Conference Skype* speeches – a must have

There is a vast opportunity staring the Liberal Democrats in the face: To be the first British political party to accommodate speeches via Skype at their conference.

There are all sorts of arguments for and against this. Would it stop people bothering to come to conference altogether and just participate from their living room? Would that kill conference?

But there are two massive reasons why it should be done very soon:

1. It will allow participation by people who are unable to attend conference because of time or money constraints. It will also demonstrate that the party is truly opening its arms to all members regardless of their ability to attend conference.

2. It will allow a wider range of people to be heard. For example, that Liberal Democrat member who is housebound in Truro. That Liberal Democrat member who has a dairy farm on Orkney and is never able to attend conference because her cows need milking twice a day. What about that unemployed single mother in a bedsit in Liverpool? These people have different opinions and perspectives to offer the party.

There is also the by-product of showing the party to be truly embracing modern technology.

I would suggest that a gentle toe-in-the-water pilot is the way to go.

Why not have one or two debates at the next Spring conference which allow Skype speeches? (Or shall we call them “Skeeches”?) The speakers’ cards could be submitted via a website with interchange via email or messaging as needed. Skype speeches could be handled in a similar way to the short “intervention” speeches or questions from the floor now. They could have their own section within a larger debate.

There are a vast body of techie wonks floating around the Lib Dem conference. It is well within their capabilities to zap a Skype image up on the screen.

I also feel that for non-wired members, it is not an insuperable challenge to get a 3G phone or tablet to them for the duration of the debate.

This is a golden opportunity for the party. Let’s seize it urgently.

*Other internet audio-visual devices are available.

* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.

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15 Comments

  • Sadly, FCC doesn’t have the powers to do this at the moment (without suspending standing orders).

    I would support an amendment to standing orders to permit FCC to experiment with this, and hope to see one in Paul’s name at Spring Conference.

  • Andrew Suffield 1st Oct '12 - 6:22pm

    I’m not sure that even a standing orders vote would be sufficient – the format of debates is in the constitution.

  • Technology solutions to support remote conferencing is very mature and are designed to make it simple for end users to access – the only prerequisites being : an internet connected computer with web browser and audio capabilities and/or a telephone.

    Skype is designed as a basic one-to-one or one-to-very-small-group telephone service and hence isn’t an appropriate tool for the job, before you get onto its proprietary limitations.

    The initial use of such technology (ie. experiment) shouldn’t cause any procedural problems for the FCC, as effectively a conferencing system is a private broadcast and proceedings are currently covered by the BBC et al. Procedural (and management) problems only really start to happen when you allow remote attendee’s to contribute directly in real-time and vote.

    In fact the main problem will be the volume of traffic sent to a remote attendee, as they may find themselves exceeding their usage cap…

  • Andy Boddington 2nd Oct '12 - 8:32am

    The conference should be streamed live. Most activists can’t attend and have to rely on reports filtered through, and often distorted by, media and pundits. The technology is basic and cheap. Technology has to be at the heart of future campaigns and if Lib Dems are to get it right, we must begin now.

  • Yusuf Osman 2nd Oct '12 - 9:50am

    I think this is a great idea of Paul’s and as someone who wasn’t able to attend conference because I wasn’t able to sort out someone to help me get around, I’m blind, this would have been a way of allowing me to participate. I’d go further though, why not allow people who can’t attend to vote as well. And yes stream all fringe meetings. The BBC does a reasonable job of broadcasting from the main conference floor but never broadcast any of the fringe gatherings. My only concern is the limitations of the technology. I’d be pretty annoyed if I wanted to vote in a debate but couldn’t because the site crashed. Is it right that only voting delegates can vote?

  • Simon Titley 2nd Oct '12 - 12:36pm

    @Andy Boddington – The conference already is streamed live. All events in the main conference hall were shown live on BBC Parliament, which is available free to everyone via Freeview, Freesat or the BBC’s Democracy Live website. Proceedings were also repeated on BBC Parliament the same evening.

  • Simon Titley 2nd Oct '12 - 3:44pm

    @Simon McGrath – I saw last week’s Liberal Democrat conference live on BBC Parliament. The Labour conference is currently on the same channel. It’s online here:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv/bbc_parliament/watchlive

  • Yusuf Osman 2nd Oct '12 - 7:37pm

    Thanks for that Michael I’ll check the IPlayer to catchup.

  • Kirsten de Keyser 3rd Oct '12 - 11:47am

    I agree with Simon Titley.
    All the conferences are already fully covered on BBC Parliament, there’s no need to bust a gut – and spend even more money – duplicating what our licence fee already provides.

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