[ale] Virtual Meeting Space (was Re: Future Meeting space)

[aaron]

Previously, Wandered Inn typed into the ether:

> James Kinney wrote:
> > Sounds like we should look at a virtual meeting space. Who's got
> > lots of bandwidth?
>
> What about the possibility of trying this sometime?  How many folks on
> the list out there have a functional virtual meeting setup? 
> (camera/speakers/mic.)

I'm intrigued by the Virtual Meeting idea and may have much to
contribute in both experience and high quality A/V equipment.
However, before we chase this rabbit too far down the hole, I would want
to dispell any illusions that realizing an effective, informative
"virtual" meeting will be anything simple or automatic; it's not just a
matter of putting a webcam stream on line.

In the course of my video and media career I have assisted with several
interactive teleconferences and virtual meetings, so I speak from
experience when I note that these things can turn into disasters if
they are not extensively organized, thoughtfully engineered and well
"financed" (in terms of sufficient equipment and support personel). It
is very easy to have the goals of communication obfuscated by the
technology. (I remember thinking at one international webcast debacle
about how a telephone bridge, a web page and email chat would have been
vastly more successful at sharing information among the participants
than the babbling over problematic connectivity that consumed the
entire event.)

All that said, I still find the idea of trying to do a Virutal ALE
Meeting challenging and would be willing to contribute some time,
equipment and experience toward organizing and staging a test event some
time this Fall. My only stipulation for participating in such a project
would be that the all the systems and software involved be designed to
work without any dependencies on M$ based systems, software or
components (otherwise I think we would be largely defeating the
purpose).

In an effort to get an ALE virtual meeting out of blue sky and onto
the white board, I have initiated and email list for purposes
of organizing this project. I have also announced it as an area for
general duscussion of Open Source or Alternative Platform solutions in
Webcasting, Virtual Meetings, Virtual Classrooms, Interactive Media,
etc.

The full, published description for the list is below. I invite anyone
interested in contributing to this Virtual ALE Meeting idea to
join us by sending an email to:

   LinuxVMP-subscribe at yahoogroups.com 


peace
(after justice)
aaron
 


---------------------------------------------------------------
The Linux Virtual Meeting Projects list,
LinuxVMP at yahoogroups.com, was established as a resource
for creating, organizing, promoting and realizing Virtual
Meetings and similar interactive networking projects based
primarily on open LINUX environments and related Alternative
Platform solutions.

Projects appropriate to the list will be free of all costs
and limitations imposed by dependencies on any Micro$oft
products or similarly closed, proprietary and dead end
technologies.

The initial project and goal of the list is to successfully
organize, host and operate a 50 to 100 client nation wide
internet meeting of A.L.E., the "choose an A word" acronym
for the Atlanta  [ Affiliated / Aggregate / Anarchist ]
Linux Enthusiasts user group.

It is requested that list discussion be primarily focused
on coordinating tools, personnel, software, resources and
contributions for Open Platform projects involving
Webcasting, Virtual Classrooms, Virtual Meetings and
Interactive Installations.

Relevant, related discussion of all Alternative Platform
solutions for WC/VC/VM and other Media Production
and Delivery arenas is also encouraged and welcome.

Subscription is by request to:
   LinuxVMP-subscribe at yahoogroups.com 

Discussion is not moderated.

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