Feedback: Have a chat with us: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar 18 June

55.7k views

Page selection:
  • arno
  • arno's Avatar
  • Moderator
  • Senior Research Fellow Stockholm Environment Institute
  • Posts: 320
  • Karma: 20
  • Likes received: 179

Re: Feedback: Have a chat with us: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar 18 June

Hi Krischan
We use various predetermined layouts during presentations. We have used breakout rooms. And recently we set up a dial-in account. This will be used later this month.

Maybe you would like to hold a webinar on a relevant topic?
Regards
Arno Rosemarin PhD
Stockholm Environment Institute
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.sei.org
www.ecosanres.org

Please Log in to join the conversation.

You need to login to reply
  • JKMakowka
  • JKMakowka's Avatar
  • Just call me Kris :)
  • Posts: 1044
  • Karma: 35
  • Likes received: 359

Re: Feedback: Have a chat with us: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar 18 June

I stand corrected on the usability with mobile then :) I assumed given the general lack of flash on most mobile devices that it would not work, but of course with a dedicated app it is a different story.

My main concern is that most modern operating systems and browsers are discouraging the use of flash or even disabling it outright. The chrome browser even has it's own cut down version that as far as I have heard will be soon disabled all together, so it is only a matter of time before only older Windows systems will be still able to connect from a desktop PC.

I understand that Adobe connect also has a lot of advantages and additional features, but which of those are really used in the SuSanA sessions? Has anyone ever actually tried to call in using a land-line for example?

Please Log in to join the conversation.

You need to login to reply
  • arno
  • arno's Avatar
  • Moderator
  • Senior Research Fellow Stockholm Environment Institute
  • Posts: 320
  • Karma: 20
  • Likes received: 179

Re: Feedback: Have a chat with us: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar 18 June

Hi Krischan
Thanks for asking about Adobe Connect. We looked at the alternatives (and so did many universities, institutes and businesses around the world). There is no perfect video-conference system but Adobe Connect does still stand up to the competition - based on perfromance features, stability, capacity re numbers of participants, ability to control the software, etc.

Adobe Connect came out on top in this review from last year:
www.werockyourweb.com/gotomeeting-vs-web...ewer-vs-google-plus/
Its critique that there are no toll free telephone numbers to call is incorrect. Adobe offers dial-in and dial-out and free numbers in many countries. It is however weak in providing numbers in Africa to call - only Egypt and South Africa. But Adobe Connect can dial out to any phone number around the world.

Yes Flash has been around for a while but that doesn't mean it should chucked out. WebRTC - a Google experiment like many others, is still being developed.

Adobe Connect works on all major browsers seamlessly and requires no added software that needs clearing through virus control. For people using old machines that have never been updated, I would insist on using Chrome which updates Flash player automatically (for Windows, Mac or Linux).

On mobiles, Adobe Connect works extremely well - Android and IOS - very stable. I have hosted meetings from an Iphone 5.

There are ways of cutting down on bandwidth use from source by decreasing resolution and size of video windows. When using only audio and one speaker at a time Adobe Connect will use less bandwidth than Skype. Regarding dial-in and dial out this is a very powerful function to allow those without Internet to participate.

A proper license costs about 1500 USD per year for rooms with 100 people. The dial-in account is free but costs per minute for each user connected.

We can do some testing if you like from slow internet connections to see how it will perform.
Arno Rosemarin PhD
Stockholm Environment Institute
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.sei.org
www.ecosanres.org
The following user(s) like this post: F H Mughal

Please Log in to join the conversation.

You need to login to reply
  • JKMakowka
  • JKMakowka's Avatar
  • Just call me Kris :)
  • Posts: 1044
  • Karma: 35
  • Likes received: 359

Re: Feedback: Have a chat with us: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar 18 June

Sorry for resurrecting this old topic, but it seems that the idea to switch to a more compatible video-conferencing solution than Adobe Connect never really got traction.

Having fought last time again with this horribly outdated flash based system that only runs properly on certain versions of windows, with certain specific browsers and flash-plugins (i.e. I don't think anyone has gotten it to work on Android, Mac or Linux), am am here to propose yet another alternative:

www.spreed.me/

It's a very modern WebRTC powered solution supported by a German company, so maybe that would be easy for the SuSanA secretariat to get working (at least easier than previous suggestions)? No need to buy the advertised box itself, as the software is also installable on a regular web-server.

