Diane,
> there was no registration.
But everyone who spoke from the floor identified themselves? What
percentage might that have been?
====
> Time constraints are as much a function of how much total time a
> person has to invest as they are a function of the final deadline.
> I agree that e-mail is a great tool and in many cases will be the
> best tool. But IMHO it's far from perfect and a physical meeting
> still gets the job done much better.
But is *a* person, or hyr time, the critical determinant? Isnt it
rather, finding that elusive 'broad consensus of a representative
community'? *Defining the job to be done by what can be done by
the time/space/energy filters of a physical meeting is no solution at
all. But lets grant there may be some 'job' that can be better
achieved by the presence of 400 people instead of 4000 virtual
voices -- even then their input has to be restricted 'so that
everyone [sic!] can be heard'! Add in the open question whether the
400 souls who show up are in any way 'representative' (and
whether they even feel particularly representative of even 10
others), and the sense that live meetings of this sort simply cannot
help but be rubber-stamp sessions becomes very strong.
> That said, there may well be
> very sound countervailing reasons to forbid physical meetings, just
> as there are sound reasons to offer distance learning courses; but
> I don't think they encourage efficiency.
Until one knows what end one is to reach, one cant tell if the
means to get there are effective. And until one has a process that
*works, there's precious little use worrying about efficiency - but
the Interim Board is getting so tied up in making its putative
process efficient, it doesnt seem to remember the goals it was
supposed to achieve.
kerry
