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<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">The IGF's biggest problem with
remote participation is not the flaky streaming software (which I can
attest to), or the lack of consideration given to timezones (which I can
also attest to; this week's MAG meetings were from 2am - 10am my local
time), but the fact that asynchronous participation (ie. participation
that doesn't require you to be online at the same time as everyone else)
is given such a low priority.</blockquote>I agree again with that
statement (as I have argued few times here in the past in favor of
asynchronous participation and offering the same following reference
without catching much interest).<br><br>
The MISTICA virtual community (a community of less than 500 people on the
theme of Social Impact of ICT in Latin America) had experimented
with success between 1999 and 2004 with asynchronous distance
participation during 4 meetings (of less than 70 people). The
context was obviously much more simple for the lower numbers and also as
the meetings had no parallel session (although we did add translation
beetween 4 languages as a more complex factor in those exchanges).
<br><br>
The website is still in operation
<a href="http://funredes.org/mistica" eudora="autourl">
http://funredes.org/mistica</a> (but maybe for no much longer) although
the obsolescence of software has started provoking loss of data
(specially data bases) and unfortunaltely this may have affected this
component.<br><br>
Basically the principle was to establish synthesis at the end of each
session which were sent to the discussion list with a header PAD-OUT and
there were a time left (2 hours if I remember well) for the distance
participants to react by email PAD-IN. The reaction where put in
synthesis and a time slot was inserted in the agenda for reading the
PAD-IN of the previous session and comment/react.<br><br>
There is a human cost (writing synthesis), no technological cost at all,
and a wonderful by-product as a bottom-line:<b> the face to face
participants were put in acute consciousness that they were just a lucky
subset of a larger group (which had not the chance to be invited in the
face to face) and that the center of gravity of the community was not in
the face to face meeting but in the virtual world.</b> Many people
complained though on the rigidity of the method (the time left and the
time slot) which was probably unavoidable.<br><br>
A funny fractal effect of the method was the use of the distance
participation method by some face to face participants provoking some
interesting situations/considerations.<br><br>
It have to be extremely clear that such approach only make sense <b>for a
virtual community which production is principally made on a day to day
basis at distance, through the discussion list and other mechanisms
</b>and where the meetings are just side elements of the central
architecture, not the aim of the project.<br><br>
The existence of the method (although the distance participation was not
dense) allowed that the outcomes of the face to face meetings where
receiving ownership and appropiation by the whole community which was
quite a challenge solved.<br><br>
To be noted that I used again that method with success during the Members
General Asembly of the MAAYA (World Network of Linguistic
Diversity - http://maaya.org ) three years ago, again in a quite simplest
context (we were only 5 persons in the face to face meeting and the
members were 100 and I played both the role of face to face meeting
coordination and writer of the synthesis, relaying the PADIN and PADOUT -
in that case the PADIN received no synthesis and were treated one by
one).<br><br>
This is not the first time I report on this method.<br><br>
But again, maybe behind the question of distance participation the real
issue for the IGF could be to decide if the project should be
"meeting once a year oriented" (as the majority of traditional
communities) or rather "day to day production oriented "
which could be an interesting challenge which does not seem to have been
consciously taken as an objective.<br><br>
The perception of the IGF from the many people who has no the budget to
attend the yearly meetings would certainly be different in a scenario
where the real production would be made on a day to day basis in the
discussion list...<br><br>
In my personal opinion distance collaboration should have been the
innovative focus of the IGF (and not the traditional yearly meeting) and
this is why I am deeply deceived to see fundamental issues not discussed
in the "discussion list".<br>
<br />--
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