Introduction
The idea is to discuss the experience of collaboration between Onsite and Online participants at OSonOS, based on this year's experience and on preceding ones, and to propose ways to have a better collaboration in the future. Both onsite and online participants are invited to contribute to this online session - opinions of onsite participants are critical. This session was opened in August, 24 (first day of OSonOSinSwenMark) and will end in due time... A copy of the conclusions from this dialogue will be send to the organizors of the next OSonOS well in advance of the event. My proposal (that can be refined) is to organize the dialogue in the following sections. If you want to comment on the structure or propose other points please do it in /OnsiteAndOnlineStructure. -- ArturSilva
(Work in Progress just now - please join! Gabriel, Viv, Alan, Ted and Chris already added some comments and suggestions)
Feelings and Reflections from this Year's Experience
From online participants
- Being myself an online participitant, maybe I shall begin the comments here. Of course being an "online participant" is not the same as being "onsite" - we lost the intimacy of contacts and much of the dynamics of the event. But having been in some online Conferences, (including the one called - in my opinion, uncorrectly - VOSONOS) and having been an online "viewer" of some "real Conferences" that also had an online component, I think there are many strenghts in this year's "Wiki online participation in OSonOS" - for those that could not go to Fyn. First, if one is "(online) at the Conference" during enough time, one can fell the activity there, measured by the reports that come out. As one is not "distracted" by other conversations (what a pity!) one has even the time to read many, if not all, of the reports. And one can comment on the reports and read other's comments and have an online participation, mainly with other peripheral participants (I have discovered that it is difficult to be "an online butterfly", but it is easy to be an "online bumblebee"). And one can even propose his own sessions, as I have done here - which is an interesting experience even if no one shows up (as it can also happen in a presencial session). As an online participant, I could fell even more close if onsite participants would participate more in the online space - of course I understant why they do not, and would probably do the same if I was there... But maybe this connection can be better established in the future. I think that many participants are still in the begining of the learning curve about Wiki, and maybe we were not prepared for the "relative success" of this online adventure. Maybe next year we can have more computers onsite, more voluntary staff concentratad in online communication, etc. These are only preliminary suggestions, of course. This session is to hear many other opinions --ArturSilva
- Thanks Artur, for convening this session. My own experience as an online participant here is that I am enjoying scanning through what has heart and meaning for me. Occasionally I post a comment, but I am missing some indication that I was "present" at those sessions where I listened but had nothing to share. I would also love to see an "automatic signature" so that changes/additions people make are attributable to them even if they forget to sign their name (as I have done a couple of times, then had to go back once I realized).
- I like your comment about it being easy to be a bumblebee but not so easy to be a butterfly as an online participant. I guess I can be a butterfly, but there's not much chance I will bump into another butterfly from this keyboard. Part of the magic of being a butterfly, for me, is having the experience of fluttering down next to another one.
- I'm very interested in how online participants can feel more "part of" the full experience and how face-to-face participants can be more "aware of" online participants in ways that are generative and not just a high tech novelty. I have a couple of ideas that might be fun... and I'll share them down in the suggestions portion of this session. --GabrielShirley
- bumblebeeing into this session: my online participation has been a positive experience, especially as I was planning to be in SwenMark? in person. I think it helps having been to two previous OSonOS events (Vancouver and Melbourne) and while I feel I 'know' some people I've never met (eg Artur) I have a special connection with those people I have met in person. This is important, I think and underlines my view that face-to-face OSonOs? events should be supplemented by the online experience, and not replace them. I also like the dynamic nature of the site where there is something new just about every time I log on. For me, it works! As open space always does <grin> And a suggestion below. -- Viv McWaters?