Please Log in to join the conversation.

You need to login to reply
  • secretariat
  • secretariat's Avatar
  • Moderator
  • SuSanA secretariat currently allocates 2 full time person equivalents of time from members of GIZ Sustainable Sanitation Team: Arne Panesar, Alexandra Dubois, Maren Heuvels, Teresa Häberlein, Daphne Manolakos and Bettina-Sophie Heinz.
  • Posts: 1004
  • Karma: 23
  • Likes received: 347

Re: Feedback: Have a chat with us: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar 18 June

Dear members,

Trevor Surridge's presentation about SuSanA and Elisabeth von Muench's presentation of the statistics report, both given during the webinar, are now also available as mp3-audio files. This might be of help especially for those members without access to YouTube, and also for those who like to listen to podcasts on their mobile phones.
  • For Trevor's presentation about SuSanA, and Madeleine's words about the 19th SuSanA meeting in Dakar last month click here (presentation starts after 20 seconds of silence)
  • for Elisabeth's input about the forum statistics report click here (the sound starts after 8 seconds of silence)
Best regards,
Lasse, on behalf of the SuSanA secretariat
Posted by a member of the SuSanA secretariat held by the GIZ Sector Program Water Policy – Innovations for Resilience
Located at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Bonn, Germany
Follow us on facebook: www.facebook.com/susana.org, linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/sustainable-sanitation-alliance-susana and twitter: twitter.com/susana_org


Please Log in to join the conversation.

You need to login to reply
  • Elisabeth
  • Elisabeth's Avatar
    Topic Author
  • Moderator
  • Freelance consultant since 2012 (former roles: program manager at GIZ and SuSanA secretariat, lecturer, process engineer for wastewater treatment plants)
  • Posts: 3372
  • Karma: 54
  • Likes received: 930

Re: Feedback: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar Thur., 18 June

Good news: We now have some selected pieces from the open webinar available for a general audience.

I am posting here the links to videos on Youtube, but for people without Youtube access we will also make them available as sound files (mp3 files) later today or tomorrow.

This video here shows Trevor's presentation about SuSanA (which he also gave at the 19th SuSanA meeting in Dakar, Senegal in May), followed by some words from Madeleine Fogde providing her views of the 19th SuSanA meeting:



Madeleine's input starts here:


The slides that Trevor used are available here:
www.susana.org/images/documents/04-meeti...tions/1-Overview.pdf


And this video shows the part in the webinar where I spoke about the forum statistics report, just highlighting some important trends (which I had also mentioned here on the forum ):



Another video clip about the 5000th member announcement, I will post in another thread here .

We have selected these three segments of the webinar for "general consumption". If you have a particular interest in the entire open webinar - and this applies particularly to those people who had registered but couldn't attend due to sound problems; but also to others with a special interest in SuSanA - we can make the sound file of the entire hour available to you on request.

Please send such a request for the mp3 file link to the SuSanA secretariat at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

(we decided not to post the entire sound file here, as it was an open, free discussion and as such probably not so relevant for non-SuSanA members)

Regards,
Elisabeth
Dr. Elisabeth von Muench
Freelance consultant on environmental and climate projects
Located in Ulm, Germany
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
My Wikipedia user profile: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EMsmile
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/elisabethvonmuench/

Please Log in to join the conversation.

You need to login to reply
  • Elisabeth
  • Elisabeth's Avatar
    Topic Author
  • Moderator
  • Freelance consultant since 2012 (former roles: program manager at GIZ and SuSanA secretariat, lecturer, process engineer for wastewater treatment plants)
  • Posts: 3372
  • Karma: 54
  • Likes received: 930

Re: Feedback: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar Thur., 18 June

Dear all,

Thanks for your valuable feedback and all the great suggestions that have come in so far! Very interesting.

