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Re: [802SEC] Status on Whitespace Electronic Participation Experiment (Update 2)



I agree with and support Geoff and Ivan's observations.

I think that this mess should be stopped before we go any further down the
slippery slope.

Carl
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-stds-802-sec@ieee.org 
> [mailto:owner-stds-802-sec@ieee.org] On Behalf Of Ivan Reede
> Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 2:11 PM
> To: Geoff Thompson
> Cc: STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> Subject: Re: [802SEC] Status on Whitespace Electronic 
> Participation Experiment (Update 2)
> 
> Geoff, I agree with you. As a presenter the remote was a 
> major disctraction. 
> While I showed thing with a laser pointer on the projector, 
> obviously, I 
> realized that the remote users were not seeing my pointer and 
> could come to 
> different conculsions. This was a serious difficulty. I saw 
> this clearly 
> through the content of the questions asked. I found that 
> straw polls have to 
> be re-done, an item I find totally unacceptable, as now, that 
> means that 
> people physically present which may not be present at the 
> next electronic 
> meeting may find thier vote voided by the meer fact the chair 
> voided the 
> straw poll result because the remote did not work.. so now, 
> we have clear 
> proof that people at the meeting may be penalized for remote 
> people running 
> into trouble.
> 
> I also object to the fact that many people come to our 
> meeting for the 
> tutorial value... pay good money for this tutorial value 
> which now comes for 
> free... either you get an on-site observer's badge for free, 
> with no voting 
> rights and no presence accrual to atain voter status or 
> remote user pay a 
> significant fee... this free remote listen-in is basically 
> unfair and I 
> object to the whole process. I think the EC has to look into this and 
> request any further experimentation be stopped until the EC 
> has ruled. Alot 
> of the on-site participants were preety frustrated at the 
> whole process and 
> the fact the "chair" usurped his position and alloe this to 
> happen in the 
> first place, without consulting the on-site members.
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Geoff Thompson" <gthompso@NORTEL.COM>
> To: "Sherman, Matthew J. (US SSA)" <matthew.sherman@BAESYSTEMS.COM>
> Cc: <STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG>
> Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 12:44 AM
> Subject: Re: [802SEC] Status on Whitespace Electronic Participation 
> Experiment (Update 2)
> 
> 
> > Mat-
> >
> > My opinion remains.
> >
> > The best that can be hoped for with remote participation at 
> this level of 
> > tools is somewhat handicapped observation.
> >
> > Doing presentations from afar is pretty ineffective, if not 
> hopeless in 
> > terms of convincing a body of people in a room about 
> something, much less 
> > entering into a true interactive discussion.
> >
> > Geoff
> >
> > ===========================================================
> > At 08:48 PM 1/25/2009 , Sherman, Matthew J. (US SSA) wrote:
> > EC and Whitespace Members,
> >
> > I just wanted to give some feedback on the experiment.  It 
> closed out on 
> > Thursday, but given my redeye flight and other commitments 
> I haven't been 
> > able to report out till now.
> >
> > Overall, Thursday wasn't much different then Wednesday.  The basic 
> > teleconference and webex presentation facilities worked 
> well. Occasionally 
> > people needed slight reminders to talk louder, etc.  But it 
> was very 
> > workable.
> >
> > Things got a bit flustered when a participant made a couple 
> of surprise 
> > motions.  Per prior agreement, the webex participants were 
> not allowed to 
> > vote.  So we had traditional hand votes which went fine but 
> required a 
> > little explanation to the electronic participants.
> >
> > The one clear failure in the experiment was the polling 
> facility.  We 
> > tried it Wednesday, and had operating difficulties.  We 
> tried it again 
> > Thursday for strawpolls to collect data for the experiment. 
>  Again we were 
> > caught by the need to change presenters and who was 
> projecting, etc.  It 
> > is very cumbersome if you don't keep all that interaction 
> on one machine. 
> > We got farther along this time.  We pre-prepared the 
> polling questions, 
> > and actually did launch the polls.  Unfortunately the 
> questions had not 
> > been saved properly and there was an error in one of the 
> questions.  Also, 
> > we invited all the in-room participants to take the 
> stawpoll via the 
> > webex.  This did not work well at all.  Some participants 
> were still 
> > unsure of how to get into the webex.  Others started the 
> process, but 
> > required downloads that were going to take '40 minutes'.  
