Monday, July 13, 2009

Reminder: Kiva Community Conference Call

A friendly reminder that on Wednesday, we'll be having our July Community Conference call.

We'll be giving a short presentation, then we'll listen to your feedback on the Kiva US Pilot.

We are expecting a high number of participants to join this call. In order for us to facilitate the call and maximize the number of participants, we will be using an online web conference system. Please note that you will not be able to speak on the conference call unless you are logged in to the web conference.

The online web conference system will allow us to:
  • Share a presentation online with all participants
  • Manage requests to speak on the call through a feature where the caller "raises their hand"
  • Improve sound quality for all callers by restricting the number of lines speaking to the audience
For those who have attended previous Community Conference Calls, you will notice that this is a little different to how we've done things in the past. Previous calls have had an "open floor" format where anyone was able to speak up and "take the floor". While this has been successful for past calls, we are expecting this month's call to require more organization.

The web conference system will allow each caller to electronically "raise their hand" to speak. They can also communicate directly with the call facilitator via instant message, to give a short description of their comment. This way, we can make sure that we are hearing from all sides of the conversation, and prioritize those whose comments have not yet been heard. All phone lines will be muted, until the caller is called upon to speak, to reduce background noise and improve sound quality.

So, don't forget that this month, if you would like to contribute to the call, you will need to take two steps:
  1. Call in to the conference call
  2. Log in to the web conference system
To dial in to the call:

When: The call is scheduled for Wednesday, July 15th at 2 pm US Pacific time.
Dial in US: 866-740-1260 Access Code: 6415483
Dial in (Outside US): +1 303-248-0285 Access Code: 6415483

To use the web conference system:

1 - Go to www.readytalk.com
2 - In the "Join a Meeting" section enter the access code 6415483
3 - When prompted, enter the required information.
4 - You will then be able to view our online presentation and you'll be able to "raise your hand" to speak.

The call will be recorded, and the recording will be posted on the Kiva blog within a few days of the call being completed.

We hope to hear you on the line!