Search Results

Search found 1115 results on 45 pages for 'meeting'.

Page 11/45 | < Previous Page | 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18  | Next Page >

  • OCS 2007 R2 User Properties Error Message

    - by BWCA
    When I attempted to configure one of our user’s Meeting settings using the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Administration Tool   I received an Validation failed – Validation failed with HRESULT = 0XC3EC7E02 dialog box error message. I received the same error message when I tried to configure the user’s Telephony and Other settings. Using ADSI Edit, I compared the settings of an user that I had no problems configuring and the user that I had problems configuring.  For the user I had problems configuring, I noticed a trailing space after the last phone number digit for the user’s msRTCSIP-Line attribute. After I removed the trailing space for the attribute and waited for Active Directory replication to complete, I was able to configure the user’s Meeting settings (and Telephony/Other settings) without any problems. If you get the error message, check your user’s msRTCSIP-xxxxx attributes in Active Directory using ADSI Edit for any trailing spaces, typos, or any other mistakes.

    Read the article

  • SQL SERVER Quick Note of Database Mirroring

    Just a day ago, I was invited at Round Table meeting at prestigious organization. They were planning to implement High Availability solution using Database Mirroring. During the meeting, I have made few notes of what was being discussed there. I just thought it would be interested for all of you know about it.Database Mirroring works [...]...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

    Read the article

  • Phoenix Silverlight UserGroup tonight

    - by Dave Campbell
    Yes it really is the first Wednesday of the month! and Yes, we are having our normally scheduled meeting tonight. Everyone should be back from any Memorial Day festivities, dragging your collective drawers at work and looking for somethign interesting. Voila!... the Silverlight User Group meeting from 6PM to 8PM at Interface Technical Training (NW corner of Central & Thomas) -- check PhoenixSilverlight.net for a map. Come out for Pizza and networking at 6 then hang around because Les Brown of Sogeti is returning to speak on the new features in in .NET 4.0 as a project-based demo. I've got some fun give-aways, so come on out... it'll be too hot on tonight to be anywhere else :)

    Read the article

  • eSTEP TechCast - November 2013

    - by Cinzia Mascanzoni
    We are pleased to announce our next eSTEP TechCast on Thursday 7th of November and would be happy if you could join. Please see below the details for the next TechCast. Date and time: Thursday, 07. November 2013, 11:00 - 12:00 GMT (12:00 - 13:00 CET; 15:00 - 16:00 GST) Title: The Operational Management benefits of Engineered Systems Abstract: Oracle Engineered Systems require significantly less administration effort than traditional platforms. This presentation will explain why this is the case, how much can be saved and discusses the best practices recommended to maximise Engineered Systems operational efficiency. Target audience: Tech Presales Call Info: Call-in-toll-free number: 08006948154 (United Kingdom) Call-in-toll-free number: +44-2081181001 (United Kingdom) Show global numbers Conference Code: 803 594 3 Security Passcode: 9876 Webex Info (Oracle Web Conference) Meeting Number: 599 156 244 Meeting Password: tech2011 Playback / Recording / Archive: The webcasts will be recorded and will be available shortly after the event in the eSTEP portal under the Events tab, where you could find also material from already delivered eSTEP TechCasts. Use your email-adress and PIN: eSTEP_2011 to get access.

