EVO Meetings

One of the wonderful things about working at CERN is how international it is. Each of the experimental collaborations boasts members from dozens of countries, all working together for the expansion of human knowledge. I am one of two native-born US citizens sitting in my nook of an office area, which I share with nationalities from two other continents.

One of the not-so-wonderful things is, how do you hold meetings that people from forty-something countries want to be able to participate in?

CERN is no stranger to dealing with communication issues; the internet was invented here, after all. Virtually all the conference and meeting rooms here are set up with microphones and cameras so that the meeting can be broadcast online vdia EVO and all interested participants can use the program and an internet connection to connect, listen in, and express their opinions.

This includes those interested participants who feel no desire to stop working/ leave the comfort of their nooks/ walk a kilometer across CERN/ walk downstairs to wherever the meeting is physically happening.

Of course, if most of the participants are not going to appear at the meeting in person, why go to the trouble of scheduling a room and making anybody try to find the meeting at all? This thought is the genesis of the EVO meeting, or a meeting where all the participants call in and discuss business via headsets and laptops. Webcams are normally not used.

I admit that it is convenient to do things this way. However, it is weird to make a presentation in such meetings. I made my first EVO presentation this week, which means I sat in front of my computer in my nook, with a McDonald's-esque headset waving a microphone in front of me, talking to my computer screen. Everyone else had muted their microphones (it's a necessary politeness, and a much appreciated on to cut down on background noise), which meant I couldn't hear anything as I talked and would have no way of knowing if everyone else was still connected or if I really was talking to myself.

I was told my presentation went fine, and I will have to take their word for it. Because it sure felt like an odd presentation.