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Post-mortem on Linux-Ottawa Hybrid meeting

First, many thanks to all who contributed. I believe Katherine, who did lion's share of run-around
that always attaches to meeting organization, deserves applause. She has said she will send thanks
to David Chan (but perhaps copy the list -- it would be useful to have his email to share ideas).

Second, to the PDC for getting the infrastructure.

Third, to everyone who attended for putting up with some of the glitches, which I'll outline below
as a way to record what we learned.

- traffic and related matters meant Katherine was late, and the two Linux Ottawa Board members
present did not know the arrangements for the virtual part of the meeting, nor that David was
coming to us that way. We also discovered that the entrance to the building was blocked by
construction and the detour was a good 5, possibly 10, minutes via a very convoluted route.
It would be unsurprising if we did not lose some participants.

- Monika and Binit had things set up and were helpful, but had to leave early. By then we had
realized that jitsi link would connect, and people could see the room. What we did NOT know was
that we could not be heard.

- By chat we got David's talk started. It worked well. Follow-up Q&A was lively. We had
to pull the plug as I pointed out uOttawa rooms sometimes have auto-shutdown. I've been in
rooms that turned off lights at a given hour and put put doors on exit-only. We had booked
to 9 pm.

- As David was talking, I realized that the microphone was likely linked to the one used for the
lectures. These are clip-on wireless mikes and are stored in a cupboard under the podium. I don't
think the PDC people could get at these BUT...

- my very old RDID card (from early 2000s when I lectured) still opened the cupboard and when we
turned on the mic, we had sound.

- A separate and earlier effort to use my laptop (I can connect at U of O with eduroam as Adjunct/Retired)
DID give us sound, but also gave us weird beeping feedback. Possibly if we had muted the speakers in the room
this would have worked. Some experimentation required if we use uOttawa or similar rooms. But see below for
a possibly less demanding option.

- We had several cases where microphones  were left on interfering with jitsi. We probably need to have a
"bouncer" for all such meetings to remotely mute those mics.

Summary: uOttawa, or other venues, need access to full capabilities of cameras and microphones. Once we had
that sorted out, we were fine, but I suspect that we were lucky my RFID card still worked.

Overall: We had only 1 non-Linux-Ottawa person at the room, so a bit of a bust, and only 3 LO present.
Despite all the comments of "I'd really like in-person", we saw ghosts (or virtual persons!).

On the other hand, the very ease of clicking on the jitsi link suggests that possible we could
think of multiple-site hybrid meetings. That would ease some of the burden of parking, distance,
buses, time to travel, etc. and all the arguments about not liking different venues that we get
into when planning meetings. Moreover, we can likely avoid having to do formal bookings.  For
example, I would be willing to have a few people at my place (where there is a 90 sq m. dance
floor space and TV on wall), though those coming would have to be individually invited
because of insurance reasons. Anyone willing to host like this should ensure that they issue an email invite
specifically, because residence insurance does not cover a public meeting. There may be restaurants that
have small rooms that would work too, and we could even consider having meetings with groups in other
cities. The use of multiple but small groups might avoid some of the difficulty in finding a
classroom-like venue. My experience is that the organization and booking requires a lot of time and
effort, and I'm sure the PDC folk and Katherine will confirm that.

Hope I've not forgotten to thank anyone, nor missed any important issues.

Best,

JN


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