Re: [802SEC] Electronic participation in meetings
I think the tools may already be useable with a bit of help, like an in-room camera goving remote participants a view of the "front" of the room, i.e. where the rpojector and on-site speakers are. I think the tools is probably ready to "let in" observers, once all the legal ramificatins are ironed out. I would like to see a more mature tool, the current tool maturity is not high enough in my opinion to allow for efficient remote participation to a F2F meeting. Observation though may be a very different issue. There may also be something workable if the IEEE hires staff to run the remote without bogging down the F2F meeting chair. This "chairs aid" could be aid by the remote participation fee and may make the curent tools useable and remove most of the problems associated with the current tool immaturity. With ime, as tools mature, one may consider eliminating the "chair's aid" although I think one of the problems the tool brings is that it distracts the chair's attention from the F2F meeting and people body langauge to "operating" the tool. If I look back at the experiment, I think that the most frustrating part was when the chair's attention was no longer with conducting the F2F meeting and diverted to "how to make the tools work", "organizing remote stuff" etc... so there may be space, introducing the tools "gradually", one step at a time, first with simple observation, then some form of primitive live feedbackand with time, full particiaption.
We also have to think about the consequences of how the press could use this new dimension... is this something we want in our F2F meetings? Have we fully thought out how would that affect the "political" vs "technical" balance in our meetings and if this effect is more desirable than detrimental.
On the other hand, I think these tools already greatly enhance the 100% tele-conferences (no F2F mix), adding a "cartoon" level video link which is much better than no video but way less than real video. As tools evolve, we may end up with live video... hopefully not so that corps can use this to eavesdrop on every move , on a second by second basis, with live direction from remote sites to their poor F2F live particiant actibng as a live puppet under remote control, thereby totally destroying whatever is left of the fact that we are supposed to be indiidual rather than entity voting...
Just my 2 cents worth...
Ivan Reede
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob O'Hara" <bohara@wysiwyg104.com>
To: <STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 11:05 PM
Subject: [802SEC] Electronic participation in meetings
> To separate the general discussion of electronic participation from the
> experiment run in the Whitespace SG, I have created this new email
> thread. Please move the general discussion here.
>
> I have read the emails from Tony, John, Geoff, and others. They all
> cite valid issues with the tool used and the problems it created running
> an efficient meeting. I agree that the tool has issues and causes
> inefficiencies in the meeting. Tool issues are not a reason to not
> consider how we can open our meetings to more participants, unless we
> are just against that idea on general principles.
>
> I believe that more participation generates better discussions, which
> then generate better standards. If electronic participation will allow
> more people to participate, or even to observe, why shouldn't we enable
> that?
>
> -Bob
>
> ----------
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