 (VIVO fiscal year is the calendar year), several items required correction:
  • Items regarding payments to individuals working for VIVO were clarified, now each with their own line item by name to avoid miscommunication regarding terms such as "Durastaff," "consultant," "unpaid contributer."  Instead, people's names are now listed and payments to each shown.  Notes indicate start and stop dates.
  • Dr. Conlon's contributed effort is now shown as an expense to the project.  Dr. Conlon's contributed effort is shown as revenue to the project.  These line items are revenue neutral.
  • Two payments were made to the consultant for work performed in 2014. But only one was booked in the 2014 budget before the books were closed.  Had this missing payment been noticed, it would have been charged to 2014.  As such, the reported 2014 net revenue of ($6,600) should have been reported as a net loss of ($27,000).  The official accounting for 2014 shows the incorrect posting.  The revised accounting shows the net revenue that actually occurred.  In a similar fashion, the payment for 2014 was being counted in 2015, created the impressions that we were making four payments to the consultant in 2015.  This has been corrected in the managerial presentations for 2015.
  • Indirect costs of Duraspace employees working on the project were not in the VIVO 2015 budget.  This required a new line item, reconciliation with 2014, and is now a part of the 2015 budget plan.
• With all corrections, VIVO continues to show positive net revenue for 2015.

Conference update

• Registration up from last year.  Workshop registration is up as well.
• Preparations are in place.  Looking forward to seeing everyone in Boston.

Conference Planning for 2016

• A draft circulating to get teams organized well ahead
• Looks excellent and the meeting at the Conference should help --
  • come up with set of tasks associated with each role, such as coming up with session chairs
  • and we need clear timelines
• We have to figure out how much we can turn the reins for sponsorship over to committees – e.g. we have to approach companies only once
  • We have to identify the best person to contact sponsors
• We should have an incoming program chair and incoming conference chair so there's another set of eyes and the person leading the effort has some backup if they have to be away for a week or two
  • We've talked in the past about having incoming, current, and past chair involved
• What is there to sign up for?
  • Program activities committee – e.g., dealing with the call for apps – separate from the program reviewers
    
    • We could have an awards committee for the apps and linked data awards
  • Conference committee – e.g., general conference organizational details
    • working in parallel with Designing Events on social events? something the incoming chair could work on?
    • writing the call for papers and apps
  • Sponsorship – another definable activity, that should have a group of people who want to do it
  • Marketing/communications so a more orchestrated strategy, in cooperation with DuraSpace and working with Designing Events to edit what they send out
  • One-off volunteer opportunities
    • session chairs
• Should we also considering asking these people to be helping with other events such as implementation fests or hackathons
  • This group (Steering) needs to be overseeing all events and should be doing the scoping and coordination so that events remain complementary
    • Need to keep the implementation fest as light and easy to organize as possible
    • But we do need to conceive of the full annual schedule
    • And to think about new events such as paid training events that are different from implementation fests
  • We want to make sure nobody gets burned out – have clear bounds to what people volunteer for
  • There should be a VIVO 2016 Conference Task Force with a place on the wiki that is transparent, focused on the conference, and other task forces for other events

Leadership/Steering meeting

• Agenda has been circulated; it's an executive meeting and the longest meeting we have with them over the course of the year
• These people are more distant from the project and bring both their independent perspectives as well as remembering what we told them 3 months ago
• These folks are very interested in the membership – extra meeting June 23
  • We will hand out a list of prospects and hope to add prospects and/or volunteers to be contacts for each prospect
• A lot of good progress to report
• Progress on the governance so we have known procedures for turnover and other processes
• Will be discussing in-kind contributions to membership and how they can be accounted for, and what the implications may be – for deciding in November
• Should those involved in teaching workshops pop in and out? would like to minimize popping in and out
• Will be a U-shaped table for leadership group members and chairs around the outside for others with a reason to be there

Roadmap

• Task force met Wednesday and will again today – synthesizing features in clusters and identifying ways to move forward
• We should have a very clear story to tell that will be affirming vs. surprising – people will be able to see how the progress will be made
• Foreshadowings for this group –
  
  • a bunch of work around getting data into VIVO (what's missing from the various tools available – what is the recommended way for people evaluating VIVO, and what meets longer term operational needs
  • work around getting data out of VIVO – APIs for programmers vs. output for specific purposes
  • performance and scalability – not dozens of items on the feature list but it has been a major pain point
  • visualization, UI, and theming – doing them in some way that fosters future work

Other comments or concerns

• deadline for Monday submissions
• a person to pick up copies of the presentations after each session?
  
  • Could use DropItToMe – post on Twitter
  • Designing Events gets better response when they ask right there
  • Leave a copy of each presentation on the Desktop – needs to be done session by session – ask Rachel about this again
    • The session chair should make sure their presentation gets delivered