Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.

Technology Presentation With Remote Participation Technology Presentation With Remote Participation As Knowledge Sharing In Multinational CorporationAs Knowledge Sharing In Multinational Corporation

Milan Unger, Siemens PSE SlovakiaMilan Unger, Siemens PSE Slovakia

September 2008 Milan Unger Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.2

Knowledge sharing in traditional wayKnowledge sharing in traditional way

Workshops available mainly for local staff

People from other locations has limited availability

Travelling time & costAvailability on project, milestones, etc.Lecturer not always available on the location

Usual infrastructure does not work well

Noisy teleconferences Expensive infrastructure not generally availableTraditional collaboration tools not suited well for

presentation/workshop purposes

September 2008 Milan Unger Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.3

Constraints on knowledge sharingConstraints on knowledge sharing

Educated employees, ready to use new technologies

Good technology overview to make qualified decisions

Awareness of new trends to prepare for customer requirements

Availability of know-how not limited to few key persons

No outages in project effort

Use infrastructure available to employees

Limit travelling especially for short events

September 2008 Milan Unger Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.4

Technology PresentationsTechnology Presentations

Lectured by members of Support Centre or by other colleague

Duration 2 – 4 hours to limit impact on project efforts

Anybody interested can attend, expenses covered by SC budget

Lectured slide show and open discussion, optionally with short hand-on presentation

Various topics depending on current trends and requirements

Java technologiesUML usageConfiguration managementDatabase administration

September 2008 Milan Unger Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.5

Distributing Knowledge I.Distributing Knowledge I.

Technology presentation complicated on different locations

Travelling time & cost, ineffective at small locationsAvailability of lecturers on remote location

Developers starts to request for on-line events

Video conferences, net-meeting or teleconference proposed

Requests from project management

Focus on avoiding productive time outagesPossibility of later usage of recorded event

September 2008 Milan Unger Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.6

Broadcasting Equipment I.Broadcasting Equipment I.

Must support original goals of technology presentations

Bring people together, exchange experiences

No additional effort to be put on lecturer!

Lecturers are colleagues busy within projects

Must be easy available to all employees

Attendees usually decides shortly before eventsAdditional bureaucracy will be not accepted

Must allows later reuse of the recorded event

Podcast, screencast generation

September 2008 Milan Unger Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.7

Broadcast Equipment II.Broadcast Equipment II.

On-line collaboration tools and teleconferences rejected

Teleconferences too noisy + costCollaboration tools focus on users at desktops

Webinars tools investigated

Usually focus only on users at desktopsSpecial preparation of webinar by lecturer requiredMinimal requirements not always feasible

Combination of Open Source Tools chosen

Flexibility of the solutionEasy available and in our case usually known by usersNot an out of box solution, more effort required to tune it

September 2008 Milan Unger Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.8

Broadcast Equipment III.Broadcast Equipment III.

VideoLAN as capture software - http://www.videolan.org/

Video/audio capture and streamingThree instances to provide separate audio, video and

desktop streamsUpload to Icecast server

Icecast 2 server - http://www.icecast.org/

Online streaming in Vorbis/Theora formatWebTV support for later transmissions (not used currently)

VideoLAN as player and recording software

Trancode tools - http://www.transcoding.org

Post processing, creation of podcasts and screencasts

September 2008 Milan Unger Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.9

Broadcast Equipment IV.Broadcast Equipment IV.

September 2008 Milan Unger Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.10

Event ManagementEvent Management

Events announced on Intranet

Support Centre portal, distribution lists

Registration required due to organization reasons

Room capacity, connectivity tests, etc.

Some minimal requirement put on lecturers

Must avoid ostentatious references, no screen scrolling, questions

Moderator support

September 2008 Milan Unger Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.11

Zagreb

Split

Bratislava

Brno

Praha

Pieštany

Košice

Graz

Zilina

Brasov

Linz Vienna

Nanjing

Distributing Knowledge II.Distributing Knowledge II.

September 2008 Milan Unger Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.12

ConclusionConclusion

Positives feedbacks from participants

The initiative welcomed, despite of initial technical problems

Some locations started to participate regularly

Requires more skills on organizer side

Multiple open source tools must be masteredThe tuning of stream transmission not straightforwardSpecialized flexible “out of the shelf” solution would be

welcomed

New contacts acquired over the Europe

Popularization of Support Centre activities achieved

September 2008 Milan Unger Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.13

AUTHORAUTHOR

Milan Unger

SW Engineering Services & Support Centres

Siemens Program and System Entwicklung Slovakia

Dúbravska cesta 4

845 37 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

milan.unger@siemens.com

Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o.

Thank you for your attention!