Office Regionalization and new Offices

Ivan Herman, W3C Head of Offices

IST-2000-28767 Question-How Project review meeting

Sophia Antipolis, 20th September, 2002

http://www.w3.org/2002/Talks/QH-Review/

This presentation reports on

• Workpackage 3, Deliverables D.3.2, D.3.3, and D.3.4

  (Office Regionalizations)

• Workpackage 4, Deliverables D.3.1 and D.3.2

  (New Offices)

• Separate analysis on European Web presence
  • this was deliverable D3.1, delivered in November 2001
• Data were collected on:
  • current W3C membership figure
  • statistical data on Web presence (number of PC's, number of hosts)
  • GDP per capita, GDP growth
• A plan was drawn based on this analysis

• Some countries have high Web presence but few W3C members
  • eg, Austria, Denmark
• Some countries have decent membership but no office presence
  • eg, Finland, Ireland
• Spain & Portugal are low on both counts, although
  • GDP evolution is high
  • both are important languages
  • Spain is a large country...
• In Central Europe: some countries score quite well:
  • eg, Estonia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia
  • but some are way too small...

• First point of contact locally
  • both organizationally and technically
• Education and outreach
  • sponsorship of events
  • shepherding translations
  • forum for regional discussions
  • localized promotional activities
  • conduit for W3C communications and press releases
• Regional input to W3C (eg, internationalization)
• Channel for national level funding schemes
• etc

Promote and encourage the adoption of W3C technologies

• Office regionalization allows a better presence, but...
• Avoids the major overhead of a new office
  • overhead is organizational, financial...
• It is possible if countries have:
  • have similar culture
  • close or identical languages
  • good contacts with one another
• Regionalization was based on existing (national) offices

• Regionalization
  • Done:
    • W3C UK Office to become W3C UK & Ireland office
    • W3C German office to become W3C Germany and Austria office
    • W3C Dutch office to become W3C Benelux office
  • May be considered, but not decided yet:
    • W3C Swedish office to become W3C Scandinavian office
    • W3C Greek office to become Greece and Cyprus
• New Offices
  • 1st phase (done)
    • W3C Finnish office
    • W3C Hungarian office
  • 2nd phase (planned in the QH proposal)
    • W3C Spanish office
    • W3C Office in Central Europe (Poland or the Czech Republic)

• Extending local contacts with contacts in the full region
• Extend mailing lists
• New Office logos
• Rework Office web site, (try to) ensure internet domains
• Contact local members
• Announcements on W3C home page and Offices' Home page
• Announcements to W3C members at large at AC meeting
• Press release on the changes
• W3C events in the new areas:
  • Interop tour events (workpackage 6) were in the new regions:
    • Dublin
    • Vienna
    • Brussels

• Office hosted at CLRC, near Oxford
• Former W3C UK office
• Good contacts with important Irish members (Baltimore, Iona)
  • they already helped for the Dublin Interop event
  • helping in Euroweb 2002 conference
• Large list of (combined) W3C membership

• Office hosted at Fraunhofer IMK, near Bonn
• Former W3C German office
• An Austrian member (EC3):
  • will act as a "local contact" in Austria
  • played an important role in the Vienna event
• Large list of (combined) W3C membership

• Office hosted at CWI, in Amsterdam
• Former W3C Dutch office
• Particularity: multilingual region:
  • newsletters issued in English
  • there are French and Dutch speaking contact persons
  • Web site is maintained in French, Dutch, and English
    • language negotiation is also used
• List of (combined) W3C membership

• A W3C office must be hosted locally
• The hosting institution must be:
  • vendor-neutral, non-profit
  • (active) member of W3C
  • well connected to local industry
• There is a formal procedure:
  • a bid should be submitted to W3C
  • bid should include a business plan
  • there is a "site visit" from W3C
  • final decision resides in W3C Management
• New offices receive approx. €20,000.- start-up fund
• In practice: active sollicitation might be necessary by W3C

• Contacts are signed with W3C hosts
• Staff gets special authorizations to the W3C site
• There is a W3C Home page news
• Local web site, logo, etc
• There is a public opening ceremony
  • presentations by W3C team members
  • official opening locally
  • follows local customs
• A W3C press release is issued for the opening ceremony

• There were two bids (TIEKE, and DMI/TUT Tampere)
• Both bids were very good but we had to choose...
  • site visit took place in April
  • TUT was favoured by W3C
• Web site has just been set up
• W3C Home page news and Offices' Home page news were out
• Office opening on the 11th of October, in Tampere, with:
  • Daniel Dardailler, Marie-Claire Forgue, Ivan Herman
  • Marja-Riitta Koivunen, Yves Lafon

  from the W3C team

• Has the potential to reach out to Estonia

• There was only one bid (SZTAKI), but...
• SZTAKI is an old member of W3C and known to us
• There was a site visit in October 2001
• Office was opened in April 2002, with its own Web Site
• W3C Home page news and Offices' Home page news were out
• Office opening on the 24th of September, in Budapest, with:
  • Daniel Dardailler, Marie-Claire Forgue, Max Froumentin
  • Ivan Herman, Vincent Quint

  from the W3C team

• Press release is ready to go!

• We have problems locating a suitable Office host in Spain
  • can the EU help us?
  • (recent evolutions in ERCIM membership might become helpful)
• We are not sure about Czech Republic and Poland:
  • no stable local contact to W3C, no W3C members
  • it is questionable whether this would be a viable office
  • what happens in QH if W3C decides not to set up an office there?