[Cu-wireless] Wireless Athen Group party invite:

Tue Nov 5 11:28:30 CST 2002

Hi all,

I've been e-mailing with Scott Shamp (one of the coordinators for the
Wireless Athens Group).  He sent along an invitation to folks on their
listserve to their December 10 unveiling of their wireless network.  I
figured I should invite everyone involved with the CU-Wireless project in
case folks would like to attend.

--Sascha

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2002 17:22:11 -0500
From: Scott A. Shamp <sshamp at ARCHES.UGA.EDU>
To: WAGZSLAM at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: WAGz on 12/10

This is a kinda long email.  I feel like I need to tell you why I
ignored your email or call. I owe you that much. But don't stop reading
before you get to the part where I tell you how you can find out more
about the Wireless Athens Group Zone (WAGz) on December 10th.  Hey,
bottom line -- it is an invitation to a party where we can talk
wireless.

First, accept my apology.  I am very behind in getting in touch with
you.  If I were you, I would be frustrated.  But fight through that
frustration and keep reading because I have an offer for you.

The last six months have been some of the most exciting I have
experienced since I have been goofing with technology -- and I even
count those heady days in 94 when I first saw the web!  In April of this
year, we set a goal of building a wireless cloud over downtown.  A group
of us gathered and called ourselves the Wireless Athens Group (WAG) and
we began to call the area we wanted to build the WAGz (or WAG zone).  We
approached this project with energy and enthusiasm -- two essential
ingredients in building anything big and cool.  We started talking it
up.  We got the Athens Clarke County government and UGA officials on
board.  We secured the funding.  We laid out our hardware and software
plan.  And by the end of May, we actually had up the first leg of the
WAGz.  We had wireless connectivity in about four blocks of downtown
Athens.  We were stoked.  And we started crowing about it.

Some people at CNN came and did a great story about the project.  They
ran a 10 minute piece on their broadcast network worldwide.  And the
WAGz was the lead science and technology story on the CNN website for
about a week.  We thought that was very cool.  For a long time we had
wished for a way to tell a larger group of people about what we are
doing.  Now we would have a way to connect up with other people who
might want to play a part in our project.  But my mother has always
warned me, "Be careful what you wish for."  We had no idea what lay in
store.  On the basis of CNN story, we received over 500 email responses.
My email account couldn't handle it.  Then NPR heard about the CNN story
and wanted to approach the WAGz from a different angle.  Their great
story lead to hundreds of other emails.  We were getting calls from New
York, California, Texas.  The German publication Der Spiegel ran a story
in German we couldn't even read without a translation.  PC World
magazine did a story and the New York Times did an article in their
online edition.  We were trying to answer all the requests for more
information, but every email led to two more.  And every reporter we
talked to caused the number of requests to increase 10 fold.  It was
fun.  It was gratifying.  It was exhausting.

And then one day in the heat of it all, a student brought up the point
that we were so busy talking that we weren't doing.  We had channeled so
much of our energy into telling people about the WAGz we hadn't been
working enough on the WAGz -- and we were behind.  So we made a
decision.  No more smoke until we had flame.  No more emailing, no more
reporters, no more promotion until we got the WAGz up and operational.
It felt bad not to acknowledge the cool offers and suggestions.  But we
had to take care of business.

Well now we have reached a point where we can talk again. In the past
few months we have had to deal with some challenges (our personnel has
changed, our original network design has been altered).  But we still
have the same energy and enthusiasm for the project.  AND we are close
to being done.

In the New Media Institute, 10 WAGboxes (or 3Gboxes as we used to call
them) are stacked and ready to go.  This Thursday, we will mount
cherry-pickers and begin installing them.  In addition, all 300 students
taking classes in the NMI are building their final projects.  Everyone
of these students is working on some aspect of the WAGz -- content,
infrastructure, systems, businesses, whatever.

And now on December 10th, the WAGz goes live.  We are hosting an event
that we call the New Media Institute Holiday Slam to officially open the
WAGz and to show off the projects students have designed to work on the
WAGz.  And I am issuing an official invitation to you to be a part of
our event.

At 4:30 on Tuesday, December 10th, we will start our student show-off in
the NMI.  This is where students will demonstrate their work -- we will
have over 30 different projects being showcased.  And then the Slam goes
on the road.  We will leave the NMI to experience wireless technology
live in the streets of downtown Athens.  You will have the opportunity
to see mobile technology operating throughout the WAGz.  And by 7:00, we
will arrive at the final destination of the evening where a student
group is going to showcase a wireless system to enhance live music
performances.

And here is the offer -- at the NMI Holiday Slam I will make available a
bunch of people to answer any and all questions you have about the WAGz.
We will show you the guts of the system.  We will bare all.

Now here is what I am going to do.  I want to put you on a special
listserv so that I can communicate with you about the event.  I promise
that in the next month you will receive no more than 6 emails from this
listserv.  If you don't want to be on it, just email me and I will take
you off.  And as soon as the Slam is history, I will kill the email.

And here is what I want you to do.  Look at your calendar to see if you
might be able to come.  And if you have some ideas about how your
company might want to be involved in the event, send me those ideas too.
We are interested in appropriate sponsors for the evening.

So the WAGz is just about to happen.  I apologize for being
incommunicado.  But by 12/10 you won't be able to shut me up.

Thanks again for your patience and interest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Scott A. Shamp
Director
New Media Institute
Grady College of Jounalism and Mass Communication
University of Georgia

http://www.nmi.uga.edu
Bank of America Building
110 E. Clayton Street, 5th Floor
Athens, GA 30601
Voice: 706.227.7239
Fax: 706.227.7236