Poor man’s way to host a six-way simulcast with Skype

At Online Educa, Berlin last December, we wanted to show collaboration among the members of Internet Time Alliance rather than just talk about it. It turned out to be the first online conferencing in Educa’s 15-year history.

We pulled in six simultaneous feeds by running Skype video conversations within a session of Adobe Connect Pro. Harold Jarche and Jon Husband joined the discussion from Montreal and New Brunswick; Jane Hart, Charles Jennings, and I were on the ground in Berlin. Heike Philp was our technical director.

The six of us expect to conduct numerous multi-continental sessions at conferences this year. Two-way conversations are a lot more interesting than one-way broadcasts. Four-way conversations open more possibilities. The Alliance’s informal slogan is “six heads are better than one.”

Are others of you doing sessions like this? Please share your experience with us.

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Here’s a recording of the first hour of the session. It’s not going to win an Oscar for Best Documentary. You’ll hear some echoes, for we were improvising the connections as we went along.