RE: Workshop and meeting requirements

I'm not pushing pushing back, just trying to get data to understand  the cost to get the benefits.  It would be good to come up with a solid, costed recommendation to the w3c team for what they need to do, ideally for the 2014 TPAC.
________________________________
From: Chris Wilson<mailto:cwilso@google.com>
Sent: ‎5/‎16/‎2014 8:55 AM
To: Marcos<mailto:marcos@marcosc.com>
Cc: David Singer<mailto:singer@mac.com>; Sylvain Galineau<mailto:galineau@adobe.com>; public-w3process@w3.org<mailto:public-w3process@w3.org>; Michael Champion (MS OPEN TECH)<mailto:Michael.Champion@microsoft.com>
Subject: Re: Workshop and meeting requirements

To respond to Mike on:
>affordability: What kind of capital investment, bandwidth requirement,  and on-side manpower requirements are we talking about to do a TPAC-size meeting with proper A/V?

Capital investment?  For single-presenter sessions, above what's already used, basically a good webcam.  Actually, I've done this quite successfully (for one-way) with Hangouts running on someone's laptop set up near the presenter.

For WG meetings - which are more important, even - some conference room microphones and webcams.  Or grab a pre-packaged system<https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/business/solutions/for-meetings.html>.  (No, I'm not a salesperson.  But that's a good package.)

I disagree, btw, with the idea that video is 1) expensive to do well *enough*, and 2) of little value.  There is a lot of value in feeling immersed in the meeting that's not immediately apparent until you've done it.  It's also radically helpful to have screencasting, and although it is not idea for running video in a slide deck or anything, it's far better than having to manually walk through the slide deck and guess what slide you're on.  I care less about boiling the ocean of getting everything on the same page than having the data streams available.

I'm not saying we need to start with video; I just think it is an important part of effective remote participation.  We do need to fix the other challenges in remote participation first.  For the Shenzhen AB meeting, for example - there was a phone and an IRC channel.  The phone did not have a conference mic, so half the time I could not hear well what was going on; and despite the valiant efforts of our tireless IRC scribe, trying to follow along in the IRC minutes is not a good way to interact.  Additionally, in most meetings we're not used to the "speak where the mic can pick you up" concept, nor are chairs used to having to MC that.


On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 7:22 AM, Marcos <marcos@marcosc.com<mailto:marcos@marcosc.com>> wrote:


On May 16, 2014 at 10:11:58 AM, Sylvain Galineau (galineau@adobe.com<mailto:galineau@adobe.com>) wrote:
> > I do not think it is fair to dismiss video by comparing some ideal
> utopian solution with the worst possible alternative, especially
> when the latter, as described, is in fact significantly worse
> than what is routinely used by many of us today. I routinely attend
> remote presentations using software that lets me see the speaker's
> slides or desktop on most of my screen, video in the corner and
> a chat area allowing me to interact with everyone in the room.
> It works very well, even with audiences spread across remote
> locations. This would at the very least suggest a wide spectrum
> of possible options and outcomes.


I agree with Sylvain. I also regularly "attend" conferences remotely and really appreciate live video (even when it's one way). I also know that when we ran the RICG's meet-up the video feed we provided was hugely appreciated by the community and quite a few people logged in to watch (despite us having some technical issues initially, and despite many people having to get up at 4am!). Again, even though the video feed was one-way, it still spawned a great deal of real time discussion in IRC.

--
Marcos Caceres