Over the past four meetings, we have experimented with different approaches to chatrooms as a way of providing remote participants with an opportunity to interact in real time with a meeting.

There have been pluses and minuses to each approach. With some, slow responses times; others, heavy server loads. We have tried different types: PHP, Flash, ICQ. In each case some people can’t get into them whether because of technical knowledge or operating system or browser software.

Last time around, people told us that having to go to a particular webpage in order to get into the chatroom for that meeting was adding a step and so reducing their likelihood of joining.

So we are testing another approach in Cairo for the Improving Institutional Confidence session on Thursday 6 November at 2pm: embedded chatrooms.

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