TIPS Bi-Weekly Meeting
January 18, 2007
09:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. (CDT)

 

Participants

AR: Lisa Chavel, Susan Stoyek, & Bill Winters
KFO: Bill Card
MCR: Len Meier, Bill Joseph, Debbie Dale, Min Kim, Kale Horton, & Stefanie Self
WR: Tonya Blackburn, Dawn Trudeau, Duane Matt, Alan Wilhelm, Lou Hamm, Karyn Evans, Bruce Swartz, Dianne Osborne, Mary Greene, Janine Ferarese, Mike Benavides, Greg Morlock, Bob Welsh, Veronika Eskova & Jessica Villanueva

Priority:
TOPIC: Budget Shortfalls
DISCUSSION: Lou has a concern because the airfare costs are much higher than what was projected.  If you do travel for us and make your own reservations.  Use the cheapest fare rather than the contract fare.  The system has a place that asks you to justify.  You have to use Carlson Wagonlit to make your airline flight.  By using a non contract carrier, it is cheaper, but risky in case you have to cancel your flight.

If you have purchases that you can make now, make them now.  Make sure to get as many of those in NOW. Things that are over budget are a concern as well. 

Status Reports:
Marketing – Tonya, Jessica, Min, Dawn, and Lois.  Charter is in review process, media items are being collected right now. A conference call was scheduled in November.  The next thing that the team is working on is the marketing plan.  There is a great deal of marketing that needs to be done.  The core leader ship team is requiring that marketing be done.  Please document any use to TIPS tools and get the success or failure to Lou or TIPS coordinator in that region.

Remote Sensing Team – held meeting in October.  8 items were discussed.  The first 4 priorities that are a work in process, the last four are proposed prototype items. Imagine 9.1, Image Analysis for ArcGIS 9.2,  and Stereo Analyst for ArcGIS 9.2 are the software that are available.
Has developed a core team, Len, Larry E, David Lane, Roger Calhoun, Doug Sidell.  Remote sensing wg – reps from each state region and some from OSM.  Charter is due to the team tomorrow.  Two conference calls already.  Image acquisition, requiring imagery for the proposed prototype

GIS – first team meeting in mid-Feb.  Working on charter, training needs, software needs.  Members from states and OSM offices.

Hydrology – Debbie – TIPS Hydrology team is fairly new.  Charter has gone through several reviews.  Hope to get that to Lou in the next several days.  Billie Clark has reviewed.  Have had several conference calls.  The team is going to be receiving hydro issues regarding TIPS software.  Providing information about Hydro for the TIPS news letter.  Discussing the fate of certain software.  Almost completed with the budget for 2007.

IT and TIPS interaction – Susan Stoyek (SLA),
The SLA was drafted and submitted on 11/15 and has not been looked at.  Bruce took this on himself since the others on the team was too busy.  The idea was to get this looked at receive feedback.  Billie has looked at in on 12/01, and has mentioned that Dan, Lou, and Bruce get together and look at it.

Utilizing WEB resources
Veronika has not had a lot of activity.  Jo Gault notified VE about setting up a BLOG.  Mobile Computing has one set up and it is successful.  Nothing about a charter or a work plan.  Veronika, Cathy, Greg Morlock, and AR person.  Mike Benavides – the new share point 2007 has a BLOG area as well.  The CAD team is using a share point site to transfer information, and etc.  Tonya set up a BLOG for the Geomorphic forum and not using the Share Point site.  Mike Benavides – SharePoint 2007 will have a BLOGGING area but we do not know a stand up date.  Office 2007 plus SharePoint 2007.  It will be available to all Federal offices. 

Please send Dawn a copy of the Charter and Workplans and to national teams.  The charters and workplans can be posted on the SharePoint site.  The process for the charters is to have the team work on it, then it goes to Lou, then it is finalized.

Roles for teams and service managers. 
Len – has done nothing until this week.  The SM can expect an e-mail from him to schedule a conference call at least by Monday.  The idea is to modify the current charter then go from there. 

Training – Field tools.  The Garmin Classes and Arc Pad classes, we are increasing the # of classes for the field.

Installation procedures – Mary Greene is not on that team.  Cathy developed a list of procedures and forwarded that to Lou.  Distribution list was done but Susan was for installation.  Get the rest of the instructions up on one place. 

Established teams, Mobile Computing and CAD Teams are looking GOOD! 

Mary – agree to keep the meeting short, but get a summary update from each team.  At least the team lead could send that information out at least a week before.  Dawn to gather the subteam meeting minutes and send them out prior to the meeting.  Tonya suggested that we add the summary or notes to the agenda.  If we need to discuss at the meetings then we can

Software and Training License Safeguards – Mary raised the concern that licenses may not be current and up to date, and a sufficient number of licenses need to be available for training classes.  There were two classes last year that did not have enough licenses, and it caused problems for our customers and students.   We need to ensure temporary licenses or permanent licenses are up to date so we don’t have this problem in the future.  Suggestion received that we add a line on the instructor checklist to remind instructors additional licenses may be needed during a class.  Concern rose that the lead instructors may not know there are license issues.   Instructors should not be afraid to call Bill K. (for FLEX) or Mike B. (for Keyserver) to see how the license situation is.   Fact rose that it is the Software Manager’s responsibility to ensure sufficient number of licenses exist for customers and students, and that nothing has changed from the past.  Also, temporary increase in licenses needs to be communicated to Mike B. or Bill K.  It was suggested what we decide in the TIPS Team conference calls and meetings needs to be communicated to those who are impacted but who are not on the TIPS national team. 
Decision:  A reminder will be added to the Instructor checklist, but it is ultimately the responsibility of the Software Manager to ensure enough licenses are available for customers and students. 

Cathy M – have Aqutesolve, Debbie Dale is looking at it and it will be distributed soon.  AutoCAD 2007 and Carlson Mining will be done within the next couple of weeks.

Geospatial Meeting in Atlanta was very successful.  A group is being formed.  Bill Winters is forming a group and a team.  The date and location has not been decided other than FY2008.  Mary - Why not make this a TIPS conference besides just Geospatial, like a TIPS national conference and market this like crazy.  Will bring this up in the next meetings.  Do we want to try and limit this to 08 or make it a big meeting in 09.  Get a time table in there and start planning it with budget and etc.  Dianne – one of the suggestions that came out of the meeting, that they have a remote sensing forum.

 

February 1st, 2007 is the next TIPS Team Conference Call.