> In the end, we 
> > were only able to collect partial data, so I feel it better 
> to just call 
> > the poll invalid, and run the stawpolls again to collect 
> the data.  I will 
> > give participants the option of doing it electronically on 
> the next call, 
> > or in written form.
> >
> > I will provide a more formal slide set to the EC for the 
> March meetings. 
> > My personal view is that electronic participation is very 
> workable for 
> > teleconference and presentations, but the polling facility 
> needs no work. 
> > I'd like to have an electronic voting capability at 
> meetings anyway, so in 
> > my opinion the next experiment should be to try out a web 
> based voting 
> > system that could be accessed from inside and outside of 
> the meeting.  I 
> > don't think I have the time to purse this in the near future.  I do 
> > believe that any formal electronic participation at 
> interims will require 
> > payment of attendance fees, so we'd need to establish a way 
> of doing that 
> > as well.  Obviously much more discussion is required prior 
> to us formally 
> > allowing this (if at all).
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Mat
> >
> > Matthew Sherman
> > Chair, IEEE802 Whitespace ECSG
> > BAE Systems -  Network Systems (NS)
> > Office: +1 973.633.6344
> > Cell: +1 973.229.9520
> > email:  matthew.sherman@baesystems.com
> > <mailto:matthew.sherman@baesystems.com>
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> > From: Sherman, Matthew J. (US SSA)
> > Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 11:21 AM
> > To: WHITESPACE@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG; STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> > Subject: RE: Status on Whitespace Electronic Participation 
> Experiment
> > (Update 1)
> >
> >
> >
> > EC and Whitespace Members:
> >
> >
> >
> > Here is a quick update on the Electronic Participation Experiment.
> > Yesterday was a smaller crowd.  I estimate 60 in the room (there was
> > flux and not everyone registers attendance), and 16 on the 
> webex.  We
> > tried to run things less formally to see what would happen. 
>  There were
> > a couple of hiccups with one or two individuals on the 
> teleconference
> > forgetting the established etiquettes and ultimately requiring
> > reminders.  But it was not particularly disruptive.  I 
> would say most of
> > the meeting went smoothly.  I felt it moved a little faster than the
> > prior day by that is very subjective and other might not agree.
> >
> >
> >
> > We completed our agenda a bit early and went to experiment with the
> > electronic stawpolls.  We had a problem in that I had to be 
> presenter
> > rather than Steve to compose the stawpolls. In retrospect I probably
> > should have ask Steve to compose them.  When I did take 
> control of the
> > presentations on my PC, I needed to project the screen for 
> the room as
> > well, and that caused my screen format to change which 
> prevented me from
> > finding some of the buttons I needed. So I couldn't set up the
> > stawpolls.  Eventually I figured out that when I disconnect the
> > projector from my computer I can find all the right buttons 
> and compose
> > the poll.  By the time I got the poll composed, at least 
> one individual
> > had gone to the mike and complained that this was a waste 
> of people's
> > time and money.  I don't recall if the person was referring to the
> > nature of the question being polled, or the general process 
> itself (I
> > think he was mostly objecting to the question being polled).
> > Regardless, the polling did not go smoothly.
> >
> >
> >
> > We will attempt the polling process again today and be 
> better prepared.
> > Yesterday was a good warm-up!
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> >
> >
> > Mat
> >
> >
> >
> > Matthew Sherman
> > Chair, IEEE802 Whitespace ECSG
> > BAE Systems -  Network Systems (NS)
> > Office: +1 973.633.6344
> > Cell: +1 973.229.9520
> > email:  matthew.sherman@baesystems.com
> > <mailto:matthew.sherman@baesystems.com>
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> > From: Sherman, Matthew J. (US SSA)
> > [mailto:matthew.sherman@BAESYSTEMS.COM]
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 12:58 AM
> > To: WHITESPACE@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> > Subject: [WHITESPACE] Status on Whitespace Electronic Participation
> > Experiment
> >
> >
> >
> > EC and Whitespace Members,
> >
> >
> >
> > The electronic participation experiment is not over yet.  It will be
> > running for two more days but here are some early observations.
> >
> >
> >
> > Overall I felt one participant best summed it up saying 'it 
> works, but
> > the pace is that of a large meeting with a couple of 
> hundred people'.  I
> > agreed with this opinion, but others may feel differently.  