    Read the article

  • Creative, busy Devoxx week

    - by JavaCecilia
    I got back from my first visit to the developer conference Devoxx in Antwerp. I can't describe the vibes of the conference, it was a developer amusement park, hackergartens, fact sessions, comic relief provided by Java Posse, James Bond and endless hallway discussions.All and all - I had a lot of fun, my main mission was to talk about Oracle's main focus for OpenJDK which besides development and bug fixing is making sure the infrastructure is working out for the full community. My focus was not to hang out at night club the Noxx, but that was came included in the package :)The London Java community leaders Ben Evans and Martijn Verburg are leading discussions in the community to lay out the necessary requirements for the infrastructure for build and test in the open. They called a first meeting at JavaOne gathering 25 people, including people from RedHat, IBM and Oracle. The second meeting at Devoxx included 14 participants and had representatives from Oracle and IBM. I hope we really can find a way to collaborate on this, making sure we deliver an efficient infrastructure for all engineers to contribute to OpenJDK with.My home in all of this was the BOF rooms and the sessions there meeting the JUG leaders, talking about OpenJDK infrastructure and celebrating the Duchess Duke Award together with the others. The restaurants in the area was slower than I've ever seen, so I missed out on Trisha Gee's brilliant replay of the workshop "The Problem with Women in IT - an Agile Approach" where she masterly leads the audience (a packed room, 50-50 gender distribution) to solve the problem of including more diversity in the developer community. A tough and sometimes sensitive topic where she manages to keep the discussion objective with a focus of improving the matter from a business perspective. Mattias Karlsson is organizing the Java developer conference Jfokus in Stockholm and was there talking to Andres Almires planning a Hackergarten with a possible inclusion of an OpenJDK bugathon. That would be really cool, especially as the Oracle Stockholm Java development office is just across the water from the Jfokus venue, some of the local JVM engineers will likely attend and assist, even though the bug smashing theme will likely be more starter level build warnings in Swing or langtools than fixing JVM bugs.I was really happy that I managed to catch a seat for the Java Posse live podcast "the Third Presidential Debate" a lot of nerd humor, a lot of beer, a lot of fun :) The new member Chet had a perfect dead pan delivery and now I just have to listen more to the podcasts! Can't get the most perfect joke out of my head, talking about beer "As my father always said: Better a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy" - hilarious :)I attended the sessions delivered by my Stockholm office colleagues Marcus Lagergren (on dynamic languages on the jvm, JavaScript in particular) and Joel Borggrén-Franck (Annotations) and was happy to see the packed room and all the questions raised at the end.There's loads of stuff to write about the event, but just have to pace myself for now. It was a fantastic event, captain Stephan Janssen with crew should be really proud to provide this forum to the developer community!

    Read the article

  • SQLMidlands & SQLLunch

    - by Dave Ballantyne
    Many thanks to all those that turned out to see my presentation on Thursday (16th of Feb) of “Cursors are Evil” at SQLMidlands.  The scripts i used are here : https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=4004b6a3bc887e2c&id=4004B6A3BC887E2C%21216 You will need the AdventureWorks2008r2 release to run these, feel free to mail me ([email protected]) with any questions.  They are based upon a series of articles I wrote for SQLServerCentral which can be found here and here. Also I am starting ,or at least having an attempt at, a new user group in London.  This is SQLLunch, meeting downstairs at The Golden Fleece , EC4N 1SP which is 2 minutes from Bank Tube , we will have a twice monthly meeting (2nd and 4th Tuesdays) for an ‘All Stuff, No Fluff’ event.  Put plainly, a quick hello followed by a 45 minute presentation , which will ,optimistically, have you there and back to your desk within a lunch hour. Registrations for the first series of dates are at sqlserverfaq.com If you would like to speak, then please get in touch. Hope to see you there. 

    Read the article

  • Oracle at the Gartner BI Summit Next Week

    - by kimberly.billings
    We're heading back to Vegas next week - this time for the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit April 12 - 14, 2010 at the Mandalay Bay Resort. Be sure to attend our Customer Case Study session featuring Beckman Coulter, Tuesday, April 13th at 9:45, then swing by our booth to have all your questions answered by Oracle BI and data warehousing experts. We will also be scheduling Face-to-Face meetings with Oracle product executives, so if you would like to schedule a meeting, submit a request via the online agenda builder and Gartner will arrange a meeting with the appropriate Oracle contact. To view the agenda and to find out more about the Gartner BI Summit, visit: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1118023

    Read the article

  • TG'10 Conference Set

    Meeting of the nation's largest and most-comprehensive distributed cyberinfrastructure for open scientific research will take place August 2-5 Research - Computer Science - Cyberinfrastructure - National Science Foundation - Organizations

    Read the article

  • TG'10 Conference Set

    Meeting of the nation's largest and most-comprehensive distributed cyberinfrastructure for open scientific research will take place August 2-5 Research - Computer Science - Cyberinfrastructure - National Science Foundation - Organizations

    Read the article

  • Chicago Architects Group &ndash; Document Generation Architectures

    - by Tim Murphy
    Thank you to everyone who came out to the Chicago Architects Group presentation last night.  It seemed like the weather has a way of keeping a large portion of the people who registered from making the meeting.  There was some lively networking going on before and after the meeting.  I enjoyed the questions that people had during the presentation.  It helped to bring out some of the challenges with dealing with the OOXML and ODF standards from an architecture perspective. I have posted the Slides and Code.  Feel free to contact me with any questions. For those of you who missed the presentation I will be giving a similar one at the Lake County .NET Users Group on June 24th. The next CAG presentation will be July 20th.  The presentation will be Architecting A BI Installation by David Leininger.  Look for the registration to open in the next day or so. del.icio.us Tags: Chicago architects Group,OOXML,ODF,BI,LCNUG,slides,code

