Is the Organization making there own Zoom program

[Hope]

3 hours ago, jwhess said:

Are we going to get a new "Whiteboard" video on how to be "Video-conferencing Smart"?

Oh my goodness, I would love that so much! It is SOOOO needed! 😃

 

One would think that the five months of use plus the simplicity would make a tutorial unnecessary by now, but alas... 

 

What kills me are those who don't take their hands down. The poor conductor just has to remember that person just commented and not call on them again 🤪

[Qapla]

19 minutes ago, Hope said:

The poor conductor just has to remember that person just commented and not call on them again

 

Not if the attendant "lowers all hands" after each paragraph and makes sure individual hands are lowered after each comment.

[Tortuga]

3 hours ago, Qapla said:

You need to unmute yourself for me to read that comment ....

Can you read me now? 🤣

[Hope]

33 minutes ago, Qapla said:

 

Not if the attendant "lowers all hands" after each paragraph and makes sure individual hands are lowered after each comment.

Our congregation allows (hopes) people will do these things individually.  Maybe they'll change that one day.

 

I still don't get why it's so difficult  🙁

[Tortuga]

1 minute ago, Hope said:

Our congregation allows (hopes) people will do these things individually.  Maybe they'll change that one day.

 

I still don't get why it's so difficult  🙁

Our congregation use to assign a brother to lower hands just as John described. The brothers recently turned that responsibility over to the Attendants, some do it, some don't. What we discovered is that it can be more distracting if they do it themselves. Unfortunately many friends will accidentally unmute themselves or drop their device. I advocate letting the friends do it, however it's a kindness to help some of them..

[jayrtom]

2 hours ago, Bob said:

 

No offense, and I mean I'm not being mean. Have you ever programmed before?

Yes, I programme since I bought a ZX Spectrum in 1984. And I did it using Machine Language not any of the WYSIWYG of today.... So yes, I know what I'm talking about. The last program I did was for my company, in vba for Excel. It was commisioned to a specifi programing company that did a bad job and I did  a new one myself, alone. So there you have the relativity of the business.  A team of 5 people thought it was a very dificult task, but it took only one to do it and I'm nothing special and don't even work in the business, just do it as an hobby.

 

But I just heard about it and don't know if it's real or fake. It just doesn't seem that far fetched to me. It seems pretty plausible, especially in the approach of the GT where we may not rely on private solutions. And if their thinking way ahead of time as they usually do it seems to be a perfect time to start working on it

 

2 hours ago, Bob said:

@jayrtom here's a idea of what it takes to support Zoom for millions of people. We have 8.6 million JWs across the globe:

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_Video_Communications

 

This would require us to create an entire Video Conference subsidiary to develop and support it. 

I think it's out of proportions to compare a worldwide corporation with many interests, besides videoconferencing per si, with our needs... Do you know that only 6 people created Skype? Compare it to the amount of emplyees it needed after being bought by eBay...

Just look at all of our organization accomplishments, and the amount of people needed, and will have more faith on what can be accomplished

 

 

43 minutes ago, Hope said:

Our congregation allows (hopes) people will do these things individually.  Maybe they'll change that one day.

 

I still don't get why it's so difficult  🙁

We have a person responsible for all the needed tasks - Share the videos and images, help friends to turn the mic on (by requesting them to turn mic on when they don't seem to be able to do that), turnng the mics off half of the time, lowering all the ends (if there's no one to do that half of the brothers won't do it...), changing the names of everyone who don't do it themselves, like from "iPad of so and so 1234567", etc...

And that's a lot of work but helps to the fluidity of the meeting

Edited August 5, 2020 by jayrtom

[Bob]

1 minute ago, jayrtom said:

Yes, I programme since I bought a ZX Spectrum in 1984. And I did it using Machine Language not any of the WYSIWYG of today.... So yes, I know what I'm talking about. The last program I did was for my company, in vba for Excel. It was commisioned to a specifi programing company that did a bad job and I did  a new one myself, alone. So there you have the relativity of the business.  A team of 5 people thought it was a very dificult task, but it took only one to do it and I'm nothing special and don't even work in the business, just do it as an hobby.

