Liz Paton
Policy Analyst
Family Planning – Positive Sexual Health
Level 6, 203 – 209 Willis Street
PO Box 11 515
Wellington 6142

Tel: 04 384 4349
http://www.familyplanning.org.nz

i can help with any of these. first one will make you more independent as far as future uploads and changes. second’s a work-around, third might could provide opportunities to add a lot of multimedia to your site, and the fourth is just giving up

We did record the meeting in Christchruch last week, but I still haven't quite figured out how to distribute the recording. It's 80 MB, and I can only upload files of 7MB onto this blog. Soon I'll make a link available at which you can download the file. I just have to get organised. Sorry for the delay.

Brian King

Otherwise, services such as Tokbox.com provide free teleconferencing with up to 20 people.

It does say volumes about how much we feel some speech is more 'appropriate' (my least favourite word in the English language) than other, though. This is my second discussion this week focusing on whether we temper ourselves in digital conversations.

I agree that to object on the basis of medium alone would be unreasonable. However, an objector might feel that traditional minutes and an electronic recording are really not the same thing. Traditional minutes are a general representation of proceedings, and do not contain every aside, joke, nuance, or 'thinking aloud' utterance. Instead they've been a record of decisions and opinions. They've been written up with their circulatory function in mind; for a public rather than a specific audience.

Having said that, I agree that none of this matters much if people know the recorder is on and know that the verbatim meeting is going to circulate and be a permanent record available to all, regardless of the possessor's intentions. That fact might just change the tone of the meeting a bit, and that's why I feel that it's more important than ever to have the off-record time at the end.

Cheers

For centuries, meetings have had minutes recorded and circulated. Now that we're in the digital age, the minutes are simply taking a different form. I can't imagine why anyone would object on the basis of medium (indeed, I'd be suspicious of someone who did).

Thanks for bringing us into the 21C!

I think it's a good idea to record the meetings. In fact I recorded the first SER meeting for the purposes of writing up the minutes, but I didn't post the recording here because, at the time, that wasn't what participants were told would happen. If everyone at the meeting is told about the recording being circulated, then it's not a problem in my opinion. People can self-select what they say and what they don't. Some people might be concerned (professionally) about the possible circulation of that recording beyond our circle of SER participants. For this reason, I suggest that we make it clear that there will be time provided for a less formal discussions over coffee and cake after the meeting, which won't be recorded.

The idea of teleconferencing had been brought up, in order to enable interaction from a distance. However, unless we can come up with a super cheap way to make that happen, it's unlikely to go ahead.

Thanks for raising this issue.

Brian