Looking Towards the 79th Plenary Meeting

Who said the world can't change in months?  It seems like yesterday when we were all together in Marina Del Ray enjoying the sunshine and each other's company as we tackled the challenges of the day.  It is no understatement when I say COVID-19 has disrupted everything, including our focus on international standards.  First and foremost, I want to let you know that I am thinking about you and your safety as this incredible global disruption progresses.  It is in that spirit that ISO has taken the action to suspend in person meetings through June 30.  We, of course, are impacted by that decision and our 79th Plenary will be significantly different from events in the past.  I, along with the help of the Policy and Planning Committee, have reviewed and prioritized what is important for our coming meeting.  When we discussed keeping the event or cancelling, all were in favor of keeping the meeting and making our best effort at meeting our commitments to our stakeholders and to each other.

In order to accomplish this, we have made important decisions focusing the work while respecting the reality that we are distributed across the time zones of the world.  As such, you will see us modify the format to communicate in UTC and limit meeting expectations to the five hour time block from 12:00 UTC to 17:00 UTC with a focus on 12:00 UTC to 15:00 UTC.  You will also see us drop Industry Day, the Opening Technical Plenary, the Open Technical Forum, and Industry Implementers Forum.  While important, these events simply don't align to our current priorities and we will keep these ready for when the current crisis passes.  My thanks to our friends in Standards Norway for setting up a great event as hosts that will get deferred to our fall meeting.

In order to adjust to the expectations of the coming meeting, we are going to be using the full complement of virtual tools in addition to a few new ones for this event.  The PPC is helping me with testing solutions right now and I will hold a virtual training session in the coming days describing the meeting format and how we will conduct the meeting, including the all-important resolution and consensus step that is expected of us.  Be looking for that Zoom meeting in the coming days.  In addition, I have asked the SC 4 Convenors to start their meetings the week ahead, again taking into consideration time zones, in order to progress the work program.

We have important commitments to deliver and I want to achieve as many as possible.  That said, we will also be looking at the portfolio in total and taking stock of what we can reasonably achieve and what needs to adjust.  ISO has taken action via the TMB to facilitate this through deferment of some directives updates, flexibility in scheduling, and upscaling remote participation capabilities.  We are all experienced virtual participants either through our professional or personal experiences and I am confident that we will be successful with this event.

I look forward to seeing you online in May and stay safe!