Cool! that's why I said I was just an honest question. 

 

1 minute ago, jayrtom said:

I think it's out of proportions to compare a worldwide corporation with many interests, besides videoconferencing per si, with our needs... Do you know that only 6 people created Skype? Compare it to the amount of emplyees it needed after being bought by eBay...

Just look at all of our organization accomplishments, and the amount of people needed, and will have more faith on what can be accomplished

Well, isn't WTBTS a world wide corporation, with many departments, people, as well? We also do construction and property acquisitions as well. We are pretty diversified from that standpoint. We are pretty large as well. Its valid to compare our legal corporation with other legal entities. 

 

WTBTS is not that different in that it takes time, money, and people to develop and create software. 

[jayrtom]

38 minutes ago, Bob said:

Cool! that's why I said I was just an honest question. 

 

Well, isn't WTBTS a world wide corporation, with many departments, people, as well? We also do construction and property acquisitions as well. We are pretty diversified from that standpoint. We are pretty large as well. Its valid to compare our legal corporation with other legal entities. 

 

WTBTS is not that different in that it takes time, money, and people to develop and create software. 

Ok, I wont continue on that discussion. If Jehovah wants us to build that software it will be done. If it's fake news fine. I don't have any problems with zoom

[carlos]

4 hours ago, jayrtom said:

I don't know why do you say that... Tha't not a complex program and it even don't have that many configuration options... Doing the program in itself would be simple

Joao, as I explained I don't know anything about this, I was just expressing my view. Maybe you are right and the organization is developing its own app, but I don't think it is.

 

Simple? No, Zoom is not simple at all. It's a very sophisticated software with support for lots of different platforms. The company has over 2,500 employees, that gives you an idea of the workforce involved. The normal edition has lots of options and settings, but if you create an account on their website and log in to it (necessary if you are the one who starts the meetings) they have lots and lots of menus with settings. In fact, the manual Bethel sent us has eight pages just on how to set up every option so that our meetings are safe.

 

Of course, everything is relative. There are much more complex pieces of software, that's true. But in my opinion, building something similar to Zoom from scratch is a huge undertaking. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that I think it's unlikely we will invest that amount of resources when Zoom works fine and costs 15 euro a month.

 

EDIT: Sorry, I hadn't refreshed my browser and didn't see the previous messages. I didn't mean to be insistent.

Edited August 5, 2020 by carlos

[jayrtom]

3 minutes ago, carlos said:

Joao, as I explained I don't know anything about this, I was just expressing my view. Maybe you are right and the organization is developing its own app, but I don't think it is.

 

Simple? No, Zoom is not simple at all. It's a very sophisticated software with support for lots of different platforms. The company has over 2,500 employees, that gives you an idea of the workforce involved. The normal edition has lots of options and settings, but if you create an account on their website and log in to it (necessary if you are the one who starts the meetings) they have lots and lots of menus with settings. In fact, the manual Bethel sent us has eight pages just on how to set up every option so that our meetings are safe.

 

Of course, everything is relative. There are much more complex pieces of software, that's true. But in my opinion, building something similar to Zoom from scratch is a huge undertaking which would require several hundreds of developers working fulltime for many months. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that I think it's unlikely we will invest that amount of resources when Zoom works fine and costs 15 euro a month.

Why would we do something equal to zoom? JWLibrary isn't like any other piece of software

 

I know, now, zoom is just the right tool and I don't . But will it be in the future, when we are in the GT? Will the brothers start doing something when the GT starts or before?

[Tortuga]

Perhaps the brothers will call it Doom instead of Zoom and one day we will deliver a Doom Day Message..😁

[Bob]

1 hour ago, jayrtom said:

Ok, I wont continue on that discussion. If Jehovah wants us to build that software it will be done. If it's fake news fine. I don't have any problems with zoom

Fake news? Where’d that come from?

 

lol 

[Bob]

@jayrtom

 

Thanks for taking my comment in jest. That’s how I meant it!

 

[Shawnster]

18 minutes ago, Bob said:

Fake news? Where’d that come from?

 

lol 

It came from this reply Jayrtom made to the question in the OP if the Society was creating a video conferencing app.