- Thanks for your comments and suggestions, Viv and Gabriel. Some more observations. I agree with Viv that having been at least in one OSonOS helps a lot, because one knows some people. But to feel what's hapenning it is probably only needed to have been in one large OST event. There are things one can not feel, like the opening and closing atmosphere, but there are others one can feel. The ending of sessions (by the display of reports) as well as something I am feeling just now: IT IS OVER! Exactly what I felt in Berlin, after the closing circle: the shutting down of the excitment! (So I will go for a walk in some minutes - and later I will be a different kind of "online participant": a "post-event online participant" is different from a "during-the-event online-participant...).To Gabriel, two things. First you can go to Preferences, define your name, and it will be shown in all your subsequent changes - some WikiGnome will probably later add your name to your message if you forgot. And maybe we can suggest a new section for the proceedings saying "I have been here online" for online readers that don't want to comment. What do you think? -- ArturSilva
- G'day Artur and All here. I appreciate your creating this opportunity to join with other virtual participants. My sense is that this section could be expanded for next year (while I dearly hope to be in Goa) by making it better known in advance and also through using the webcam technology mentioned by Gabriel and the realtime chat suggested by Viv. And I want to acknowledge Artur that your welcoming notes on the OSlist meant a lot to me. I look forward to keeping connected. --AlanStewart
- I though the online component was fantastic this year. I think this is really the year that it finally took off, and I think the .NET wiki space was a great tool for supporting it. The proceedings this year are the richest I have yet seen. One thing I noticed was how compressed time felt when I was participating online. I didn't have the luxery of lolling around in a discussion group letting ideas sink in. I read all the groups and responded to some (still responding to others) and kind of felt like a super-bumblebee. Most of my participation was over a two hour period every day. I also felt the need sometimes to write in every group I visited, although I didn't. Very cool experience. -- ChrisCorrigan
- I agree with Chris that, seen from an online participant perspective, the online component was fantastic. But, after having been online for many hours each day during OSonOS, I now had some days out of the Wiki that allowed me to finally make an out-of-the-online-event reflection. And still from an online perspective I have concluded that this was a more strange experience than I first saw. On one hand, during OSonOS I was feeling "included", as I could see all the reports and entries in the Cafe and comment on them if I wished. But, on retrospect, I was "alienated" from the real (onsite) event, as I couldn't have any clues about what was hapenning there that was not translated online. This drive my following reflections
- OSonOS is (or has been until now) mainly an onsite event. This means that people are in many sessions and private conversations and have not the time during the event for a profound reflection on the reports. Even last year, when the online Wiki was introduced, there were some dialogues in the Wiki but only between online participants. This year's session reports were made directly to the Wiki and online participants could comment direcly on the reports (and not on a sub-sub-page). I don't know if the proceedings distributed onsite included those online comments or not. But I have concluded now something that I haven't realized durind the event - the situation was unfair, as the onsite participants probably had neither the time nor conditions to comment back on the online comments. And it seems that they have not feel included in the onsite conversations -only a few commented in the cafe and, even after OSonOS, they have not participated in this "session" and they rarely commented back on the repoorts.
- I think it is crucial to have feedback from onsite participants on what they felt in relation with the online participation. But only from a personal reflection I will add bellow three new suggestions. -- ArturSilva (Aug, 30)
- I find myself thinking about the use of the Internet in maintaining connections…between individuals and communities of all types and sizes. Reflection upon my experience as an online participant at OsonOS? arose as an example. It seems that a new and unique opportunity to maintain a varying degree of involvement in a community is being made available …wrapped complete with a real time option (and can I even say bounded by passion and responsibility?).
Often I find my mind wandering to a place outside of my physical surroundings, a thought of a person, event, or far-away-land slips in. When I notice it, I like to spend some time “visiting” in that space. When events that I would like to participate in are occurring, I often send part of myself to “visit.”
I notice how many choices were made available regarding the extent to which one is invited to participate in OsonOS?. I have the invitation to physically move my body to Swenmark and the many choices that follow there. I also have the invitation to stay at my house and participate online. Should I choose to be physically absent, I still have the ability to be involved for as many or as few moments as I would like. For myself, I know that while the extent to which I communicate…make myself visible…may vary, my energy is just as present as if I were in the room (though in a very different way).
Previous conferences I might have just “visited” in the way mentioned above. However, with this conference I had the opportunity to check-in in a whole different manner.
I wonder about the onsite participants and what it was like for them to feel online participants adding to the occasion. In what ways was that addition of attention, intention, passion, ????? experienced? -- AshleyCooper
p.s. if this post needs to be moved somewhere else, feel free! Thanks.
