[kwlug-disc] Remote vs local meetings, five months in

[Paul Nijjar]

On Tue, Feb 13, 2024 at 08:23:21PM -0800, Ronald Barnes wrote:
> 
> > Subject: [kwlug-disc] Remote vs local meetings, five months in
> 
> First off, it's been five months?  So, I've missed ⅖ of them... Time flies.

Nope. I lied. It has been six months. Our first hybrid meeting was
September, not October. Off-by-one errors are the worst.

> 
> 
> > How have the hybrid meetings been going for people?
> 
> It's definitely less engaging. Kind of a second class citizen feeling.

It is my strong intent that people online have a first class citizen
experience, so we should work on this. I really really don't want
people feeling obligated to be in-person for them to feel like they
are part of the group.


> > What is irritating?
> 
> The conversation in the room being picked up by the mic.
> 
> Maybe it would help if the presenter had a dedicated mic (this may already
> be the case).

This is interesting, because I am hearing different perspectives on
this. Here are some clarification questions:

- Is the existing microphone working okay for hearing the presenter?
- Is it that you do not want to hear background chatter at all, or is
  it irritating because the background chatter is faint?
- Do you feel differently about our presenters that are remote as
  compared to those in-person? (It is interesting that usually at
  least one of our presenters ends up being remote each month).

(Other people can also respond to these questions)


> > What is working well?
> 
> I seem to recall suggestions of having the presenter read out questions
> before answering them.
> 
> This worked well from what I remember.

Good. You and others who are online: Please remind us to do this. If
there is ANYTHING that is not audible put it in the chat. If there is
a break in the conversation you can even hop on your microphone and
ask for the question to be repeated. Don't be shy about this.

>From our end we will try to remember to have questions repeated. 

We can also try to have the in-person chatter summarized in chat, but
it may have to be somebody else who is the secretary here. (A large
number of the in-person attendees also are on BBB for some reason?)


> > What/how should we improve?
> 
> Better audio.  i.e. some kind of directional mic on the presenter.
> 
> Having no idea how it's currently setup, I can only speculate if this is a
> solution.

The current setup is the opposite of a directional microphone. John
Steel has a Jabra "puck" microphone that is intended to pick up all
the conversation in the room. (I think this is it?
https://www.jabra.ca/Business/speakerphones/jabra-speak-series/jabra-speak-510)
. Our thinking was that (a) it was good enough that people could hear
the presenters clearly, and (b) hearing the in-room questions and
chatter was a feature, not a bug.  This may not be the case. 

I do not know if it will change soon -- Andrew has a directional
microphone setup from pre-pandemic times which we might be able to
use. We are getting the workflow down for the Jabra mic, and will have
to see how that workflow would need to change if we tried the
directional mic. Having both microphones in play is a recipe for
feedback, I think.

Other people: what are your thoughts on directional vs room
microphones?


- Paul

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