[IDEA] "show-n-tell" interactive webcasts

[Dan Haywood <dk...@gmail.com>]

I hope, like me, you've been reading all the discussion both here and on 
general@incubator.apache.org regarding our Skype conf call.

Of all the various points raised, the ones that I'd like to consider is:
1. as the community grows, how do we scale up beyond Skype calls?
2. how do we prevent people who (a) aren't able to or (b) don't want to 
take part in Skype calls feeling excluded?
3. how do we ensure that we don't start making decisions on the Skype calls?

One idea I had was to use interactive webcasts instead.... a bit like 
the "show-n-tell" that they do in primary school.  The objective would 
primarily be to allow a contributor to demonstrate some part of Isis 
that they've been working on to others in the community (there's a lot 
of different viewers/objectstores etc); and in return get some public 
approbation.

This might address the above, because:
1. if it runs on a web browser, then any number could subscribe
2. a) the person doing the "show-n-tell" can choose when to run the webcast
      b) more people will want to take part, because a web browser 
solution is not as invasive as requiring proprietary software such as 
Skype to be installed
3. a webcast and the "show-n-tell" metaphor would primarily be a one-way 
flow of info ... though I think it should have some sort of 
interactivity (at a minimum IM/text support, ideally also voice) so that 
it's fun thing to be involved in.

~~~
I did some googling last night to see if there's anything out there that 
might support this objective.  Of course, there are lots of commercial 
webcast/webinar providers, but I was looking for something that's open 
source and perhaps more fitting into the ASF.

What I came up with was http://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/, which is 
downloadable under EPL license.  This software also supports the ability 
to record webcasts, apparently.  I was wondering if anyone had used it?  
If we went with it, my thought would be for one of us to install it and 
give it a trial run (they have a demo site but I don't think we'd want 
to use that).  You never know, if it works really well, perhaps it (or 
something like) could be an ASF supported app [but I'm getting a long 
way ahead of myself].

Thoughts?

Cheers
Dan

Re: [IDEA] "show-n-tell" interactive webcasts

[Mohammad Nour El-Din <no...@gmail.com>]

Hi Dan...

   This is a brilliant idea, and in OpenEJB David Blevins has done
like 11 video demos, we call them *Lightning Demos* named following
the *Lightning Talks* done in ApachCon 2010. A contributer can make
the demo and record it in anyway he/she likes, and then upload it on
YouTube, as a free location to store videos, or on Vimeo which we can
make an account on it for the whole team for more private control but
alos the viedoes can be published on public, and we added a Wiki page,
with a link from the main site, which contains links and description
about each one of them. I think we can use the same approach in Isis.

But one point, for Skype calls we should not be afraid of using it we
only need to be responsible and for this we can have some rules  to
call for a Skype call:

1- Announce for the call publicly.
2- Vote for variant of dates and time with the ability for anyone who
wnats to attend to propose a new time and date.
3- For each Skype call there must be someone to mentor and monitor the
call to provide the following rules:
  3.1- No decisions are made on Skype calls. Although points which
needs decisions making can be raised as
          a heads up, like the release thing for example, but the
discussion of it must be on ML.
  3.2- Giving the chance to new attendees to get introduced to the
rest and to welcome them.
4- The agenda of the call should be defined in advance to give the
chance for others to contribute to it.
5- We should find some way to record the call minutes either in a
written or voice recorded way. I will think
    about it in more details.

I believe in that real-time communications is real helpful but I agree
with the PMC that we should use it wisely and in a responsible way,
but we can't give-up while we are at the begining, more specifically
that we had a very good call whith very promising results.

On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 4:53 PM, Dan Haywood <dk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I hope, like me, you've been reading all the discussion both here and on
> general@incubator.apache.org regarding our Skype conf call.
>
> Of all the various points raised, the ones that I'd like to consider is:
> 1. as the community grows, how do we scale up beyond Skype calls?
> 2. how do we prevent people who (a) aren't able to or (b) don't want to take
> part in Skype calls feeling excluded?
> 3. how do we ensure that we don't start making decisions on the Skype calls?
>
> One idea I had was to use interactive webcasts instead.... a bit like the
> "show-n-tell" that they do in primary school.  The objective would primarily
> be to allow a contributor to demonstrate some part of Isis that they've been
> working on to others in the community (there's a lot of different
> viewers/objectstores etc); and in return get some public approbation.
>
> This might address the above, because:
> 1. if it runs on a web browser, then any number could subscribe
> 2. a) the person doing the "show-n-tell" can choose when to run the webcast
>     b) more people will want to take part, because a web browser solution is
> not as invasive as requiring proprietary software such as Skype to be
> installed
> 3. a webcast and the "show-n-tell" metaphor would primarily be a one-way
> flow of info ... though I think it should have some sort of interactivity
> (at a minimum IM/text support, ideally also voice) so that it's fun thing to
> be involved in.
>
> ~~~
> I did some googling last night to see if there's anything out there that
> might support this objective.  Of course, there are lots of commercial
> webcast/webinar providers, but I was looking for something that's open
> source and perhaps more fitting into the ASF.
>
> What I came up with was http://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/, which is
> downloadable under EPL license.  This software also supports the ability to
> record webcasts, apparently.  I was wondering if anyone had used it?  If we
> went with it, my thought would be for one of us to install it and give it a
> trial run (they have a demo site but I don't think we'd want to use that).
>  You never know, if it works really well, perhaps it (or something like)
> could be an ASF supported app [but I'm getting a long way ahead of myself].
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Cheers
> Dan
>
>



-- 
Thanks
- Mohammad Nour
  Author of (WebSphere Application Server Community Edition 2.0 User Guide)
  http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247585.html
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mnour
- Blog: http://tadabborat.blogspot.com
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