Thursday, 12 Aug, 2 PM CST... Chautauqua1 Post-mortem

[Margaret Lewis]

All,

Outstanding job! It is amazing to see the progress that was made from our June
session at Argonne. The video and audio were very good -- and there was very
little delay with video so mouths mostly moved with the sound! 

I talked to a number of attendees to get their reaction. Most people were
appropriately amazed. The UNM audience was very engaged with Rick's speech and
Rick's and Larry's Q&A session with live and remote sites. Rezuna's speech and
the tour of the Access Center were also excellent -- walking through the Access
Center really proved to the group the capabilities of the system. The video was
amazing for a moving camera (and it was nice camera work). The interaction of
Ken Bishop with NCSA, followed by Nestor's presentation once again had the
audience totally engaged. Driving the microscope via the Internet while Nestor
interacted was another high point. The audience also enjoyed watching set up for
sessions in the morning and between breaks and a majority of the attendees came
over to the "command center" to see the tech staff in action.

I won't be able to make the Access Grid meeting on Thursday -- but in talking
with UKY folks we'd like to see if we could more formally arrange for remote
audiences at various sites for different presentations. The interaction of live
and remote audiences with speaker was one of the most engaging parts of the
demonstration. UKY is only hosting a few remote sessions -- right now it looks
like it is Rick's speech, a tour of Access Center, and the possibility of a
couple of demos -- so remote audiences will provide the majority of interaction
opportunities. If we can get at least one site on-line with at least a small
audience (and a few planted questions) for a majority of their presentations --
this should take us to the next level.

UKY will only have one projector so they will arrange their screen differently.
Power Point will be displayed in 1/4 of the screen -- I am assuming this is
doable since there was a practice session at UKY a few weeks ago? Also -- we
need to get smoother with distributed Power Point. We did much better today but
it was a bit rough start yesterday. 

Also -- a site without echo cancellation definitely presents a problem. While
they might receive good audio from other sites -- their transmissions back are
very annoying. We need to limit the interaction with these sites to bare minimum
-- and mainly have them talk to main site and have them muted when we talk to
them.

I think speakers who stay in one spot (like a podium or are seated at a table)
provide the best video. I know people don't like to limit speaker's travel space
-- but Larry, Rick, and Access Center speakers came across very well because
they were all in fixed spot. I would recommend that we try and limit speakers to
a fixed spot.

Once again -- many thanks to the entire tech group for an outstanding job! A
special thanks to UNM for being the pioneers -- it took lots of guts -- and to
those wild folks at Argonne who had this crazy vision!

FYI -- We got an excellent clip on a local TV channel and a great article in
Albuqurque Tribune -- with a picture of Larry talking to a screen with eight
remote shots. 

Margaret


Mark Hereld wrote:
> 
> All,
> 
> At the risk of jinxing it all, I think that we all really pulled the
> AccessGrid together.  Despite some glitches, yesterday's demonstration went
> quite well.  The backchannel was quite well used, and many of the
> interactions went very smoothly.  We learned a lot.  And today it showed.
> The audio was exceptional for the most part, and I think we applied a great
> deal of experience to finding the best way to work with the network and
> tools to good effect.  To a large degree, I think that the tech disappeared
> into the background from the perspective of the meeting attendees.
> Exceptional performance, IMHO.
> 
> We should get together and capture the lessons learned from this experience
> before they fade from our memories.  I suggest, after some small
> consultation on the mud, that we meet on the AccessGrid at 2 PM CDT on
> Thursday, 12 August, two days from today.
> 
> If you participated in the tech support, please attend this meeting: your
> input is valuable.  Anybody else who witnessed the events is also welcome
> to participate.  Just head to your nearest AccessGrid Node and coordinate
> with the Local Node Operation Crew.
> 
> Cheers,
> Mark
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