[CWN-Summit] Compiled 2006 Summit Evals.

[Sascha Meinrath]

Hi everyone,

As we gear up for the 2007 International Summit for Community Wireless Networks,
I thought it would be great to send out the feedback we received from the 2006
Summit.  I hope to see you all there -- as always, let me know if you have any
questions.  Meanwhile, please help spread the word about the Summit and help us
by inviting interested folks to attend (particularly if you know folks from the
"Should have been there but weren't" sections below).  I'll send out the latest
invite momentarily so you'll have it at your fingertips.

Happy reading,

--Sascha

***

10 general feedback themes:

1.  The size was just right.
2.  Too many concurrent sessions.
3.  Socials/breaks/downtimes were great.
4.  Canadian pride is still very strong (and the Summit is larger than simply
"national").
5.  Logistics were very well done.
6.  Lodging was too spread out.
7.  Location of the Summit and grounding in the local community are extremely
important.  DC and surrounds (e.g., Philly) were brought up a lot.
8.  More collaborative tools (both before and after the Summit).
9.  MORE INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE! (and more local participation -- see #7 above).
10. Many people would be willing to help out on the next Summit (yeah! ;).

***

Summit Evaluation Aggregated Information

What worked for you?

Schedule:
Well-paced schedule.
The free time was excellent for meeting peers
Excellent agenda.
Pace was very good with between spaces for “open space”.
Down time.
Lots of time to talk.
Open format, easy going, lots of free time.
Uncompressed schedule that encouraged conversation.
Lots of unstructured time--this was good.
Loved the format, no vendor demos.
Long sessions are awesome
Excellent schedule of long breaks and lots of informal interaction.
Good line-up of speakers.

Panels:
Discussion format at sessions
Outcomes-focused, especially in policy discussions
The video/audio documenting of sessions.
The policy attendees.
The implementation sessions
The cultural, 'value-added' localized content sessions.
I think there are three things I'd like to see: 1) Policy issues, strategies; 2)
Networking; 3) Real people's voices. I saw #1 and #2. I didn't see three. 2 out
of 3 ain't bad.
Sessions interesting, speakers I wanted to see.
The quality of the participants and the relatively small size of the group.
Wide variety of folks invited, policy wonks, community organizers.
Presentations of novel projects.
The three streams
Business models.
Great exchange of knowledge of successful projects.

Food, facilities, etc.:
Thank you for the food, the excellent facilities, and all of the documentation.
Having the socials was great for a relaxed communicative environment.
Evening stuff.
Free food.
Transportation and social events.
Good location and logistics.
Planned social times.
Great facilities at the Spellmann Center.

Networking:
A lot of networking.
Meeting people.
The opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with such a diverse group of people.
Diversity of conference attendees (e.g. radical media activists, representatives
from wifi manufacturers, academics, even bureaucrats). The diversity enabled
dialog between perhaps otherwise opposed parties, laying groundwork for common
ground and understanding.
The additional time provided for networking.
Meeting people.
meeting new people (great people), getting many useful contacts
Lots of varied people with lots of different perspectives. Old people (people I
know) and new people.

General:
Getting together again.
Location.
Leadership.
Love.
Poetry: politics and passion.
Emotion.
Great people.
Inspiration—making the First Amendment work. Our rights are not self-enforcing.
We have to claim them and fight for them.
Latest hardware—commodity radios that will deliver big bandwidth.
Everything.
The summit worked well enough for me to gain some good knowledge on wireless
connectivity. I will use this knowledge on our practical work for rural communities.
Learning many things that can be transferred to other places.
Pleasure to share my experience with others.
The size of the summit was perfect--facilitated meaningful interaction with all
other attendees.
Action focus at the end.
Size of the Conference
Great Summit! it was every bit as inspiring as the first one in 2004.
Fees affordable enough.
Nice Prometheus involvement.


What would you do differently next time?
Panels:
More on open source, software and hardware.
Narrow the focus to technology, implementation, and networking.
Less agenda politically speaking.
Have a moderator run each session so that some presentations don't hog the time
slots.
Hold the "show and tell" at a timewhen it doesn't compete with sessions (could
have happened at the end of the day.)
Shorter Sessions (2 hours with no break is too long)
Maybe showcase/meet and greet with other implementors instead of just panels.
Policy/Outreach and Implementation needed a bit more overlap--organized dinners?
Shorter sessions
Open House/exhibitors in public area with drinks during breaks.
Make policy speakers listen to audience (perhaps impossible)--make more interactive.