    Read the article

  • Memories about Tadeusz Golonka

    - by Damian
    Today at 10:55 AM, Tadeusz Golonka - my greatest  Mentor and Teacher  passed away. I had te opportunity to met Tadek in person several times last years. It was always a great experience to see how he shared his energy and passion. I was always impressed and had a lot of new ideas after such meeting or lecture. I can remember the meeting  in early 2009 and his briliant speech he did for us, the MVP community in Poland. We spent two days together and he talked to us all the time. He gave us examples how to share IT passion to other people and how to be better person for others. He was the greates Mentor I have ever met - I realized this during that meeting. My greates dream was and still is to be "like Tadek". Many Times I just went to events to see / hear him on stage ("in action"). I always wanted to have his energy, empathy and passion. Now I have to live without his good words and advices....Let me put here the words that Adam Cogan wrote on Tadek's profile on Facebook. I just can't write about that fatal accident. "The circumstances of Tadeusz Golonka death are too tragic. Tad stood up to offer his seat to an elderly lady, he lost his balance and then he slipped and hit the tram door hard. He then fell out of the tram and hit the metal barriers that separate the tram rails from the street. It was a severe accident...... So horrible.  At first it was a miracle is that he survived... he fought for several days.  My thoughts are with his lovely family. The family have asked for blood donations as a symbolic gift. Tad received a lot of blood.  Thank you Tad, you were a wonderful person. I will remember you as a kind man, a gentleman. "RIP Tadeusz- You will never ever be forgotten. You are with us all the time  

    Read the article

  • Pictures from VTdotNET VS2010 Launch

    Vermont.NET’s April meeting coincided with the Visual Studio 2010 launch so we had our own launch event! With cake… It was our biggest meeting attendance ever with 60 signed up and 56 signed in at the door. Four people presented…”some of our favorite things about VS2010 and .NET 4.0”. The presenters were Victor Castro, Eric Hall, Rob Hale and myself. Instead of the usual pizza, we had a feast of sandwiches, rollups, chips and veggies & dip, all very generously...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

    Read the article

  • eSTEP TechCast - December 2012

    - by Cinzia Mascanzoni
    Join our next eSTEP TechCast will be on Thursday, 06. December 2012, 11:00 - 12:00 GMT (12:00 - 13:00 CET; 15:00 - 16:00 GST) Title: Innovations with Oracle Solaris Cluster 4 In this webcast we will focus at the integration of the cluster software with the IPS packaging system of Solaris 11, which makes installing and updating the software much easier and much more reliable, especially with virtualization technologies involved. Our webcast will also reflect new versions of Oracle Solaris Cluster if they will be announced in the meantime.Call Info: Call-in-toll-free number: 08006948154 (United Kingdom) Call-in-toll-free number: +44-2081181001 (United Kingdom) Show global numbers Conference Code: 803 594 3 Security Passcode: 9876 Webex Info (Oracle Web Conference) Meeting Number: 255 760 510 Meeting Password: tech2011 Playback / Recording / Archive: The webcasts will be recorded and will be available shortly after the event in the eSTEP portal under the Events tab, where you could find also material from already delivered eSTEP TechCasts. Use your email-adress and PIN: eSTEP_2011 to get access. 

    Read the article

  • Speaking in Omaha: December 7, 2011

    - by Bill Graziano
    I’m presenting in Omaha on Writing Faster SQL at 6PM on December 7th.  You can find meeting details on the Omaha SQL Server User Group page. The meeting location requires an RSVP so building security has a list of attendees. The presentation is a series of suggestions on improving performance.  It ranges from simple things like comparing indexed columns to scalar values up to tips for reducing query compiles and asynchronous processing patterns.  Nearly all of these come from specific issues I’ve encountered working on poorly performing SQL Servers.

    Read the article

  • How to build the SQL community

    - by simonsabin
    I’ve been running SQLBits for 5 years and have always had a desire to make the SQL community better. I’ve often thought about running for the board but have never stood up Just over a year ago I was at a meeting with some SQL leaders about growing PASS globally. At that meeting a friend of offered to help the board from an international perspective. I thought he was mad. James runs his own business, has been managing the sponsors for SQLBits and has 3 kids to look after, no way would he have the...(read more)

    Read the article

  • Unlock the Value of Big Data

    - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM
    Partners should read this comprehensive new e-book to get advice from Oracle and industry leaders on how you can use big data to generate new business insights and make better decisions for your customers. “Big data represents an opportunity averaging 14% of current revenue.” —From the Oracle big data e-book, Meeting the Challenge of Big Data You’ll gain instant access to: Straightforward approaches for acquiring, organizing, and analyzing data Architectures and tools needed to integrate new data with your existing investments Survey data revealing how leading companies are using big data, so you can benchmark your progress Expert resources such as white papers, analyst videos, 3-D demos, and more If you want to be ready for the data deluge, Meeting the Challenge of Big Data is a must-read. Register today for the e-book and read it on your computer or Apple iPad.  