 

5 hours ago, jayrtom said:

 

 

Yes I heard it to

So he's heard that rumor, too.  If the rumor turns out to be fake news, then Joao will drop it and move on.  That's all he was saying.

 

 

9 hours ago, carlos said:

I see a big difference there. JW Library is not reinventing the wheel. There was nothing like it. If the GB was planning to switch from paper to digital, they had to develop something so that going digital was easy and practical. Non-techies would never learn to download PDF publications from JW.org then load them onto Moon Reader or whatever software you use in your device. If they wanted to get rid of most paper, they needed something like JW Library.

 

On the other hand, Zoom does everything we need. (There were several options that might have worked well, but Zoom seemed to be the most convenient at the time. That might change at any moment.)

 

This is a good comparison. As far as I know, KHConf was not developed by the organization, was it? I think it was made by some friends, then Bethel adopted it as "official". I too think we will keep a way to participate at the meeting remotely even when we meet at the KH again. But there's no reason why it can't be using Zoom.

 

It seems a lot of people agree with you, and that's fine.  All I said was I would have said the same thing about the changes we've seen of late.  We make feature length movies now.  Why do we do that?  We had a perfectly fine system in place with live action dramas lip synced to recorded information.  Why in the world would we ever invest the time, money, and energy into creating our own videos and movies?  Why reinvent the wheel?  Now look at what we're doing!  We are actually building a new facility dedicated to video production.  We're actually expanding our movie making abilities.  

 

You've listed some other things that I think might support my opinion.  I was fine with MoonReader to the point of buying the pro version.  I did not understand why the Society was reinventing the wheel with creating the JW Library app.  Now I can't even remember using MoonReader (hyperbole, there).  

 

You mentioned the purchase of KHConf.  Did you know we also used SoundBox?  We were using this for playing videos and showing pictures during the meetings before the direction came down to use (well, I believe the wording was "preferred") JW Library.  Again, why invent the wheel when we had SoundBox which was also created by brothers specifically to use at the meeting?  Plus it had features that JW Library still doesn't have like the ability to import illustrations from other sources or display scripture captions.  Yet, here we are.

 

We created our own font for the Watchtower.  We created MEPS.  We created a pick pack/sort procedure for literature and shipping.  We bought and ran our own printers.  We have our own farm that grows produce and livestock.  Why reinvent these wheels when there are nearby farms and grocers?  Why not just outsource printing to commercial printers?  We even built the old phonographs and sound cars.  When it suited our needs and was better for us, the Society has always innovated instead of relying on worldly services.

 

We have our own, private email service that only operates within the Organization.  Outside email cannot be sent to a jwpub account nor can we send from our jwpub account to outside email.  We can only message within our Organization.  Granted, it uses Microsoft Outlook and it might be possible that other organizations can do the same thing we've done, but it is interesting we've made this step.

 

There was a Zoom outage a few months ago.  The secular provider of Zoom was overloaded one Sunday and many congregations from England to the middle of North America missed their meeting entirely while others scrambled to find a fix.  We are still beholden to Zoom and any software updates they choose to make that may or not be beneficial for our type of meeting.  How secure is Zoom?  They claim we have our privacy but could they interfere with our meetings if they wanted to?  Could they program a backdoor that could be exploited?  

 

Is there a better way to show videos and illustrations than we do now?  It seems a little clunky still.  It's good for the occasional use and we make do now, but can it be improved so that it's seamless?  What about peoples names?  Even now people still sign in as "iPad 4."  Is it really that hard to permanently change your name? And how about the host and co-hosts actually being able to raise their hands to comment?  Is that too much to ask?  

 

Maybe we won't be creating our own video conference system.  It just seems like all the objections mentioned here are either inconsequential or could easily be made about many of the other programs and services we have created.  I'm just saying there are countless things we do now that I never thought we would have done and probably could have come up with a long list of reasons why they would be too costly, time-consuming, difficult, or pointless for us to do when there was a reliable commercial alternative.

 

That's another point.  Commercial.  Zoom can keep raising their prices.  I know it's not a lot of money per month and congregations will always have expenses as long as we live in this system of things, but the Organization does seem to like to reduce the financial burden on congregations wherever possible.  

