Ken Freed wrote:
> As with most of us participating online (awake since 6 am in Denver),
> I felt frustrated at never hearing our comments mentioned except as
> something that would be read aloud at some future point. But the
> point never came, the momentum in the room being too robust,
> (to be kind, out of sight, out mind), and we mostly were left out.
I share your frustration, Ken -- after getting so many serious, substantive,
on-topic comments, it seemed tragic not to be able to respond to each in
turn. Ideally there would be no time constraints in the ICANN Open
Meetings, but, even so, the discussion around the remote comments that were
recognized was so time-effective as to make recognition of additional
comments pretty attractive, I would think. At the same time, I remain
inclined to defer to Esther's judgement -- what do I know about moderating
meetings?!? -- but, that said, I agree that we can do better next time.
Realize, though, that the comments during Tuesday's DNSO GA and GAC
meetings, also during the morning part of Wednesday's Open Meeting (before
some 50+ of you Americans, mostly, woke up!), were recognized pretty
consistently by the moderators -- and a careful listen through the RealVideo
archive should reflect as much.
> At the Santiago meeting, it would be good to have a second screen in the
> conference room, set aside for constant display of online comments.
We -- Wendy, Jonathan, and I -- have spent some time thinking about how
these meetings could be made more inclusive, particularly with the help of
the 'net to bring in those who can't attend. Using a second screen was an
idea that came out of the November meeting, and indeed we had a secondary
display both in Singapore in March and at Berlin's meetings. That said, the
mere presence of a second screen doesn't solve all problems. In particular,
we're concerned that it's too distracting to display remote comments
(potentially pretty serious thought-provoking messages) while someone is
talking, whether giving a presentation or asking or responding to a
question. So we're not all that thrilled by the prospect of flashing remote
comments on a second screen, and when we tried that out at several points
during the meetings of the last couple days, we didn't get much response
(though perhaps the real problem was that no one noticed?).
I'm coming to think that recognizing large volumes of remote comments is
actually a somewhat tricky problem. When we are receiving only a few remote
comments at a time, it works fine to send them to the moderator via a text
messaging system (basically a real-time chat). But the moderator gets
overwhelmed, understandably, when we send lots of messages at once. We
don't want the technical staff to process messages -- screening out the "can
you turn up the audio" and "you spelled 'the' wrong" is about as much
editing as I feel comfortable with. We may yet end up with a secondary
screen displaying comments through some sort of an automated process (say,
each message gets thirty seconds on screen, then it automatically advances
to the next message). But I remain interested in other approaches to the
problem. Suggestions?
> Anyone in the room or away can comment about what they see
> online [reloading the page often].
Judging from our hit logs, at least some remote participants refreshed the
remote comments page pretty frequently (every minute or so, for some of
them). This was as intended -- we thought you'd figure that out, though
perhaps we should have put an explicit suggestion on the page suggesting the
frequent use of the Refresh button.
> Think greater global interactivity, participatory management. Democracy.
Agreed in principle, but can you be more specific? Concrete suggestions
like "use two video cameras and an a/b switcher to avoid the distracting
panning in the video feed" (something we thought about for this meeting but
didn't do because of cost) or "put comments on a second screen" are
extremely helpful and carefully considered, I'd like to think.
> Oh, until a minute ago, while I was writing this note (while the moment
> is fresh), I was listening to after-meeting conversations rumbling near
the
> microphone staying delightfully open awhile, as the real meeting began...
Indeed. Sorry we didn't leave it up longer for you.
(The bad link mentioned in another message to this list is fixed as of late
last night.)
Ben Edelman