    Read the article

  • Have you considered working for Microsoft in the IT organization?

    - by CatherineRussell
    Microsoft’s IT organization is hosting a Webinar for female technology professionals! Microsoft’s IT organization is hosting a Webinar on Thursday, June 24th at 11:30 AM PDT for female technology professionals interested in meeting some of the dynamic women who work in IT at Microsoft. Four different women from across the organization will share with you their stories and highlight why they have chosen Microsoft’s IT organization as a great place to grow and nurture their careers. This event will can be experienced via Live Meeting and audio conferencing. An RSVP is required to attend this event. To reserve your spot, register here: http://microsoftit.eventbrite.com Upon registration, a confirmation will be sent including additional event details and a FAQ. Find out more about Career Opportunities with Microsoft IT http://www.microsoft-careers.com/content/information-technology/?utm_source=LinkedIn&utm_campaign=Event_Women_in_IT_Webinar_MSIT_US_maryb_6152010

    Read the article

  • Ubuntu Australia LoCo Team

    - by benonsoftware
    Well first I would like to add at the moment I have had 1174 page views. That does not count people who just browse via the homepage so add around another 200 visitors! Well back on the subject I have recently joined Ubuntu-AU (Australia) LoCo team and it is great! Basilar it is a Ubuntu loco community group and just before the my first time being at a meeting I was emailing the admin and he said that there was a stop for a team reporter and I put my hand up and he said 'yes'. He was actually going to ask at the team meeting I would have said no way! But because I saw it before hand and I asked him I wanted to do it. If you live in Australia consider join Ubuntu-AU they also have a Launchpad team.

    Read the article

  • JQuery timer plugin on ASP.NET MVC Page button click

    - by Rita
    Hi I have an ASP.NET MVC Page with a button called "Start Live Meeting". When the User clicks on this button, it calls a controller method called "StartLiveMeeting" that returns a string. If the controller returns empty string, then i want the Timer to call the Controller method until it returns the string. I am using jquery.timer.js plugin ( http://plugins.jquery.com/files/jquery.timers-1.2.js.txt ) On the button click, the controller method is being called. But Timer is not initiating. I have specified 5sec to call the controller method. I appreciate your responses. Code on ASPX Page: //When "Start Meeting" button is clicked, if it doesn’t return empty string, Display that text and Stop Timer. Else call the Timer in every 5 sec and call the StartLiveMeeting Controller method. $("#btnStartMeeting").click(function() { var lM = loadLiveMeeting(); if (lM == "") { $("#btnStartMeeting").oneTime("5s", function() { }); } else { $("#btnStartMeeting").stopTime("hide"); } return false; }); function loadLiveMeeting() { $("#divConnectToLive").load('<%= Url.Action("StartLiveMeeting") %>', {}, function(responseText, status) { return responseText; }); } <asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="cphMain" runat="server"> <div id="divStartMeetingButton"><input id="btnStartMeeting" type="submit" value="Start Meeting" /> </div> <div id = "divConnectToLive"> <div id="loading" style="visibility:hidden"> <img src="../../img/MedInfo/ajax_Connecting.gif" alt="Loading..." /> </div> </div> Controller Method: [HttpPost] public string StartLiveMeeting() { int intCM_Id = ((CustomerMaster)Session["CurrentUser"]).CM_Id ; var activeMeetingReq = (from m in miEntity.MeetingRequest where m.CustomerMaster.CM_Id == intCM_Id && m.Active == true select m); if (activeMeetingReq.Count() > 0) { MeetingRequest meetingReq = activeMeetingReq.First(); return "<a href='" + meetingReq.URI + "'>" + "Connect to Live Meeting</a>"; } else { return ""; } }

    Read the article

  • Are weekly reports necessary?

    - by Dbger
    At the times that we didn't use Scrum, we had weekly status meeting and technical discussion; And now after we adopt Scrum, we have daily stand up meeting. But for both cases, weekly reports are always a necessity, although I don't see much value of doing this in our development team. What do you think of weekly report? what benefit that you got from it if your like it?

    Read the article

  • save Date Number in PHP variable.

