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Colleagues
For context, I recently attended ITU-T WTSA in Geneva. My first trip in over two years was back to Geneva :- )
Anyway, this was an in-person meeting with remote participation. There were ~1500 people in-person with only ~500 remote. Of those in person were participants from China and Japan who would be placed in two week quarantine on their return. And there were also participants from the US and Canada who spent a two week quarantine in Geneva after testing positive on their exit COVID test.
All delegates were required to wear masks while in the conference building, except while eating/drinking. Though some also removed masks to speak. While Swiss rules changed just before the meeting, ITU was prepared to setup COVID testing protocols to enter the conference. For the closing, ITU simply offered guidance on where to get COVID testing to return home.
The ITU meeting facilities are fully equipped by default (with microphones at every seat and cameras that zoom in on the speaker automatically). There was also simultaneous translation and captioning of all meetings. And remote delegates on Zoom had the same experience – including that they could not self-unmute. The chair had to recognize the speaker before the moderator would unmute them. The chair had to watch two queues, though both were presented in every room to them on the same screen – this worked as the requirement was that all chairs were in-person. As a result of the significant support staff, the meeting ran mostly smoothly. There was one noticeable glitch in a plenary where audio was lost for ~10 minutes and the media server had to be rebooted.
Even though the rule in ITU is that only in-person attendees can participate in decision-making, there was considerable interaction (and debate) with remote attendees in most meetings. But on hard topics, the huddles on the sidelines in the physical meeting room made the compromise and decision.
Bottom line is that a well-organized and supported meeting can work in hybrid mode.
So for the July 802 plenary, it will be in-person only unless we actively decide it is not -- with either a motion to make it electronic or hybrid. In my view, the mixed-mode fee motion from March is necessary but not sufficient.
To make this meeting hybrid, we need to:
- Suspend the in-person only rules (i.e., OpsMan 4.1.3 & 5)
- Approve the necessary additional support and equipment for an effective hybrid meeting
We could do this all in one motion:
Moved: Due to ongoing COVID-19 travel restrictions, provide the necessary additional support and equipment to facilitate the July 2022 Plenary session as mixed mode (in-person with remote participation) and suspend the following rules/procedures in the IEEE 802 LMSC Operations Manual from 09 July 2022 until 16 July 2022:
1. 4.1.3: Meetings
“The IEEE 802 LMSC meets in-person during plenary sessions.”
2. 5. IEEE 802 LMSC sessions
"All Working Group meetings during each Plenary Session shall be exclusively in-person."
Cheers,
Glenn.
--
Glenn Parsons
Chair, IEEE 802.1 WG
+1-514-379-9037
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