museumsandtheweb.com - Comments for "how not to encourage web participation at a conference"

webcasting in 2011

marymac — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 01:29:38 +0000

This comment has been moved here.

good use of twitter does take coordination

jtrant — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:55:01 +0000

Mark, we agree that twitter saved the day for this gov2.0 event. but self-organization works for people who are active already. the online-offline bridge between participants in various spheres still needs to be facilitated, and the mental model – that pushing content out is good enough – needs to change.

i for was wasn't content to just 'follow along': count me in for futher discussions.

/jt

j. trant archives & museum informatics www.archimuse.com

how many people?

jtrant — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 19:06:55 +0000

thanks slavko.

can you answer a couple of question for me?

how many people were participating?
was it just the two sites, or were there others?
what kind of tech configuration did you use?

thanks!

j. trant archives & museum informatics www.archimuse.com

on line participation

slavko — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:58:11 +0000

Hi Jennifer,

I recently organized an on-line meeting between the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and University of Art & Design in Helsinki. The meeting was a huge success and I think for the following reasons:

- we had on-line speakers video feeds projected on a separate screen;

- on-line speakers could see their own contributions (images, PowerPoints, etc) on another ('main') screen, as well as most of the in-person participants;

- in person participants could ask questions and engage in dialogue with on-line contributors just by sitting on a chair in front of Web cam;

This kind of setup created an antmosphere that everyone was present at the same place in person. Towards the end of the meeting in-person participants have completely forgot that they are communicating with a person on a different continent with 7 hours difference in time (and had to be reminded of that)...

Well, I guess the summary of the experience is:

- make it as 'live' as possible;

- provide live feed of what is actually going on to all parties;

warm regards,

Slavko Milekic, M.D., PhD

Professor of Cognitive Science & Digital Design

University of the Arts, Philadelphia

online conferences - analogue or digital?

jon_pratty — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:34:13 +0000

I didn't myself get a chance to sample what you participated in Jennifer, but have also experienced frustration along similar lines with 'big media' sites like the BBC.

It seems to me that webcast conferences, and particularly linear narrative experiences like videocasts/video conferencing, suffer from being 'narrowcast' pipelines where you can't stop the feed, can't chop, change or choose the thing you're consuming.

Unlike, of course, the web experience where you can search/choose the content and then consume at will, in the maner that suits best.

I'm presently involved with an IPTV startup project where the principal instigator still wants what he calls 'video on demand' which in actuality is video streaming - which is a didactic channel, one which can't be intermediated at all. Where the real hits are is in totally interactive choice of multimedia online, which is why YouTube is so amazingly popular.

Re MW 2009 and online; you're right, a diversity of channels for interaction, a democratisation of participation and a notion of clarity at all times will work.

We need channels that allow cross posting, tags that can clump comments together and remove the need for writing the same comments in several blog settings, and ways to get people to join in because they feel left out if they don't...

And if the comments of those who aren't present at the conference can be seen by people who are at the conference, and vice versa, all the better -

All the best

Jon Pratty

http://machineculture.wordpress.com/