    - by Denoteone
    This question goes along with another one of my post that I already accepted How do I get the "date number" in php 2010-08-24 20:00:00.000 I want to assign the current date number to a variable $current_date_num so I can use it in my query to compare what is already in the database. $query ="SELECT * FROM Reservations WHERE [Room_ID] = '$field' AND [Meeting Start] > '$current_date_num' ORDER BY [Meeting Start] asc ";

    Read the article

  • The Changing Face of PASS

    - by Bill Graziano
    I’m starting my sixth year on the PASS Board.  I served two years as the Program Director, two years as the Vice-President of Marketing and I’m starting my second year as the Executive Vice-President of Finance.  There’s a pretty good chance that if PASS has done something you don’t like or is doing something you don’t like, that I’m involved in one way or another. Andy Leonard asked in a comment on his blog if the Board had ever reversed itself based on community input.  He asserted that it hadn’t.  I disagree.  I’m not going to try and list all the changes we make inside portfolios based on feedback from and meetings with the community.  I’m going to focus on major governance issues since I was elected to the Board. Management Company The first big change was our management company.  Our old management company had a standard approach to running a non-profit.  It worked well when PASS was launched.  Having a ready-made structure and process to run the organization enabled the organization to grow quickly.  As time went on we were limited in some of the things we wanted to do.  The more involved you were with PASS, the more you saw these limitations.  Key volunteers were regularly providing feedback that they wanted certain changes that were difficult for us to accomplish.  The Board at that time wanted changes that were difficult or impossible to accomplish under that structure. This was not a simple change.  Imagine a $2.5 million dollar company letting all its employees go on a Friday and starting with a new staff on Monday.  We also had a very narrow window to accomplish that so that we wouldn’t affect the Summit – our only source of revenue.  We spent the year after the change rebuilding processes and putting on the Summit in Denver.  That’s a concrete example of a huge change that PASS made to better serve its members.  And it was a change that many in the community were telling us we needed to make. Financials We heard regularly from our members that they wanted our financials posted.  Today on our web site you can find audited financials going back to 2004.  We publish our budget at the start of each year.  If you ask a question about the financials on the PASS site I do my best to answer it.  I’m also trying to do a better job answering financial questions posted in other locations.  (And yes, I know I owe a few of you some blog posts.) That’s another concrete example of a change that our members asked for that the Board agreed was a good decision. Minutes When I started on the Board the meeting minutes were very limited.  The minutes from a two day Board meeting might fit on one page.  I think we did the bare minimum we were legally required to do.  Today Board meeting minutes run from 5 to 12 pages and go into incredible detail on what we talk about.  There are certain topics that are NDA but where possible we try to list the topic we discussed but that the actual discussion was under NDA.  We also publish the agenda of Board meetings ahead of time. This is another specific example where input from the community influenced the decision.  It was certainly easier to have limited minutes but I think the extra effort helps our members understand what’s going on. Board Q&A At the 2009 Summit the Board held its first public Q&A with our members.  We’d always been available individually to answer questions.  There’s a benefit to getting us all in one room and asking the really hard questions to watch us squirm.  We learn what questions we don’t have good answers for.  We get to see how many people in the crowd look interested in the various questions and answers. I don’t recall the genesis of how this came about.  I’m fairly certain there was some community pressure though. Board Votes Until last November, the Board only reported the vote totals and not how individual Board members voted.  That was one of the topics at a great lunch I had with Tim Mitchell and Kendal van Dyke at the Summit.  That was also the topic of the first question asked at the Board Q&A by Kendal.  Kendal expressed his opposition to to anonymous votes clearly and passionately and without trying to paint anyone into a corner.  Less than 24 hours later the PASS Board voted to make individual votes public unless the topic was under NDA.  That’s another area where the Board decided to change based on feedback from our members. Summit Location While this isn’t actually a governance issue it is one of the more public decisions we make that has taken some public criticism.  There is a significant portion of our members that want the Summit near them.  There is a significant portion of our members that like the Summit in Seattle.  There is a significant portion of our members that think it should move around the country.  I was one that felt strongly that there were significant, tangible benefits to our attendees to being in Seattle every year.  I’m also one that has been swayed by some very compelling arguments that we need to have at least one outside Seattle and then revisit the decision.  I can’t tell you how the Board will vote but I know the opinion of our members weighs heavily on the decision. Elections And that brings us to the grand-daddy of all governance issues.  My thesis for this blog post is that the PASS Board has implemented policy changes in response to member feedback.  It isn’t to defend or criticize our election process.  It’s just to say that is has been under going continuous change since I’ve been on the Board.  