Video Conferencing software

OK my original question that I wanted to ask the Loomio Software Development team - was this:

There currently seems to be NO video conferencing software in the whole world that can queue people up automatically in a realtime democratic way to speak for large groups of people. Our Australian political Party - “Online Direct Democracy” formally “Senator Online” - currently uses the Google Hangout Software for Video Conferencing for our own Internal Party decision making - with groups of up to 11 people. We also (of course) use Loomio itself to make decisions. Loomio is far far easier to make decisions than Video conferencing - but occasionally we need to gather everyone in the same cyberspace at the same time to collectively solve a problem. (And it feels nice - to actually “see” and “hear” people - it fosters a sense of trust - and you can more easily understand people’s personalities)

So I am wondering whether LOOMIO could create a PAID PREMIUM SERVICE for its clients that would include Video Conferencing for large groups of people. Some of the things that we as a party require this future software to do is to automatically queue people up for speaking. By this I mean for example “Anne” is currently talking and has been talking for about 3mins… Towards the end of her speech she suddenly inspires 4 others to reply to her or to raise a similar topic/idea. Currently as Google Hangout works - ALL 4 start trying to talk after Anne has finished. This leads to some microphones being muted - and general confusion - and a lot of - “oh sorry you go” etc etc… Could there be a solution to this? Could the solution be that as Anne was talking that Tom, Peter, Paul & Mary press a green button called NEXT as soon as they have an idea and want to talk? If Mary pressed the button 2 seconds before Tom - then Mary would automatically be queued up to speak next, followed by Tom etc etc. Everyone would see on the screen who is queued up next…. You could even have a time limit warning on each speaker - a clock countdown or polite reminder that you maybe “hogging” the meeting.

It would also be good if you could have a “like” button or a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” button - to use WHILST people are speaking….which would give realtime feedback to the speaker without 15 people trying to all say at once “yes - i agree with you”…

So does anyone think this could be possible?

Kind regards,
Oliver Minter
Online Direct Democracy Party (Australia)
https://www.facebook.com/oddemocracy

Interesting idea @OliverMinter

I guess I don't really understand why we need to build a new solution, when we can achieve this with existing videoconferencing tools and some speaking protocols. It seems like is a problem to be solves with facilitation rather than software.

I honestly prefer to avoid using meetings (of any sort) to make decisions. It often seems to devolve into coercive pressures, both before and during such meetings. That's one reason I like Loomio.

What is the largest completely interactive video conference that loomio itself has held online? And which software did you guys use?

@alanna

@OliverMinter we regularly have member meetings with google hangouts. Usually 5 or so people join in via hangouts and many more in person.

We're focused on written communication in Loomio for the time being.. it's something quite different to video or in person communication.

Also.. Don't believe the hype. I think it's very unlikely that we could do a better job of building online video conferencing software than Google. It's nice of you to consider us for it.. but ours does not exist.. which makes it perfect in theory.. and useless in practice.

ok... well atleast i'm happy to hear that you guys are using Google Hangouts for online meetings - because that is what we are doing. And yes Greg, I am totally aware that for us atleast, (and you) written online collaboration is much more effective than an online meeting... but sometimes we just have to hold an online meeting... 5 people is completely manageable - but when we need to hold online meetings with 20+ members - i personally dont have any idea how we are going to be able to manage them. I guess your right - you just try to avoid meetings... but what about AGM's - (in person and online)? How do you all vote at an AGM online?

@OliverMinter I would suggest that you change your practices. Have online discussions and when you think you've reached agreement, don't vote. Just assign someone the task of capturing the details in a loomio proposal and let that play out in its own time. The same thing for when discussions are too boring or there is detail that people don't want to have to take in at the moment, just say "We'll move this discussion to loomio and move on to the next topic"

Thank you Oliver for your additional feedback. I'd like to clarify that I'm not anti-meeting per se! People should interact richly when they can. :) Also, I'm not expecting organizations in general to suddenly abandon decision-making meeting agendas. I'm just expressing a strong personal preference.

Your question about AGMs is 100% valid, and I guess Google Hangouts is about the best anyone can do right now. There are other options, but I doubt they'll be able to hang well with Google. (Who knows.)

@chelsearobinson and I recently participated in a video conference call with about 100 people. It was really interesting. There was a moderator and we were the featured speakers, and to facilitate discussion people typed questions into the chat box and we read them and responded. If someone wanted to speak more in-depth they signaled in the chat and we verbally called them by name and they unmuted and spoke. Worked pretty well.

I think this is down to good facilitation more than software. If people use protocols such as rounds, a talking stack, a designed agenda, and a named moderator, you can have a discussion with large numbers of people that functions well.... the scenario on video chat is not that different than an in-person meeting.

Another interesting idea would be for people to record video response to a prompt and then everyone can watch each other's messages.

We've also done interesting processes where we, for example, were collaboratively interviewing candidates for a job, but in our network of 250 at Enspiral no one person was making the decision. We had a Loomio discussion where we posted their application materials and people submitted questions, then had a google hangout with a panel of about 5 people who asked the group's questions to the candidate and facilitated a discussion with them. We recorded the hangout so everyone could watch later and then used Loomio to decide who to hire.