Sorry I will be unable to make any meeting next week as I will be off the grid.<div><br></div><div>I'd like to make one suggestion, however, as NCUC's membership grows to include more and more people not living in Western developed countries. Global Voices, which has regular online meetings with community members and editors all over the world, has generally stuck to IRC because holding meetings with anything that takes up more bandwith ended up acting as a barrier to participation for people joining from slow or unreliable connections in far-flung corners of the globe. The lesson that we have taken from almost 5 years trying to run an international grassroots media organization in as inclusive a manner as possible is that inclusiveness requires defaulting to meeting technologies that are accessible to those whose bandwith is lowest and who may be running old operating systems - or not using MacOS or Windoze.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Some people tried to join last time but had problems: some because they couldn't get the conferencing software to work, and others because their Internet connections were not high speed enough to hear the audio discussion clearly. Isaac Mao's connectivity that day in Shanghai was bad, and he could only see the text chat- he couldn't make out anything that was being said vocally, which meant he couldn't follow the discussion properly or participate meaningfully. As we get more members who are joining from places where Internet connectivity may not be as reliable as it is in North America and Western Europe (where even some of us have been having bandwith problems) I suggest that somebody should volunteer to post a continuous running text summary of what's being said in the audio discussion into the text chat box - so that people who can't hear can still participate. Either that or switch to text-only if too many people are having problems with your current system.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div>Rebecca</div><div><br></div><div><br><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 1:21 AM, Robin Gross <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:robin@ipjustice.org">robin@ipjustice.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">
<div>Dear All:</div><div><br></div><div>LAST DAY to mark your availability to participate in NCUC's monthly constituency meeting to be held August 10-16, 2009.</div><div><br></div><div>Please mark your availability to participate at this link:</div>
<a href="http://doodle.com/375kdgnzasd45a3m" target="_blank">http://doodle.com/375kdgnzasd45a3m</a><br> <span style="border-collapse:separate;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;text-align:auto;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px"><div>
<br></div><div>The monthly constituency meeting presents a good opportunity meet many of our new members and acquaint them with issues before the GNSO; to hear from our GNSO Councilors on issues before the GNSO; to hear from working group and committee representatives; to receive feedback from the membership; and further develop policy issues and constituency positions. </div>
<div><br></div><div>I hope you will all participate in the meeting - especially if you want to keep informed on the latest developments - or if you want to provide feedback and direction in policy development. Together with this discussion list and the NING website, the monthly constituency online meeting is an important part of constituency policy development. So please join in the call. We have much to discuss. Thank you!</div>
<div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div>Robin</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></span><div><span style="border-collapse:separate;color:rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;text-align:auto;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px"><div>
<br></div><div>IP JUSTICE</div><div>Robin Gross, Executive Director</div><div>1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 USA</div><div>p: +1-415-553-6261 f: +1-415-462-6451</div><div>w: <a href="http://www.ipjustice.org" target="_blank">http://www.ipjustice.org</a> e: <a href="mailto:robin@ipjustice.org" target="_blank">robin@ipjustice.org</a></div>
<br></span><br> </div><br></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Rebecca MacKinnon<br>Open Society Fellow | Co-founder, GlobalVoicesOnline.org<br>Assistant Professor, Journalism & Media Studies Centre, University of Hong Kong<br>
<br>UK: +44-7759-863406<br>USA: +1-617-939-3493<br>HK: +852-6334-8843<br>Mainland China: +86-13710820364<br><br>E-mail: <a href="mailto:rebecca.mackinnon@gmail.com">rebecca.mackinnon@gmail.com</a><br>Blog: <a href="http://RConversation.blogs.com">http://RConversation.blogs.com</a><br>
Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/rmack">http://twitter.com/rmack</a><br>Friendfeed: <a href="http://friendfeed.com/rebeccamack">http://friendfeed.com/rebeccamack</a><br>
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