I ran for the Board in the fall of 2005.  I don’t know much about what happened before then.  I was actively volunteering for PASS for four years prior to that as a chapter leader and on the program committee.  I don’t recall any complaints about elections but that doesn’t mean they didn’t occur.  The questions from the Nominating Committee (NomCom) were trivial and the selection process rudimentary (For example, “Tell us about your accomplishments”).  I don’t even remember who I ran against or how many other people ran.  I ran for the VP of Marketing in the fall of 2007.  I don’t recall any significant changes the Board made in the election process for that election.  I think a lot of the changes in 2007 came from us asking the management company to work on the election process.  I was expecting a similar set of puff ball questions from my previous election.  Boy, was I in for a shock.  The NomCom had found a much better set of questions and really made the interview portion difficult.  The questions were much more behavioral in nature.  I’d already written about my vision for PASS and my goals.  They wanted to know how I handled adversity, how I handled criticism, how I handled conflict, how I handled troublesome volunteers, how I motivated people and how I responded to motivation. And many, many other things. They grilled me for over an hour.  I’ve done a fair bit of technical sales in my time.  I feel I speak well under pressure addressing pointed questions.  This interview intentionally put me under pressure.  In addition to wanting to know about my interpersonal skills, my work experience, my volunteer experience and my supervisory experience they wanted to see how I’d do under pressure.  They wanted to see who would respond under pressure and who wouldn’t.  It was a bit of a shock. That was the first big change I remember in the election process.  I know there were other improvements around the process but none of them stick in my mind quite like the unexpected hour-long grilling. The next big change I remember was after the 2009 elections.  Andy Warren was unhappy with the election process and wanted to make some changes.  He worked with Hannes at HQ and they came up with a better set of processes.  I think Andy moved PASS in the right direction.  Nonetheless, after the 2010 election even more people were very publicly clamoring for changes to our election process.  In August of 2010 we had a choice to make.  There were numerous bloggers criticizing the Board and our upcoming election.  The easy change would be to announce that we were changing the process in a way that would satisfy our critics.  I believe that a knee-jerk response to criticism is seldom correct. Instead the Board spent August and September and October and November listening to the community.  I visited two SQLSaturdays and asked questions of everyone I could.  I attended chapter meetings and asked questions of as many people as they’d let me.  At Summit I made it a point to introduce myself to strangers and ask them about the election.  At every breakfast I’d sit down at a table full of strangers and ask about the election.  I’m happy to say that I left most tables arguing about the election.  Most days I managed to get 2 or 3 breakfasts in. I spent less time talking to people that had already written about the election.  They were already expressing their opinion.  I wanted to talk to people that hadn’t spoken up.  I wanted to know what the silent majority thought.  The Board all attended the Q&A session where our members expressed their concerns about a variety of issues including the election. The PASS Board also chose to create the Election Review Committee.  We wanted people from the community that had been involved with PASS to look at our election process with fresh eyes while listening to what the community had to say and give us some advice on how we could improve the process.  I’m a part of this as is Andy Warren.  None of the other members are on the Board.  I’ve sat in numerous calls and interviews with this group and attended an open meeting at the Summit.  We asked anyone that wanted to discuss the election to come speak with us.  The ERC held an open meeting at the Summit and invited anyone to attend.  There are forums on the ERC web site where we’ve invited people to participate.  The ERC has reached to key people involved in recent elections.  The years that I haven’t mentioned also saw minor improvements in the election process.  Off the top of my head I don’t recall what exact changes were made each year.  Specifically since the 2010 election we’ve gone out of our way to seek input from the community about the process.  I’m not sure what more we could have done to invite feedback from the community. I think to say that we haven’t “fixed” the election process isn’t a fair criticism at this time.  We haven’t rushed any changes through the process.  If you don’t see any changes in our election process in July or August then I think it’s fair to criticize us for ignoring the community or ask for an explanation for what we’ve done. In Summary Andy’s main point was that the PASS Board hasn’t changed in response to our members wishes.  I think I’ve shown that time and time again the PASS Board has changed in response to what our members want.  There are only two outstanding issues: Summit location and elections.  The 2013 Summit location hasn’t been decided yet.  Our work on the elections is also in progress.  And at every step in the election review we’ve gone out of our way to listen to the community and incorporate their feedback on the process. I also hope I’m not encouraging everyone that wants some change in the organization to organize a “blog rush” against the Board.  We take public suggestions very seriously but we also take the time to evaluate those suggestions and learn what the rest of our members think and make a measured decision.

