The Money Mustache Community
Mustachian Community => Meetups and Social Events => Camp Mustache Events => Topic started by: arebelspy on February 12, 2017, 05:55:34 PM
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I'm thinking about organizing a small virtual Camp Mustache, for forum members to connect a bit better and get to know each other, and learn some Mustachian things from those willing to teach.
It won't have the best parts of Camp Mustache (the hanging out and impromptu hallway chats), but parts of it can be replicated; enough that it could be worth doing despite the drawbacks, IMO, because of the big benefit: allowing people who can't travel to participate.
Initial questions:
1) Is this something people would be interested in once kinks are worked out?
2) Is there anyone willing to participate in beta runs, understanding it will be awkward and filled with technology problems?
3) Suggestions for the technology? Ideally looking for two different products (hopefully free):
A) something that would allow ~5-6 people to video chat split screen at a time, and
B) Something that would allow a main "speaker" to present to a group of 20-50 (ala a webcast/webinar), with the 20-50 people being able to ask questions (via a text-chat, and/or individually one at a time via audio).
I have a few ideas for this based on the three Camp Mustache Seattle events we've been to, and how CMSeattle 4 and Camp Mustache Canada are shaping up, but before I get into that, the first thing I wanted to do is broach the idea for interest, and see about technology thoughts.
(Time zone stuff will obviously be an issue, but we'll work through that.)
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(Post reserved for future additional info.)
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(Post reserved for future additional info.)
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I can help test the Mac and iPad tech link. I've listened to live webinars on both - but always with commercial software (free viewer though).
I'm in the US Central time zone.
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Awesome idea! I would be interested. I can help test Windows connections. Also, in Central US.
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3) Suggestions for the technology? Ideally looking for two different products (hopefully free):
A) something that would allow ~5-6 people to video chat split screen at a time, and
B) Something that would allow a main "speaker" to present to a group of 20-50 (ala a webcast/webinar), with the 20-50 people being able to ask questions (via a text-chat, and/or individually one at a time via audio).
We used Adobe Connect in work recently for the first time. We didn't use the video, just the phone conference, but I remember talking about potentially using it for interviews ('cos we hate Skype interviews, something always goes wrong) so I'm fairly sure that it it did have video capability. The presentation and file sharing parts were really good. It even has a whiteboard function, which I found a lot of fun (when we were testing it. I restrained myself during the actual meeting). There was a "chat" part, and people could click on a little microphone to indicate they wanted to speak.
It's not free but it's not outrageously expensive, or at least inexpensive enough that my boss was considering paying for it. Then we found out someone else who would be on the meeting already had an account so we just used that. There is a free trial so you might get away with using that for a while.
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Very cool idea. I would be interested in participating.
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This is very cool. I would be glad to participate in beta runs and the actual event.
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This is very cool. I would be glad to participate in beta runs and the actual event.
+1.
Also, while I don't have experience with conferencing software, I'd be willing to help with that if someone can take the lead on it.
Timezone +8 GMT. Can others post their GMT timezone as well as the colloquial name for it to make conversions easier?
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Don't worry about time zones for now. That will come a bit later.
I'm thinking I will likely run multiple for different continents (though anyone from any continent could sign up for any one, they'd just have to participate at what would be odd hours for them, but there would at least be the possibility of one more aligned with their normal time zones).
But everyone posting time zones right now isn't needed, yet. :)
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Sounds great! I'd be interested in attending.
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I would love to participate!
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I like it!
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Don't worry about time zones for now. That will come a bit later.
I'm thinking I will likely run multiple for different continents (though anyone from any continent could sign up for any one, they'd just have to participate at what would be odd hours for them, but there would at least be the possibility of one more aligned with their normal time zones).
But everyone posting time zones right now isn't needed, yet. :)
I agree that setting times isn't needed until close to the time. I have participated in Webinars before that were sited in the US. They tended to have 2 time slots - either during the day in the US or in the evening (for workers and non-workers I guess). At some times of the year, one was in the middle of the night, and at other times, the other was no good. This is because we are in the southern hemisphere, where it is winter when the northern hemisphere is having summer, so when we have daylight saving, you don't, and vice versa, so the time difference changes by a couple of hours.
Maybe this is obvious to everyone on the forum, but last year, as we were descending to land in Sydney airport on 21st June, the girl behind me told her seat mates that they would really enjoy Sydney because it was sunlight at 5am each day. When I suggested that even Sydney wouldn't be light that early on the winter solstice, the Americans next to me were surprised that it was winter in Australia (so that made 5 US citizens who had packed for the wrong weather), so I suspect that people from the northern hemisphere rarely have an understanding that things are different in other parts of the globe.
