Subject: Re: participation sans meeting attendance (was RE: Alternative formats for IDs)

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 14:15:16 -0500

I've been participating in the last few meetings from home,
and when things go smoothly it's been very, very good.  However,
in a few cases it's been either difficult or impossible to
follow what's going on in a room, let alone send in comments
or questions.

Here's a first pass at a list of recommendations to make things
easier for remote attendance:

1) Make sure the chairs and speakers are miked.  This one seems
   obvious but frequently, during exchanges between the floor and
   the chairs or speakers, there's an assumption that if someone
   in the front of the room shouts loudly enough they can be heard
   in the back.  That's very likely true, but it doesn't mean they
   can be heard on the audio feed.

2) Make sure that the mike for the audio feed can pick up what's
   going on.  Again, this seems obvious but in several working
   groups at the last meeting the entire session was inaudible

3) Make sure that questions are asked at a microphone, and that
   questioners/speakers identify themselves

4) Having slides available before the meeting is a nice thing

5) Jabber is not just for recording what's going on in the room.
   It's also the primary mechanism for people not in the room to
   ask questions or make comments, and so even if a Jabber scribe
   is not available it's a good idea to have someone keeping an
   eye on the chatroom and who's willing to relay questions.

6) If you can't find scribes for both meeting minutes and
   Jabber chatrooms, consider having the minute-taker type
   his or her notes into the Jabber window and using the transcript
   as the basis for minutes.

7) Don't forget about the remote participants when taking
   straw polls to get the sense of the "room", etc.

Melinda

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From: "David B Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 16:36:46 -0500

Hi,

I've done a few meetings via MP3 and jabber as well, and would like to
add to your recommendations.

5b) Jabber is the only mechanism available for input from remote
listeners. If the jabber scribe is interested in a discussion topic,
he/she may spend their time ansking and answering questions
themselves, and may not have time to relay messages from the remote
listeners. It would be nice to have more than one jabber scribe, just
as it is nice to have multiple notes-takers, to provide backup for one
another.

I do think the chairs should keep an eye on jabber to make sure that
remote listeners are getting a chance to participate.

David Harrington
[email-masked]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Melinda Shore
> Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 2:15 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: participation sans meeting attendance (was RE: 
> Alternative formats for IDs)
>

---

From: Andrew Newton <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 21:49:52 -0500

>    can be heard on the audio feed.

Besides remote participation, the audio feed can also be reviewed  
later for creating the meeting minutes.  On one occasion, I had to  
construct the meeting minutes entirely from the audio feed due to  
exceptionally poor note taking.

-andy

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From: Thierry Ernst <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 14:15:22 +0900

Hi, 

I recall that 2 months ago someone proposed to have a second screen
where the jabber session would be displayed. I think this would be a
great idea.

Thierry.

-- 
Thierry ERNST, PhD
WIDE, Jun Murai Lab., Keio University, Japan
Nautilus6 Chair: http://www.nautilus6.org
Web: http://www.sfc.wide.ad.jp/~ernst/
T:+81-44-580-1600 F:+81-44-580-1437
--