    Read the article

  • PASS: Bylaw Changes

    - by Bill Graziano
    While you’re reading this, a post should be going up on the PASS blog on the plans to change our bylaws.  You should be able to find our old bylaws, our proposed bylaws and a red-lined version of the changes.  We plan to listen to feedback until March 31st.  At that point we’ll decide whether to vote on these changes or take other action. The executive summary is that we’re adding a restriction to prevent more than two people from the same company on the Board and eliminating the Board’s Officer Appointment Committee to have Officers directly elected by the Board.  This second change better matches how officer elections have been conducted in the past. The Gritty Details Our scope was to change bylaws to match how PASS actually works and tackle a limited set of issues.  Changing the bylaws is hard.  We’ve been working on these changes since the March board meeting last year.  At that meeting we met and talked through the issues we wanted to address.  In years past the Board has tried to come up with language and then we’ve discussed and negotiated to get to the result.  In March, we gave HQ guidance on what we wanted and asked them to come up with a starting point.  Hannes worked on building us an initial set of changes that we could work our way through.  Discussing changes like this over email is difficult wasn’t very productive.  We do a much better job on this at the in-person Board meetings.  Unfortunately there are only 2 or 3 of those a year. In August we met in Nashville and spent time discussing the changes.  That was also the day after we released the slate for the 2010 election. The discussion around that colored what we talked about in terms of these changes.  We talked very briefly at the Summit and again reviewed and revised the changes at the Board meeting in January.  This is the result of those changes and discussions. We made numerous small changes to clean up language and make wording more clear.  We also made two big changes. Director Employment Restrictions The first is that only two people from the same company can serve on the Board at the same time.  The actual language in section VI.3 reads: A maximum of two (2) Directors who are employed by, or who are joint owners or partners in, the same for-profit venture, company, organization, or other legal entity, may concurrently serve on the PASS Board of Directors at any time. The definition of “employed” is at the sole discretion of the Board. And what a mess this turns out to be in practice.  Our membership is a hodgepodge of interlocking relationships.  Let’s say three Board members get together and start a blog service for SQL Server bloggers.  It’s technically for-profit.  Let’s assume it makes $8 in the first year.  Does that trigger this clause?  (Technically yes.)  We had a horrible time trying to write language that covered everything.  All the sample bylaws that we found were just as vague as this. That led to the third clause in this section.  The first sentence reads: The Board of Directors reserves the right, strictly on a case-by-case basis, to overrule the requirements of Section VI.3 by majority decision for any single Director’s conflict of employment. We needed some way to handle the trivial issues and exercise some judgment.  It seems like a public vote is the best way.  This discloses the relationship and gets each Board member on record on the issue.   In practice I think this clause will rarely be used.  I think this entire section will only be invoked for actual employment issues and not for small side projects.  In either case we have the mechanisms in place to handle it in a public, transparent way. That’s the first and third clauses.  The second clause says that if your situation changes and you fall afoul of this restriction you need to notify the Board.  The clause further states that if this new job means a Board members violates the “two-per-company” rule the Board may request their resignation.  The Board can also  allow the person to continue serving with a majority vote.  I think this will also take some judgment.  Consider a person switching jobs that leads to three people from the same company.  I’m very likely to ask for someone to resign if all three are two weeks into a two year term.  I’m unlikely to ask anyone to resign if one is two weeks away from ending their term.  In either case, the decision will be a public vote that we can be held accountable for. One concern that was raised was whether this would affect someone choosing to accept a job.  I think that’s a choice for them to make.  PASS is clearly stating its intent that only two directors from any one organization should serve at any time.  Once these bylaws are approved, this policy should not come as a surprise to any potential or current Board members considering a job change.  This clause isn’t perfect.  The biggest hole is business relationships that aren’t defined above.  Let’s say that two employees from company “X” serve on the Board.  What happens if I accept a full-time consulting contract with that company?  Let’s assume I’m working directly for one of the two existing Board members.  That doesn’t violate section VI.3.  But I think it’s clearly the kind of relationship we’d like to prevent.  Unfortunately that was even harder to write than what we have now.  I fully expect that in the next revision of the bylaws we’ll address this.  It just didn’t make it into this one. Officer Elections The officer election process received a slightly different rewrite.  Our goal was to codify in the bylaws the actual process we used to elect the officers.  The officers are the President, Executive Vice-President (EVP) and Vice-President of Marketing.  The Immediate Past President (IPP) is also an officer but isn’t elected.  The IPP serves in that role for two years after completing their term as President.  We do that for continuity’s sake.  Some organizations have a President-elect that serves for one or two years.  The group that founded PASS chose to have an IPP. When I started on the Board, the Nominating Committee (NomCom) selected the slate for the at-large directors and the slate for the officers.  There was always one candidate for each officer position.  It wasn’t really an election so much as the NomCom decided who the next person would be for each officer position.  Behind the scenes the Board worked to select the best people for the role. In June 2009 that process was changed to bring it line with what actually happens.  An Officer Appointment Committee was created that was a subset of the Board.  