Multiple Tracks and Panels Per Session.
Parallel tracks made it difficult to build bridges between groups. Breakouts
were great, but still theme-based (should have been integrated). Provide some
cross-cutting panels to get dialog moving.
Less overlapping in session presentations.
3 sessions, but instead of tracks, have (for example) one session with three
options on tech, one with three options on policy, etc. True, the tech people
will have to choose just one tech, etc., but for the most part, it's pretty easy
to stay tapped into something you already kind of understand and the summit is a
good place to build a basic level of understanding.
Longer duration, fewer parallel sessions.
Fewer streams, more crossover.
1 time slot with fewer, larger (maybe cross-sector) sessions, but also maintain
some time slots with more, smaller sessions.
We need to have a session where all three tracks get together and talk about 3-5
of their biggest issues.
Strategic dialog on relations across tracks.
Repeat some of the tracks at non-conflicting times.
Spread the panels over longer period to enable attendance at more panels! So
many panels were concurrent.
Multidisciplinary tracking. I felt trapped in "implementation" and couldn't get
over to "tech" and "policy"
Ability to get to more of the sessions.
Perhaps slightly fewer parallel sessions because a lot of sessions seemed to
blend together due to necessary convergence of issues.

International Concerns
The Summit was good enough. Maybe some more international gathering could
facilitate in a better way.
I'd like to see some coverage/discussion about policy/laws outside of the US.
What is happening in CA or Europe or... that we need to be aware of (both good
and bad)
Rename the Summit: North American Summit.
Huge Canadian involvement here: call North American instead of nat'l.

Food, facilities, etc.:
No bad food. Food poisoning is bad!
Try to get most people in the same hotel.
Everybody staying at the same place, very close to the conference venue,
preferably remote, for better late night interaction.
Organize "Birds of a Feather" breakfasts and dinners.
More powerful venue--DC or somewhere we can publicly advertise the goals and
objectives and be held accountable as a group for the results of the next summit.

Follow-up:
Better systems and practices to stay connected to work collaboratively between
meetings.
Demonstration "site visit" have summit in a community that has been effected by
community wireless--socially, economically, etc.

Pre-Summit:
Confirm sessions farther ahead of time.
Prior to the summit, encourage people to share their stories online—it's a great
intro to the work that's being done, and also a resource that we've identified
that we all need.
More outreach, local community involvement.

General
I think that the People, the real people, need to be seen, heard, if only
through stories.
Weekdays.
Add a barnraising component.
Support you more.
Wikis like last time with blog coordinator.


Who was not here that should have been?
International:
More international folks.
More international groups.
More people from non-US places.
More international perspectives
Telecentre of the Americas Partnership
More international groups.

Local Participation:
Real people, the very people we work with. The people in whose communities we work.
More students and members of the local community
Many sessions were conceived as outreach or education but most of the group
seemed already reached/educated--sometimes felt like preaching to the choir.
Maybe running this summit along with an existing meeting with a group we want to
reach (muni conf.?) then promoting a free crossover section as outreach?

Particular People:
Garth Graham, Garry Sheamma, Matt Wenger, Richard Civille, Gene Crick, David
Isenberg, Bob McChesney, more internationals
Portland Personal Telco.
Anthony Riddle, ACM
Alliance for Technology Access (Disabilities)
Steve Cisler
Steve Ronan
David Isenberg. There is a huge overlap with Freedom 2 Connect. Many who are
there should be here too.

General Comments:
Should is a tough word. And there's a lot more work to be done than just issuing
an invitation to make it a useful, welcoming and relevant environment to a
broader community.
Strippers! Just kidding. Not Really!
More people from all over.
More consultants willing to provide 'road map' cookbooks and how to build
consensus among disparate groups in government and communities that are needed
to support community wireless networks.
Wifi manufacturers. Cisco, Broadcom, etc. were decidedly absent, even when Cisco
has the Cisco Foundation to support precisely this kind of development.
Rural/emerging economy.
Social science.
Community content production (e.g. Digital Watershed)
CUWiN Session (N. Lawndale, Ghana, CUWiN)
Funders (NSF, OSI,...)
 From my point of view, all the wireless providers and workers are here.
Non-tech based grassroots organizations.
Emergency Service providers
Include visits to real projects/organizations.
Include a policy activity (especially if we're in DC)
Politicians and funders at at least a session.
Press
Rural networks, aboriginal peoples' groups.
More community technology activists
FCC Reps.
IEEE, IETF
Legislators, about half of the people from last year.
Outreach to more people not involved in movement, those involved in other social
justice/progressive movements.
More community organizers and policymakers/decision-makers.
Minority organizations.
San Francisco, Portland, more Europe, Asia, Australia perspectives
Government people (state and local)
Non-profits in the non-media/telecom/IT sectors (i.e. education/social
inequality/health/justice


