Virtual Meeting
by Don Singleton,
APCUG Vice President
When I was more mobile, I attended every APCUG meeting at both Fall and Spring
Comdex, and several after that, but my health deteriorated to the point that I
cannot even attend my local User Group meetings. My Vice President handles the
TCS General Meeting for me and I take care of other things that I can do from my
house, either over the phone or through cyberspace. I suspect many other groups
have members that have gotten older, and are no longer able to make it to a
meeting. Hopefully it is just that they cannot drive at night, but some may be
disabled like I am.
I do a lot of work for APCUG, and wish I was mobile enough to do more, but it
got me thinking. I bet there are others like me that would like to be able to
contribute to their local UGs, and it would be nice to see what we can come up
with to enable that.
Several Directors and Advisors were going to be present at the APCUG 2008
Membership & Leadership Development Conference May 17-18, including the current
APCUG President, Jay Ferron. I had helped the conference with some publicity
matters, and they wanted me to be there too (as the immediate Past President,
and current Vice President), although they realized I could not be there in
person. So at the request of Sam Wexler and Hank Feinberg, I bought a web cam
for my laptop, and using Skype I was able to virtually be there during their
introductory session. If your user group has an officer or sig leader that
either can no longer attend meetings, or is in the hospital, or has moved out of
town, you might consider doing something like MLDC did with me and invite them
to “Say Hi to everyone” and let everyone see them at one of your meetings.
Just being able to greet people at a meeting is nice, but it got me thinking,
how else might we be able to develop a way for those unable to attend to be able
to participate, and make use of knowledge they used to share with the UG. We are
not certain exactly how we will do it, but at the 2008 Midwest User Group
Regional Conference September 19 - 21 I hope to be able to actually conduct one
of the programs, sitting in my lift chair here in Tulsa. I may just connect to a
laptop with SKYPE for the audio feed (and a small window for my webcam, if they
think the audience can stand to look at me for the entire program, and then use
LogMeIn (https://secure.logmein.com/home.asp) - a free program similar to
GoToMyPC, to let me control the keyboard and mouse of a laptop in Chicago
Heights. We may try to use Microsoft Live Meeting, which you probably read about
in a recent NOOZ mailing.
Eventually I would like to see us come up with a procedure that would work not
just for APCUG Regional meetings, but which every user group could use to allow
longtime members that can’t make it to meetings be able to continue to
contribute to the user group. Do you have any ideas how we should do this?
I would also like to see if we could also come up with a way to use cameras to
capture and stream sessions at a regional meeting, so that they can be seen by
people unable to attend. It would not replace the thrill of actually being
there, and able to interact with other attendees, but it would be better than
missing out altogether, and if it worked for a regional meeting, some UGs might
even try streaming their monthly meetings, so they could be viewed by members
unable to attend.