Open Stack

On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 4:08 PM, Jonathan D. Proulx <jon at csail.mit.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 03:44:03PM -0500, Erik McCormick wrote:
> :I'm still fishing for more specific details, but here is a snapshot of
> :how the Ceph Development Summit is handled.
> :
> :http://tracker.ceph.com/projects/ceph/wiki/CDS_Jewel
> :
> :It was previously done via Google Hangouts, but is now done using
> :Bluejeans. This is interesting especially since I believe Bluejeans is
> :an Openstack operator. I wonder if there's anyone from there on this
> :list that might be able to chime in with useful suggestions for us?
> ::).
>
>
> One very important thing to keep in mind, with Ceph's remote summit
> everyone is remote & thus on a level field.  If we try and bring in
> real time remote participation to a primarily in-person event there
> are additional challenges.  Off the topp of my head:
>
> 1) Managing the social impedence mismatch between local and remote
> participents.  There may be way technology can help or hurt this, but
> it is basicly a social problem we'll need to address.
>
At least for round one I would suggest we worry less about remote
input and more about remote accessibility. Input from remote users
could be via some combination of IRC and Etherpad. Someone mentioned
the idea of having an IRC translator. I'd be willing to volunteer for
a few sessions if I manage to make it to Manchester. We would probably
have to have one channel per room since we do usually seem to split
into tracks. This person could simply keep an eye on the channel and
watch for input that needs sharing. It also opens up the possibility
of parallel discussions on IRC that could be logged and perhaps later
summarized and added on to the Etherpads.

> 2) More technically we'll need to address the challenge of local
> sound, how to we ensure all the mostly spontaious talk in a large work
> session makes it to remote participants.  Passing a mic is a bit
> cumbersome and hard to enforce, while mic'ing the room to properly get
> ambient sound isn't likely something we can do without significant
> professional help.
>

This is a technical issue that needs dealing with for sure. Passing a
mic is absolutely not practical, so it would need to be some sort of
ambient thing. We can't even get people to consistently go to a mic
during Q&A at the end of summit presentations. I've seen enough
teleconferencing systems that cover large boardroom settings to know
that such things exist, but I have no specific knowledge of what they
are, if they can be rented, or how much they cost. That will require a
lot of digging into.

> By all means if any has info on what's worked or not in the Ceph
> summit that will be valuable input, just want to be sure we're
> evaluating it in out rather different context.
>
> -Jon