Subject: Remote participation ( was Leading a moving target)

From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2019 12:35:40 -0400

With Adrian's post about our remote participation technology and the
growing trend to remote participation, I would like to just post a
reaction, while it's fresh in my mind, to being a remote participant for
the first time.

I would like to start by saying that I was very pleased how how well
Meetecho works. I watched the short online tutorial video (which is a bit
out of date, and perhaps should be updated) and read the support page
walkthrough of the various buttons, icons, etc., and didn't experience any
problems during the week. While I was prepared to virtually raise my hand
(I had a headset on just in case), I found that the integrated jabber
window made it unnecessary - I was able to make my comments via jabber and
the jabber scribe or WG chair read them to the room. I was also able to use
the jabber window to communicate with @Meetcho if there were any mike or
camera issues, and they were EXTREMELY responsive!

I also found Etherpad very useful when it's used. Not all WGs use it, but I
would encourage all of those that don't use it to switch to it for the live
meetings. There was a bit of trouble this meeting with duplicate Etherpads,
but that's a tooling issue that I'm sure will be addressed for the next
meeting. An excellent way to use Ethernet is prior to the meeting for the
WG chair or secretary to paste in the meeting agenda, and then the notes
for each item on the agenda can just be typed in following each agenda
topic. It's also a good practice that if anyone is going to add to the
Etherpad, they type in their name at the top of the page, so that their
text color can be attributed to them.

Being a remote participant, I did miss the hallway conversations and such.
But I didn't miss the airports, too-cold AC in the rooms, and other minor
annoyances of travel. It's certainly a trade-off.

What could be improved? This probably isn't immediately feasible, but two
cameras in each room (one pointed to the front, the other to the mike line)
would be huge. That way you can watch both ends of the conversation at
once. Also, in the Meetecho UI, it might be better to increase the size of
the camera image and have the camera image and the slides vertically placed
one on top of each other, rather than the smaller camera image over to the
side. Or perhaps that could be an option. I know that you can make the
camera image larger, but then you lose the slides.

But on the whole, being remote worked much better than I had expected, and
for that I would like to thank everyone that's been working on making this
possible, starting with the Meetecho team.

That said, my preference is still to attend in person if possible. :-)

Cheers,
Andy

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2019 20:07:56 -0400

Andrew G. Malis <[email-masked]> wrote:
    > cameras in each room (one pointed to the front, the other to the mike
    > line) would be huge. That way you can watch both ends of the
    > conversation at once. Also, in the Meetecho UI, it might be better to
    > increase the size of the camera image and have the camera image and the
    > slides vertically placed one
    > on top of each other, rather han the smaller camera image over to the
    > side.

I'd like all the video/camera/slides boxes to be detachable/undockable so
that I can resize them, and move them around my desktop making the most of
two monitors, sometimes three.

    > Or perhaps that could be an option. I know that you can make the camera
    > image larger, but then you lose the slides.

For extra fun, I found you can open multiple browser windows to two, even
three, different working groups to "solve" the conflict problem.  Just mute
two of them at a time.... or... try to take all three speakers in at the same
time.

How many time zones away were you?  I'm guessing three hours.
A major challenge of remote attendance (if done from a home) seems to be
convincing family (particularly small children) that you aren't really home,
or that you you need sleep at different times.

--
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>, Sandelman Software Works
 -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-

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From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2019 08:52:34 -0400

MIchael,

I was actually in the same time zone, so that wasn't a problem. But I see
the point!

Cheers,
Andy

---

From: "Bron Gondwana" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2019 11:28:53 +1000

On Sat, Jul 27, 2019, at 02:36, Andrew G. Malis wrote:
> But on the whole, being remote worked much better than I had expected, and for that I would like to thank everyone that's been working on making this possible, starting with the Meetecho team.
> 

Likewise, I'd like to echo my general pleasure with working with Meetecho. On a desktop/laptop it's great. This was my first time being a remote participant, including being a remote chair for two sessions (shoutout to my co-chairs who each ran the room perfectly and left me with very little to do other than participate), and presenting in one session.

Thankfully I was able to get a hotel in the city last night so I could be in the city and use the reliable internet at work for the session which was 2:20am-3:50am on Saturday morning for me (JMAP), because that was kind of a killer.

I also had to use the Youtube video to watch the WGCHAIRS session, since it was at 2:30am for me, and I had to be back up at 5:50am that day in order to join a session I was chairing. I found the Youtube videos very usable.

My main problem with Meetecho was trying to use it from mobile. I tried to listen to DISPATCH and the Plenary session from my phone as I was traveling, and I found that either unreliable network or switching networks was handled very badly by the Meetecho client - it would fail to add back the video stream, or the slides, or lose audio. I found myself having to log out and back in multiple times, where other video systems I've used (Skype and Zoom) on the same phone and switching networks has been much more reliable (Chrome on a Samsung Galaxy S9).

I definitely missed the hallway conversations and the social experience of IETF, and despite the support from work and family, nothing really helps you be fully present at a conference which is from midnight to 9am in your local time short of fully switching to night-shift mode - but overall it was a pretty good experience.

And of course the mailing lists work fine from everywhere!

Cheers,

Bron.

--
 Bron Gondwana, CEO, Fastmail Pty Ltd
 [email-masked]