Draft Presentations Schedule

[Kelly E Johnson]

Good morning G2,

Incredible work on your sections and great discussion last night. Corey, we are really sorry that we weren't able to make the connection, but look forward to your participation on Saturday. We promise to get the tech side right.

I have attempted to merge our character identification into the schedule created by logistics. I grayed out the logistics moves and left in white almost all of the characters that y'all identified in column I with a brief reminder of the topic they discuss in column J. I have some questions/suggestions for changing orders from what you recommended in column N. On the whole, the presentations come together quite well. Please review it to ensure I included all of your characters/presentations. If I left off any of your characters no need to email me, just come prepared to add them back in on Saturday. Clearly at some locations we have far more presentations than there is time to present, so we will need to discuss priorities on Saturday (I would assume 8-10 min presentation with 2-3 min questions, so block out 15 min per presentation).

I double-checked with Matt and counting DVs, profs, and students, we currently we have 48 presenters.

Some points for discussion Saturday:

- The biggest challenge will be the pre-Tet picture in DC. The schedule is not very conducive to the number and types of presentations we wanted to do on this. Here are the options I could think of:

• Option 1: Reorder things on Day 1 with a big non-sandwich lunch after Cu Chi when the Wise Men presentations could be conducted, followed by the stops at the Reunification Palace and Consulate, and then have some bagged sandwiches on way to airport to ensure people don't starve. I have no idea if this is feasible logistically.
  
• Option 2: the dinner on Day 2 (first night in Hue, after Khe Sanh visit) is rather sparse for presentations. We could adjust the try to work in the Wise Men model there; however, they would then have to incorporate initial reactions to Tet.
• Option 3: Attempt to summarize the state of US strategic thinking/policy-making in the narrative and assume that people understand it from Oberdorfer and the application readings.
• There are probably other possible solutions. Please give this some thought.

- I had forgotten that in previous staff rides there have always been a medical character and a character who can address economics. Matt has said that he and Jon are flexible on this and don't view it as a requirement. However, # of characters allowing, I was thinking a nurse might be a good add for sometime in the KSCB/Hue section. Think about it.

I'm sure I'm missing something else, but hopefully this will help get us started. Again, we are meeting from 12-4pm in the Library room 7B. And I believe the phone-in plan is Google hangout.

See you then!
Kelly

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Kelly Johnson

M.A. Candidate, 2013

Strategic Studies and International Economics

The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)

Johns Hopkins University

 

Cell: +1 202 664 0690

Email: kjoh...@jhu.edu