From onsite participants
From online helping group
- I don't know very well how I have become a member of the online help team. Yes I know: MichaelHerman put my name there - and then I had to fullfill his expectations ;-) Ok, I am glad to be working in that position, anyhow. Interestingly there are not many requests for help. But, believe me, it's almost a full time job - ok, at least a 4-hour-a-day part time job. Mostly goes under the courtains - changing text from one page to another, or from the summary to a real page, help with the presentation of pages, checking the changes regularly, and - for the others - checking the spelling (including mine) and do some "advanced" technnical stuff. Becoming myself an "wiki online facilitator" is a very interesting learning experience. And I am always open to learning and to new experiences, as indeed it is exactly the same thing. After all "the business of business is learning" and "learning is transformation" - I think I red this somewhere ;-) - ArturSilva
- In this capacity I have observed that some people had difficulties in using Wiki, some wrote the message or subsciption as online participant in the summarry box then couldn't see any results and quieted. The help desk was also a wiki page and didn't contain the e-mails of the help team. People that where unable to write to Wiki where also unable to ask for help (except if they were members of the OSlist and already knew the e-mail of some help team members). The wrong subscription of participants was dificult to correct, as both online and onsite participants were in the same page and have been added during the conference (and not BEFORE in the case of Onsite ones) and were not ordered by alphabetic order. See some sugestions, below. -- ArturSilva
- Also from this capacity I have observed that online folks belonged to different categories: (1) fully online participants - would include their names and read and add online comment to at least some Proceedings; (2) online viewers -would add or not their names and then read some preceedings; (3) marketing themselves - people, normally from out of the OST practice, that would add their names and a marketing description of themselves/companies and then disapeared -- ArturSilva
==== /OtherOnSiteAndOnlineComments (extracted from the OSonOS Cafe)====
Comparison with Last Year (and previous ones)
Suggestions to Next Year
- Have more computers onsite, more voluntary staff concentrated in regularly inform online what's hapenning onsite, and ask onsite participants to comment regularlly online -- ArturSilva
- Butterfly Cam -- A video conferencing station placed somewhere on site at the face-to-face event where people will pass by and see it. Online participants can tune in just "hang out." They would be able to see and talk to whomever passes by. This is pretty high tech and requires a broadband connection, but it's getting easier every day and will eventually be commonplace. -- GabrielShirley
- Circle Cam -- A second video conferencing station (or the same one, repositioned) where end of the day reflection circles and the closing circle are broadcast over the Net. Online participants who want to make comments in the circle would be able to do so via their keyboards, and someone on-site would read their comments into the circle live (and the audio/video is broadcast out to all online participants). --GabrielShirley
- Project Online Participation on a Wall -- Use a digital projector to project online participant info on the News Wall or use some other means to identify online participant contributions so FTF participants are both aware of the contributions and aware that they are happening from afar.
- I'm a bit of a fan of real-time chat and despite time-zone limitations, I'd like to see some scheduled on-line chat sessions between those online and those onsite. - Viv McWaters?
- Decide before hand the online product to use (I think it should be Wiki to profit from the sucess and the learning of this year, unless a much better produt comes out)and provide some orientation before the event, good instrutions in the pages and the emails of the help team. --ArturSilva
- Include the online participants as a subpage filled before the event with the participants in alfabetic order of first name; WikiGnomes shall NOT copy names from online participants to "NamePages" of the .net wiki. -- ArturSilva
- Could you talk more about the reasons not to add people to the NamePages if they've created their own page on the wiki? Thanks! --TedErnst
- Let me first clarify what I wanted to say. When someone subscribes as an online participant to a Conference, if one puts an Wiki name than a page with one's name will be created that one can then fill. If one doesn't create a Wiki name, then a Gnome can change that - that's ok. What I disagree is that a Gnome also puts the name of that participant in the page named "NamePages" in the overall osw.net space. I have two reasons for suggesting that. First: some people subscribe to the Conference only as one way to advertise themselves - puting their names in the NamePages a Gnome is further increasing that advertisement and making it more solid (as the Conference will end one day but the general wiki no). Second: Anyone can add her name to the NamePages of the general wiki. But that will mean a certain responsability - that person is implicitly saying that she is an OST practicioner or that she is involved in some ongoing project on the general wiki. I think a Gnome shall not assume that responsability in the name of others - hence liberating them from assuming (or not) that responsability themselves. Only an opinion... -- ArturSilva.
- Separate the onsite session reports from the online comments by creating separated sub-sub-pages for online comments
- Give onsite participants more time to read reports (and particularly online comments to the sessions they have attended) and
- more computers and more time (and onsite wiki help?) to "comment on the comments"
Further Online Ongoing Comments and Reflexions
(when onsite participants will be back home and have more time to participate online)
Report (to be filled durind the dialogue)
Issue: On site and Online Colaboration at OSonOS : experiences to date and suggestions for the future
Convenor: ArturSilva
Participants:
Summary of the meeting:
Follow up:
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