That committee would take time to interview the candidates and present a slate to the Board for approval.  The majority vote of the Board would determine the officers for the next two years.  In practice the Board itself interviewed the candidates and conducted the elections.  That means it was time to change the bylaws again. Section VII.2 and VII.3 spell out the process used to select the officers.  We use the phrase “Officer Appointment” to separate it from the Director election but the end result is that the Board elects the officers.  Section VII.3 starts: Officers shall be appointed bi-annually by a majority of all the voting members of the Board of Directors. Everything else revolves around that sentence.  We use the word appoint but they truly are elected.  There are details in the bylaws for term limits, minimum requirements for President (1 prior term as an officer), tie breakers and filling vacancies. In practice we will have an election for President, then an election for EVP and then an election for VP Marketing.  That means that losing candidates will be able to fall down the ladder and run for the next open position.  Another point to note is that officers aren’t at-large directors.  That means if a current sitting officer loses all three elections they are off the Board.  Having Board member votes public will help with the transparency of this approach. This process has a number of positive and negatives.  The biggest concern I expect to hear is that our members don’t directly choose the officers.  I’m going to try and list all the positives and negatives of this approach. Many non-profits value continuity and are slower to change than a business.  On the plus side this promotes that.  On the negative side this promotes that.  If we change too slowly the members complain that we aren’t responsive.  If we change too quickly we make mistakes and fail at various things.  We’ve been criticized for both of those lately so I’m not entirely sure where to draw the line.  My rough assumption to this point is that we’re going too slow on governance and too quickly on becoming “more than a Summit.”  This approach creates competition in the officer elections.  If you are an at-large director there is no consequence to losing an election.  If you are an officer the only way to stay on the Board is to win an officer election or an at-large election.  If you are an officer and lose an election you can always run for the next office down.  This makes it very easy for multiple people to contest an election. There is value in a person moving through the officer positions up to the Presidency.  Having the Board select the officers promotes this.  The down side is that it takes a LOT of time to get to the Presidency.  We’ve had good people struggle with burnout.  We’ve had lots of discussion around this.  The process as we’ve described it here makes it possible for someone to move quickly through the ranks but doesn’t prevent people from working their way up through each role. We talked long and hard about having the officers elected by the members.  We had a self-imposed deadline to complete these changes prior to elections this summer. The other challenge was that our original goal was to make the bylaws reflect our actual process rather than create a new one.  I believe we accomplished this goal. We ran out of time to consider this option in the detail it needs.  Having member elections for officers needs a number of problems solved.  We would need a way for candidates to fall through the election.  This is what promotes competition.  Without this few people would risk an election and we’ll be back to one candidate per slot.  We need to do this without having multiple elections.  We may be able to copy what other organizations are doing but I was surprised at how little I could find on other organizations.  We also need a way for people that lose an officer election to win an at-large election.  Otherwise we’ll have very little competition for officers. This brings me to an area that I think we as a Board haven’t done a good job.  We haven’t built a strong process to tell you who is doing a good job and who isn’t.  This is a double-edged sword.  I don’t want to highlight Board members that are failing.  That’s not a good way to get people to volunteer and run for the Board.  But I also need a way let the members make an informed choice about who is doing a good job and would make a good officer.  Encouraging Board members to blog, publishing minutes and making votes public helps in that regard but isn’t the final answer.  I don’t know what the final answer is yet.  I do know that the Board members themselves are uniquely positioned to know which other Board members are doing good work.  They know who speaks up in meetings, who works to build consensus, who has good ideas and who works with the members.  What I Could Do Better I’ve learned a lot writing this about how we communicated with our members.  The next time we revise the bylaws I’d do a few things differently.  The biggest change would be to provide better documentation.  The March 2009 minutes provide a very detailed look into what changes we wanted to make to the bylaws.  Looking back, I’m a little surprised at how closely they matched our final changes and covered the various arguments.  If you just read those you’d get 90% of what we eventually changed.  Nearly everything else was just details around implementation.  I’d also consider publishing a scope document defining exactly what we were doing any why.  I think it really helped that we had a limited, defined goal in mind.  I don’t think we did a good job communicating that goal outside the meeting minutes though. That said, I wish I’d blogged more after the August and January meeting.  I think it would have helped more people to know that this change was coming and to be ready for it. Conclusion These changes address two big concerns that the Board had.  First, it prevents a single organization from dominating the Board.  Second, it codifies and clearly spells out how officers are elected.  This is the process that was previously followed but it was somewhat murky.  These changes bring clarity to this and clearly explain the process the Board will follow. We’re going to listen to feedback until March 31st.  At that time we’ll decide whether to approve these changes.  I’m also assuming that we’ll start another round of changes in the next year or two.  Are there other issues in the bylaws that we should tackle in the future?

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18  | Next Page >