User engagement and PR

[MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given)]

Dear colleagues,

Our SC34 chair is preparing his JTC1 presentation and I had a chance
to help him.  This experience makes me reconsider WG4.  User
engagement is one of the titles in the JTC1 presentation template.

WG4 has worked very hard.  I believe that WG4 has achieved 
a lot and I am appreciative to everybody involved.  However, 
if we would like to succeed in providing an infrastructure 
of the IT world, working hard in creating specifications 
is not good enough.  We have to sell our work to the world 
and establish good relationship with those who use OOXML.

Recently, our project editor wrote:  

> BTW, in more than 3 years, Ecma TC45 has received only 3 or 4 emails from
> members of the public, asking about details in the standard. I have received
> no correspondence from the public via JTC 1, and I don't recall anyone
> within WG4 saying they were contacted by the public and asked to submit any
> DRs on their behalf. In short, the level of direct technical inquiry from
> the public has been negligible.

In my opinion, his observation reveals that we have to seriously
consider user engagement or PR.  I know that successful committees in
new standardization organizations (such as W3C, IETF, and OASIS)
receive a lot of feedbacks from non-members.

Of course, political climate is not easy, and blogsphere provides
negative information about WG4 even now.  But we should try to improve
the current situation.

Specifically, let me ask three questions:

- WG4 needs more OOXML implementors as members.  WG4 has some, but 
  not enough.  How can we attract more?

- WG4 needs more feedbacks from the public.  This topic was discussed 
  in London (AHG1) and we decided not to create a publicly-available
  web form or mailing list.  But can we now provide a better answer?

- Can WG4 make it easy for non-members to follow our discussions?  
  Given the lack of feedbacks, I guess that few non-members
  follow our discussions.


Regards,

SC34/WG4 Convenor
MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given)