I have to apologise to Dorothee and Sowmya, who made great suggestions on what we should discuss in the webinar (scrol up to access their posts), but we were only able to scratch the surface on some of them. One hour is very short, although on the other hand it's amazing how much came up in just this one hour of focused time in an energetic group. (I reckon we might need to move their suggestions into dedicated threads in order to not lose them)

Some people had problems with the sound or even getting into the virtual room (which was a real pity but had to do with non-updated flash players apparently) but also very many didn't have technical problems. It seems that the video quality from our participants in Mexico was even so good that they could read the name on the shirt of my son who was far behind me at the end of the webinar when he was getting bored with waiting....
They wrote in the chat:
Team WTR: (17:18) Elisabeth we can see Lionel Messi jumping on a bed behind you
:woohoo:

I have attached the log from the chat field which gives a good overview of topics that came up (note that the webinar officially ended at 17:00 but some people continued chatting for a while longer - like in real life):

This attachment is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.


And here is also a screenshot to give you a visual impression (I took it at the beginning of the webinar when only few people had entered the room so far). In the end we had about 35 participants.



I think we succeeded in providing an open space for active participation from the floor - something which I have missed in many other webinars which consist of 90% presentations and 10% discussions. Ours was more like 20% presentation and 80% discussion (maybe the inputs by Trevor and myself should have been even shorter, in fact).

I really like Trevor's suggestion of coming up with a format for an open SuSanA webinar that can become a regular feature in our diaries and does not take up much time for setting up and advertising (for this particular webinar, I did a lot of advertising upfront via twitter, Sanitation Updates and e-mails; which took up quite a bit of my time in the days leading up to the webinar).

Personally, I really like the user experience that Adobe Connect gives. However, perhaps indeed something simpler which works with slower internet connections is needed. Mind you, I do find having webcams or at least sound quite important for the experience. If it was all just typing in the chat field it wouldn't be the same...
What do people think about Google Hangout? I have never used that but perhaps others have made good experiences with it? Let's keep on exploring and testing until we find the tool that suits us best.

Greetings,
Elisabeth

P.S. I like Madeleine's idea to make the next SuSanA meeting in Stockholm into a parallel e-meeting as much as possible. That would really be good and should be planned and advertised well in advance. One needs to block out one's Saturday if one wants to attend though (21-22 Aug.).
Dr. Elisabeth von Muench
Freelance consultant on environmental and climate projects
Located in Ulm, Germany
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
My Wikipedia user profile: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EMsmile
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/elisabethvonmuench/
Attachments:

Please Log in to join the conversation.

You need to login to reply
  • joeturner
  • joeturner's Avatar
  • Posts: 717
  • Karma: 23
  • Likes received: 185

Re: Feedback: Have a chat with us: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar Thur., 18 June and statistics report

I was just experimenting with Dorothee in the Big Blue Button demo, it seems to work quite well - although there are some technical issues - it seems to use a server, so we'd have to set that up. Also I have not yet worked out how to phone in to it. But as an idea it seems to be a good one.

Please Log in to join the conversation.

You need to login to reply
  • joeturner
  • joeturner's Avatar
  • Posts: 717
  • Karma: 23
  • Likes received: 185

Re: Feedback: Have a chat with us: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar Thur., 18 June and statistics report

Ah-ha, that looks like a useful thing, Krischan. It looks like phoning in is also an option for those low bandwidth. Happy to give it a try with anyone else who wants to experiment.

Please Log in to join the conversation.

You need to login to reply
  • JKMakowka
  • JKMakowka's Avatar
  • Just call me Kris :)
  • Posts: 1044
  • Karma: 35
  • Likes received: 359

Re: TODAY: Have a chat with us: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar Thur., 18 June at 16:00 CEST (Geneva time) - and statistics report

joeturner wrote: I was thinking we should do some more research about available meeting services to test to see which are best to use for those with limited bandwidth. One thing is that this system maybe causes problems as it tries to load video and images even for those who (maybe) can't use it. I wonder if there is something which could be used which has two options (ie one which loads all the videos and one which doesn't). It is nice to see each other's faces, but maybe this is causing a problem for some.


There is the open-source option called Big Blue Button bigbluebutton.org/ that could be directly integrated into the SuSanA website and which uses modern WebRTC audio that might solve some of the issues.
The following user(s) like this post: madeleine

Please Log in to join the conversation.

