To date, 15 people have told me they're interested in attending a
"discussion dinner" to kick-off the new "Universal Print Driver"
concept.
By the looks of it, this discussion could get pretty involved,
so it's probably not appropriate to limit this discussion to,
say, an hour or so. This discussion could be viewed as a sort
of "Birds of a Feather" session, and those kinds of sessions
can be really great for brainstorming and the setting of issues.
Since the slate of scheduled times for the PWG meetings is already
pretty tight, it appears that an after-hours dinner-oriented
approach is indeed the best way to go.
In discussing various alternatives with folks, Harry Lewis came
up with what I believe is the best possible plan:
Retain use of an appropriate hotel conference room already
scheduled by the PWG, then order out for pizza or whatever.
The big win with this approach:
- Considerably reduced organizational and traveling time (ie, none
of the usual "Where do we want to eat? Where is the place? Can
someone give me a ride?)
- Suitable discussion environment (no clammering from other patrons,
or scattered, disjoint seating arrangements, etc.)
- Probably results in far less cost (particularly if we eat pizza ;-)
- Far less hassle in getting the bill paid
If alcohol is a concern (ie, the *lack* of alcohol), I doubt we'd have
a problem serving it in a hotel conference room. If alcohol is a driving
force in this decision process, then I'm sure some of us can coordinate
in advance the acquisition of such motivating devices. ;-)
The only organizational problem with this approach is figuring out how
to get the participants to pay for their share of the cost for using
the conference room. This should not be any big deal, though. And
besides, if the hotel is not catering any food/beverages, the per-person
cost should be pretty low.
I realize that having the UPD discussion during the dinner hours does
not meeting with everyone's approval. (Although the *vast* majority
stated they prefer such an approach.) However, I really believe this
is the best way to go for us at this point.
Comments?
...jay
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