When and where would you like to see the next summit?
Place:
A barnraising format would be good. I would prefer a different kind of
stakeholder than Lindenwood and Mid Rivers to be host. Philly is definitely an
option.
Perhaps people can come to Southern California....
Somewhere that is close to making a difference (D.C.?) or close to big wireless
action (NYC?).
Chicago.
Portland?
Some place central like this is good.
Mid-Atlantic--DC or Baltimore.
No particular preference. I live in St. Louis, so that made the conference very
accessible to me this year, and would welcome its return, although possibly in a
venue closer to St. Louis city. Besides that, suggestions: southern Canada,
since there was a large group attending from up north who preferred "North
American Wireless Summit" instead of "National..."; a city in continental US
with a working municipal and/or community wifi (Austin, Seattle)
Anywhere. Here is cool.
Most anywhere, near an interesting wireless "place", either a lab or an
installed community.
I'd like to see it take place somewhere we can do something--leave something
behind. I think some of the bar time and/or downtime could be swapped for work time.
Maybe in the the USA or in any developing countries if possible.
Benton Harbor, Michigan
Washington, D.C.--how about connecting an event (not necessarily the summit) to
the CTCNet conference as a trial run. Or on the lands of the Tribal Digital Village.
Rural areas. Action-based, linked to community group or organization (or in
Montreal)
DC
I would like to see a world-wide summit somewhere in Europe.
Have in a community implementing community wireless.
At your place
Washington, DC and invite policymakers
In a rural community that has built their own network (i.e. Ohio project, Tribal
Digital Village), perhaps with a barnraising component.
East or West Coast (not Midwest again)
Washington, DC for policy, include barnraising component.

Time:
6 months to 1 year in Hawaii!
Next month, Chicago. The following month, Philly. July, DC.
Next year, but coordinate with Freedom 2 Connect. If this was in Washington this
year, people could have easily attended both.
I think there is value in trying to hold it annually. Where? Anywhere, really.
Annual.
July-September 2006
Don't run too close to a muniwireless conference.
September '05 in Philadelphia.
1 year
A yearly conference is good.
Six months
At the end of 2006 or at the beginning of 2007
In 6 month intervals
Less than one year from now
Next year.
One year from now.


What are you willing to do to support the next summit?
It it's in Philly..., I could help organize and connect with local participants.
Whatever I can.
Whatever I can without taking away from my own project.
Attend. Present. Invite. Promote. Cheerlead.
Do what I've committed to at this one: meta-organizing and Council of/for
Regional Organizing and illegible words... It's timely.
Ask me, and if I can I will.
What do you need?
It takes me time to figure out how I can best contribute. I will stay tuned and
look at the websites to find a place to fit in.
What do you need? We have no money, we're not nearby, but we have energy. Some
of us would love to help with organizing/programming it.
I will assist in any way I can. Please feel free to ask.
Promote it on mailing lists and web calendar links. Present and/or moderate a
session(s).
Organize, or perhaps better put, give feedback on talks, sessions.
Don't know. I never did hear or see any mention of the support we provided this
time. That makes it harder for me.
I'd be willing to organize in St. Paul, MN, if no other place is forthcoming.
Anywhere you do it, I'll help. I can do logistics, web site work, materials. I
can also help drum up $.
I am willing to contribute anything the Summit needs from me. I will be happy to
be in a panel of the next summit.
Help with local (to the summit site) outreach and education, pre-summit.
Recruit attendees from Latin America and Caribbean.
Try to organize a sister event (non-synchronous) in LAC
Edit proposals (not write from scratch) for funding.
Let me know what I can do.
Organize. Email. Plan. Make phone calls. Show up early. Get stressed out. Write
grant applications.
Just ask and I'll try to provide.
Anything that is related to organizing the summit.
Publicize.
Virtual organizing.
I'll bring more people.
Whatever.
Anything in my power.
Attend, speak, exhibit, bring students who can be notetakers, pay for their
travel, organize a panel/session, probably other things--Just ask.