 

Maybe you all are right and it will never happen.  Maybe Zoom will always fill this need perfectly.  Then again, no harm in dreaming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Eejay]

4 hours ago, Hope said:

What kills me are those who don't take their hands down. The poor conductor just has to remember that person just commented and not call on them again

Poor organisation. Get a co-host to take care of the tardy blue hands!

[Eejay]

I wouldn't discount us developing a video conferencing tool. Even though there is no substitute for face to face contact.

The existence of several acceptable methods to deal with the restrictions of the current circumstances make it a bit of a wasted effort currently. But what does the future hold?

 

If ever the lockdown ceases, I do not think we will see the end of this method of communication. Imagine if our local 30% increase in meeting attendance has been repeated worldwide?

 

Looks very interesting.

[Qapla]

On 8/4/2020 at 9:53 AM, Qapla said:

I know the Branch had been working on an "in house" communication app that was cross-platform (it was shown to me a couple years ago) but I don't think it was designed for "video conference", especially on a congregation scale.

 

A little clarification ... the "in house" communication app that was (and may still be) developed did, indeed, have "video conference" on a limited scale. One-on-one and even small groups - but it was not up to the task of handling Congregation Meetings.

 

During some of the videos that shows Organizational Accomplishments there have been some scenes that showed people from various locations interacting with each other (like the RTO offices) on some sort of video conference solution.

 

However, at this time, I doubt the FDS would have directed us to use a commercial product like Zoom to hold our meetings if they had such an app already capable of congregation meetings. Does that mean they are not working on one - not at all ... they may have one well under way. We can "dream", like someone said - but, if they do create such an app, I'm sure it will be for meetings and not for our personal use so I wouldn't remove Zoom from my PC anytime soon  

[AlessandroR]

21 minutes ago, Qapla said:

 

During some of the videos that shows Organizational Accomplishments there have been some scenes that showed people from various locations interacting with each other (like the RTO offices) on some sort of video conference solution.

They use microsoft lync.

Edited August 6, 2020 by aleraniere
Correction.

[jwhess]

When LDC was meeting regularly on projects, our meetings were usually done on SKYPE.

[carlos]

10 hours ago, jayrtom said:

I know, now, zoom is just the right tool and I don't . But will it be in the future, when we are in the GT? Will the brothers start doing something when the GT starts or before?

 

9 hours ago, Shawnster said:

That's another point.  Commercial.  Zoom can keep raising their prices.  I know it's not a lot of money per month and congregations will always have expenses as long as we live in this system of things, but the Organization does seem to like to reduce the financial burden on congregations wherever possible.  

Thanks Joao and Shawn. You make some good points. I guess we will have to wait and see.

[Amygdala]

Just MHO but I think it's better that JW's do not have a specific communication tool when the GT starts, for this can be an easy way to stop our communication activities and zeroed in on, or locate our individual locations. But then again, big brothers can watch us at anytime anyway.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Lieblingskind

[Luigi62]

On 8/5/2020 at 4:11 AM, Shawnster said:

I can see a video conference software being useful at the meetings the same way KHConf and other phone tie-in services are used now.  So many of the shut-in friends are now seeing their congregations and eve participating.  I don't see that going away once we return to the Kingdom Halls.  Just my speculation, though.

I can see it replace the phone tie in, in some areas where brothers and sisters can only listen to the meetings. This way brothers and sisters could see the entire meeting and answer up if the house bound.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Luigi62

[SUNRAY]

It would be amazing to go to JW Library/Menu/Attend your meeting/Enter your congregation code..just thinking

 

 

[outwalkin]

19 hours ago, Bob said:

This reminds me. Since we all know how to use Zoom, we can basically kiss the cancelling of meeting good bye due to weather, huh? If a massive snow blizzard hits, we can move right to Zoom!

Except we had our meeting cancelled last minute this week. Host and many others lost power and internet due to tropical storm.

[Bob]

Just now, outwalkin said:

Except we had our meeting cancelled last minute this week. Host and many others lost power and internet due to tropical storm.

Of course.