It would be nice to have a variety of places represented in some forums, because different cultures have different ideas, so sessions could be much more educational - gardening, home energy efficiency... On the other hand, some things (like investments) tend to be country specific because of laws and taxes. So it would be good to mix up break out groups.
It would be a lot of fun to participate!!!
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I figured other people posting their timezones was more for the "I can help with planning, will be able to respond/ awake at these times".
I like the idea of getting a good variety of speakers!
Deborah, I'm very amused by the northerners you had to correct :)
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Good thoughts deborah!
Country specific stuff, and more general stuff will both definitely be happening (pending volunteers to "run" sessions).
Deborah, I'm very amused by the northerners you had to correct :)
WELL WHO HAS CHRISTMAS IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER???
;)
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Good thoughts deborah!
Country specific stuff, and more general stuff will both definitely be happening (pending volunteers to "run" sessions).
Deborah, I'm very amused by the northerners you had to correct :)
WELL WHO HAS CHRISTMAS IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER???
;)
You mean that you DON'T?
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I agree that setting times isn't needed until close to the time. I have participated in Webinars before that were sited in the US. They tended to have 2 time slots - either during the day in the US or in the evening (for workers and non-workers I guess). At some times of the year, one was in the middle of the night, and at other times, the other was no good. This is because we are in the southern hemisphere, where it is winter when the northern hemisphere is having summer, so when we have daylight saving, you don't, and vice versa, so the time difference changes by a couple of hours.
Maybe this is obvious to everyone on the forum, but last year, as we were descending to land in Sydney airport on 21st June, the girl behind me told her seat mates that they would really enjoy Sydney because it was sunlight at 5am each day. When I suggested that even Sydney wouldn't be light that early on the winter solstice, the Americans next to me were surprised that it was winter in Australia (so that made 5 US citizens who had packed for the wrong weather), so I suspect that people from the northern hemisphere rarely have an understanding that things are different in other parts of the globe.
Even for those of us who are aware of the differences, it can be hard to keep in the forefront of our minds. For example, when I came inside after shovelling snow for the 2nd time today, the activity level in a current Australian Gardening thread gave me a little bit of a pause... :-)
ARS, I'd be up for giving it a try. I am not your techy girl, for sure, but maybe that's good. Surely you will need some beta testers who don't actually know what they're doing, to make sure the tech part is "accessible" for us all? Right???
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I'd be interested in participating and/or beta testing. I used to run webinar meetings as part of my job. The setup was very similar to what you are talking about - multiple speakers/presenters all in different locations. We used GoToWebinar which is a paid product.
Would Google hangout work, I wonder? I think that's free as long as you have a google account, (which is also free.) I think that would allow 5-6 people to do a split screen share.
ETA: GoToWebinar has a free 30 day trial. If you had a different Mustachian sign up for a free trial each month that could be a free option...
WebEx and Adobe Connect are two other paid options that probably offer similar free trials.
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I'm interested. I'm sorry I don't have any technology recommendations.
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Posting to follow. What month would this happen?
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wow very fun!
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No ideas on the technology front but we would join in on the fun. Just let us know when and how we could help.
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Interested!
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Awesome idea! Happy to help out however is needed :)
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Look into appear.in. Very minimal setup, just a browser and a plugin if you want to do screen sharing. No registration needed, just send a link and you're good to go.
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I'd be very interested in a virtual camp, and would be more than happy to help whenever and however I could. I don't have much tech know-how, but I'd be willing to help test platforms and strategies for running the meetings.
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Tech know how will not be required, other than following some simple step-by-step instructions to get connected that will be provided.
Just soliciting ideas for the software from those who would know; if you are someone who doesn't, that's fine! :)
Paid options are acceptable if significantly better than the free ones and if free for the participants (e.g. only the organizer has to pay).
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Could be interesting. :)
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Interested in helping out, beta testing and attending.
In the technology front, here are some suggestions:
1. https://zoom.us is great for presentations. Only the host pays. But probably harder to arrange group chats, because each "meeting" needs a (paying) host.
2. All Google. Google hangouts for group chats. YouTube live for presentations, with Google presentations Q&A. See https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7083786 Downside is that people may feel obligated to use their real name accounts.
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Happy to participate and beta-test. No experience with this type of software except as a participant.
