For the past several years the International Conferences have had portions of the event streamed on the internet. Recently this has been done at the conferences in Denver, Jerusalem and Newark. Five sessions were streamed in Denver, three in Jerusalem, and eight in Newark last July. On Saturday alone, the on-line attendance in four streamed sessions was 38, 41, 51, and 43. Elsewhere in this Essay there is a report on the very successful Geek Camp this past August which had over 600 registrants and up to 400 on at a time.

The SAICO staff technical person is Laura and others involved have been Tom K., Rich P., Ben L., and Manse B. Setting up the equipment and facilitating the streaming takes the full attention of Laura and two other operators.

In addition to the computer, a Blue broadcast quality microphone was purchased because it offered both a wide range and strong rejection of background noise. SAICO’s laptop is used for the broadcasting and another member of the team uses their computer to check the quality. We use ethernet cables and USB cables rather than wireless connections. We could really use another techie to help with the survey and information on the screen.

“It’s a learning process” as users become more friendly with the software. We are not perfect! Overall the streaming from Jerusalem was a relative “disaster.” A major thing learned was the importance of pre-registration for the streaming.

The convention audio stream was heard by a group of five in Holland. A comment from a sponsee not able to attend was: “It’s just like I was there! I heard you speak!”

Some things we’ve learned about live streaming. People come on and drop off frequently. Reasons they drop off include difficulty with wireless connections, only part-time availability, and work or home obligations. Experience suggests that readers of the electronic Essay and website users act in a similar way. They start and stop reading, read just a few portions, and place the importance of reading a PDF or file below other obligations.