Meetings

Present: Glenn Davis, Chris F. Dickhaus, Eric Larsen, David Platt, Chris Witmore, Peter Wolff.

Introductions for the RTNA staff and Stanford's project managers
These were followed by a ...

Discussion of Project Terminology

• Early use of "scenario" considered a little confusing, because of different professional requirements:
  • Stanford's entries into scenario building included examples such as "Eco-friendly soccer mom."
  • For RTNA/ DC, this suggested a User Group (soccer mom) or Use Case (dropping the "cherubs" off at soccer practice) rather than a fully-fledged Scenario.
• RTNA/ DC understand Scenario (think World, here) to refer to a particular combination of Trends that our User Groups have to live in, or in which Use Cases take place.
  • Trends can be technological and/ or socio-cultural.
    • A technological trend might be that Alternative Fuels to Gasoline are Developed.
    • A cultural trend might be that Carpooling Increases.
  • In different scenarios, trends take effect at different rates. With even only a small number of trends, this can produce numerous variant scenarios.
    • In Scenario One, we might assume an optimistic view of the future in which everything is the same as today but "moreso." That is, more cars on the roads, faster www connections, more compact computers and entertainment centers with bigger capacities etc.
    • Scenario Two might introduce a disruptive technology or socio-cultural trend that throws a spanner/ wrench in the works: for example, let's say that the European alternative to GPS (see Galilieo: The European Alternative to GPS) makes GPS technology less reliable. Or that the price of gas goes through the roof and people only use cars for essential trips.
    • Scenario Three might be the same as "Two", but the rising price of gas has no effect whatsoever on driving behavior. Instead, and perhaps completely unrelated, the prices of car customization before sale become too high to continue the practice.
    • ... and so on ...

Here's the presentation that Chris F. Dickhaus showed during the meeting:

• VEC Vision project plan_final.ppt

This was then followed by a ...

Discussion of Project Design and Information Management

• How best to make the information that the Stanford group is gathering most easily usable by DaimlerChrysler.
  • At this early stage, the wiki's already gathered a lot of information, but it's not readily interpretable
  • Obviously, we want to rectify this ASAP
  • One way would be to separate project information into four separate categories at the earliest possible moment. Borrowing from Chris's presentation again, these categories might be:

1. User needs
2. Technology
3. Socio-cultural change
4. Products/ Services

• RTNA suggested that these four categories might be a useful way of dividing the group into separate research teams, each responsible for their own area and reporting back to the main group.

Meeting adjourned, regular Stanford group meeting begins (see Meeting Notes, June 8, 2005).

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Posted at Jun 13/2005 09:44PM:
David Platt: NB. Some of the examples I use in the notes above are my attempts to clarify ideas to my own satisfaction. People who were at the meeting should feel free to correct, rewrite, delete or otherwise edit these notes.