Re: Remote Access to IBM i Conferences (was IBM i DevCon)

Speaking as one of the organizers of the RPG & DB2 Summit, we would love to do this - but the costs to-date are prohibitive.

Lighting, video and sound equipment and staff - for four rooms in our case, high-speed data links ... And if you think the $12 a day they charge for internet access in some hotels is high then "you ain't seen nothin' yet" - think a minimum of $150 per-day per-room and that is for a connection marginally better than you'd get in your room. Nowhere near good enough to stream video. Think $500+ per room per day for something that could handle streaming. All this for what will in practice be a less than 100% reliable feed that will make people really mad when it fails as well as annoying the attendees who are there while tech issues are resolved.

In practice I think the only way to make it work is the kind of on-line event that Penton run - or a single track event perhaps set up in a professional TV studio with some live attendees but primarily focussed on the remote attendees.

COMMON are doing a few streamed sessions I think - but they don't have to pay speakers etc. and already have to pay to have a full AV crew on-site for other reasons, so their economic model is very different.

If anyone has any practical ideas on how to make this kind of thing work I'd love to hear them - but right now we have no plans to offer this.


On Aug 17, 2011, at 9:07 AM, midrange-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Too bad either of both of these can't also be setup to allow for
> distance education. Being there would be a better experience by far but
> for those of us who have no travel budget we could still stay current.

Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com