> We were able
> > to make study progress, but it felt like we were in a 
> larger 802.11 or
> > 802.16 session.  In actuality we had about 90 people in the 
> room and 20
> > on the webex.
> >
> >
> >
> > The hybrid device which allows the phone line to couple to 
> the PA system
> > and vice versa I feel is essential for any large in-person 
> meeting.  It
> > seems to generally work well.  Installing it wasn't very 
> difficult, but
> > I did need to request some cables from the hotels A/V staff 
> to get it
> > plugged in.  We had some initial leveling problems when we 
> started the
> > meeting today.  I believe these were all resolved within about 15
> > minutes and hope to have no start up issues when we start tomorrow.
> >
> >
> >
> > It was strongly recommended that we use Microphones with switches on
> > them.  I did try everything out last night and requested 
> the hotel staff
> > to switch out the mikes in the room (which had no switches) 
> with mikes
> > that did.  This was slightly problematic since they don't 
> normally use
> > mikes with switches, but they eventually found a couple of 
> older mikes
> > with switches that worked fine.  In the end, we left the 
> mikes on all
> > the time.  There did not seem to be a need to switch them 
> on and off.
> > But since different hotels will have different equipment, 
> it might not
> > be a bad idea in general.
> >
> >
> >
> > Steve Shellhammer chaired the meeting, and I focused on 
> making sure the
> > electronic participation ran as smoothly as possible.  
> Unfortunately,
> > Steve and I weren't quite prepared enough.  We had some connectivity
> > problems that had nothing to do with the experiment, and we had to
> > switch rolls a couple of times so I could present 
> documents.  This was a
> > bit awkward with us occasionally having the wrong screen 
> projected, and
> > some dead time while we switched roles.  It wasn't a show 
> killer, but it
> > make for some slightly awkward moments.  We understand the issues a
> > little better now, so we should be better prepared for tomorrow.  My
> > take away was that we don't really need two people to run the show.
> > Rather we need one person with two screens.  There is too 
> much info to
> > monitor it all on a single screen, but it isn't really that bad to
> > monitor if you have two screens.  I started monitoring both Steve's
> > screen and mine, and it didn't seem that hard to follow the
> > presentations and still monitor the webex.  However, I only have one
> > screen on my computer right now (no one seems to have 
> brought a spare
> > monitor) so I can't try running the show from a single computer.
> >
> >
> >
> > We did not get a chance to run any straw polls today, but we will
> > tomorrow.  Also, the room we are in only has bandwidth (and seating)
> > provisioned for 75 people, and we were close to 100 at 
> points.  I wanted
> > to pull everyone in the room onto the webex to see what 
> would happen to
> > the network but not everyone had access to the webex info, 
> so we didn't
> > try.  I will post it more widely for tomorrow.
> >
> >
> >
> > Overall, we had one presenter who was fully remote.  While 
> they couldn't
> > always get feedback from the crowd, overall I felt the 
> presentation went
> > well.  It was very interactive, with dialogue from both the 
> floor and
> > the webex.  We did some local presentations with 
> substantial dialogue
> > across the webex and from the floor and that worked well 
> too.  Everyone
> > on the webex did a great job of sticking with the etiquettes we
> > established.  We used the chat window to request the floor, and it
> > worked very well.  A number of participants would send 
> private messages
> > to me.  This was a bit un-nerving since you wanted to 
> respond privately
> > but were always a little concerned you'd accidently broadcast to
> > everyone.  Not that anything really need to be private, so 
> in generally
> > I'd encourage everyone to use the public chat and only send private
> > messages when absolutely necessary.
> >
> >
> >
> > So we aren't done yet, but we seemed to have survived the first day
> > okay.  I'll provide incremental feedback as we go.
> >
> >
> >
> > Regards to all,
> >
> >
> >
> > Mat
> >
> >
> >
> > Matthew Sherman, Ph.D.
> > Engineering Fellow
> > BAE Systems -  Network Systems (NS)
> > Office: +1 973.633.6344
> > Cell: +1 973.229.9520
> > email: matthew.sherman@baesystems.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----------
> > This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email 
> reflector.  This 
> > list is maintained by Listserv.
> >
> > ----------
> > This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email 
> reflector.  This 
> > list is maintained by Listserv. 
> 
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