You need to login to reply
  • madeleine
  • madeleine's Avatar
  • Sanitation is dignity and life. Through living and working 15 years in (Mozambique) where Cholera is endemic, the importance of sanitation became evident, furthermore it is clear that sanitation is more than an infrastructure
  • Posts: 114
  • Karma: 13
  • Likes received: 74

Re: Feedback: Have a chat with us: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar Thur., 18 June and statistics report

Dear SuSanA secretariat
Thank you for organizing the revitalizing chat yesterday. I have not been that active on the forum lately but this was a nice comeback, hopefully there will be more opportunities.
Yesterdays open mic session indicates the strength of SuSanA. The convening power of SuSanA mission and vision bring together people with a lot of experience within the sector people who want to connect share experiences and learn together.

It is also timely to reflect on the ICT development that has taken place with the development of SuSanA. The possibility of global connection is truly amazing and SuSanA has also been able to make a very good and timely use of the technology. WE could probably use the technology out there much more. Based on yesterday´s conversation I think we actually more than ever need a communication and capacity development strategy in place. Already from the start we worked to develop a capacity development strategy and the initial drafts have ended up in a file somewhere in a members hard desk. It would be a good investment to develop a strategy that would enable us tailor and organize our resources making them accessible by using different communication tools for our different target groups referring to practitioners , researchers, students etc

As an example I think SuSanA could use Twitter much more efficiently to lead people into interesting resources, articles on the website etc. WIKI is powerful and so is indeed Twitter and requires less work :) . Twitter can be programed long time a head and it is an easy channel to present our interesting resources on a regular bases.

Furthermore my recommendation is not see other sanitation online communities as competitors on the a contrary they are complementary and attracts other very important user groups. More than ever before we are working towards the same goal sanitation for all and Susana take the additional step to make this goal sustainable.

To blame limitation in growth of SuSanA on a ecosan stigma is contraproductive in a time where we are heading toward integration of the development goals and in time where the agriculture sector is proactively posing a demand on the nutrients and want reuse to become part of national and global food security strategies www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe/en/. In Sweden the agriculture sector has pushed forward certification standards for Urine and Blackwater to make the agriculture products acceptable for the Swedish market see the resume from the Emilie Jung and Ola Palm attached.The long term connection with the productive sectors is rather a merit than a liability for future growth of the network.

This and much more will be discussed in Stockholm please share the invitation for our SuSanA meeting in Stockholm on August 22 and we will really try to prepare the meeting so that it can be a productive online meeting as well.

Greeeting from a Sweden in midsummer time : Madeleine
Madeleine Fogde
Program Director SIANI
Senior Project Manager at SEI
Tel +46 (0)8 6747652
Fax + 46 (0)8 6747020
Cell + 46 737078576
SKYPE mfogde71811
Kräftriket 2B
SE-10691 Stockholm
www.siani.se
www.ecosanres.org
www.sei-international.org

This message has an attachment file.
Please log in or register to see it.

Please Log in to join the conversation.

You need to login to reply
  • BPopov
  • BPopov's Avatar
  • Ecologist involved with ecosanitation in Ukrainian Carpathians
  • Posts: 147
  • Karma: 7
  • Likes received: 50

Re: Feedback: Have a chat with us: „Open microphone“ SuSanA online webinar Thur., 18 June and statistics report

I liked it. Kind of new experince for me. First had to get used to it. Of course face to face is better but this still a possibility to get the feeling of community. I am sure if we do it on regular basis we find the format it will work as close to live conference as possible and also solve the technical problems. I actually do not tink that presentations are useful in that kind of meeting. They can be downloaded separetely and we'd better stick to words and discussions . Maybe some occasional pictures to support what we say but very limeted.

I am mysef would be very interesred to talk on technical issues of sanitation systems.
Like say the subject "Public Compost Toilet problems" or "Competition aspects of CW and compact SBR" or even "Toilet ventilators".

Thank you very much everyone! Was very nice to hear you and I hope to do it again.
Bogdan Popov
The Ecosolutions Forge
www.ecoforge.org

Please Log in to join the conversation.

You need to login to reply
Page selection:
Share this thread:
Recently active users. Who else has been active?
Time to create page: 0.167 seconds
Powered by Kunena Forum