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Do it.
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Interested! I'm keeping an eye on CMC and if it happens again may try to attend, but in the mean time a virtual CM would be awesome.
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Zoom, while not free for that crowd size would be the best choice for video conferencing. They have a bunch of new features including the ability to manually or automatically move people between a main room and up to 4 breakout groups.
Much more stable than google and allows for both audio and video recording, webinar or collaboration based, screen sharing, multiple person view, chat, on screen polls - lots of good features.
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I have experience with a bunch of these for similar educational purposes. In the past, I have found that:
Zoom has been pretty good/reliable, including for groups of up to 15-20 people all participating/interacting. It's what I'd recommend for this type of purpose.
Google hangouts has ranged from non-functional to barely adequate and suffers serious quality deterioration somewhere even between 5-10 people.
I have used "Go to" (meeting, webinar) too, but not enough to generalize about quality/cost. I presume there is some paid version that will work well for 1 presenter/large audience.
I've also used more pricey digital ed software meant for online courses and would be happy to discuss privately. But if you don't have someone with an individual or institutional license (I don't have mine anymore), it's a non-starter anyway.
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I would be interested in attending. No software input.
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I would def. be interested in attending!
Hangouts has a simple screen share system, but aside from that, I don't have much input!
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I'm interested in attending!
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umpf? maybe?
No help here on the tech side (only just realised my recent computer issues were due to a defective mouse).
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I'm a tech spaz but I'd love to participate!
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(1) Yea, sounds interesting
(2) Perhaps, but would be heavily dependent upon when
(3)(A) Google Hangouts is a good choice here. I have personally been in multiple 5-6 person video chats and they worked well. As with any technology, there is a "startup cost" to get people initially familiar with it, but after that it runs smooth.
(3)(B) Is it 20 or 50? I ask because this is - in my experience - significant. There are a number of the solutions that start to break down at about 25 people, especially when there is video or screen sharing.
So I think you should think about what precisely you need. For example, if you are expecting this to be just a "broadcast", then YouTube Live or some equivalent might work (and you can project Google Hangouts to YouTube Live to get scale - Google for "Hangouts on Air").
The gap to what you have described then becomes the chat/questions - and how to draw those in. Most times when I have done webinars, they have been recorded, so we are careful about how questions come in. If it's all company-internal, we use an operator and allow people to speak. If it includes random Internet people, then it's text only, so we can choose what audio is permanently recorded. This avoids pitfalls of open microphones for un-validated people. In a rare case, we used closed registration and allowed open mic, since we reviewed the attendees in advance to know it didn't have competitors, media, et al. It's easy to think everyone showing up will be nice - and in general that will probably be the case - but you also know how comments can go in news articles about FIRE :)
One other point on it coming back to what you want to have happen. If you want the audience to be able to interact with each other, then that may provide different requirements than if it's just question gathering. If it's just gathering, you could use Hangouts/YouTube have someone acting as a gateway and then asking the question of the rest of the "panel of presenters". They could even be monitoring many forums (Twitter, some chat room, et al) to pull in questions. If you want the questions to potentially be answered by other participants and answer good FAQs or hard questions "on air" (usually how it happens at my work), that may require more of a formal webinar software (which tend to be pricey)... but that is also a scenario we only use internal to my company... the external stuff is all questions only to the presenters.
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Definitely interested if this is still in works. Also open to help beta testing.
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revived thread here but i'm interested.
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Reviving this thread to suggest a twist on @arebelspy's original idea: a virtual class where the Camp Mustache founders teach folks how to host a Camp Mustache in their area. Is anyone interested in this? We're doing a renewed push for more local Camp Mustaches, and can provide resources for getting one started.
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I'm interested in the original idea, and I'm certainly not against yolfer's idea.
For a single speaker to 20-30 people, been there, done that. I've been using a proprietary software (Wirecast) but have been intending to switch to the FOSS OBS (https://obsproject.com/). I've been streaming from my home Internet connection but also intend to move into the cloud and use S3 to serve the video parts.
The split screen...I have some ideas. Are these 5-6 people the only ones viewing, or would this be a panel discussion being watched by many others?
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Reviving this thread to suggest a twist on @arebelspy's original idea: a virtual class where the Camp Mustache founders teach folks how to host a Camp Mustache in their area. Is anyone interested in this? We're doing a renewed push for more local Camp Mustaches, and can provide resources for getting one started.
I personally could use this kind of kick in the ass.