Hello Sophia, It was all my fault. I have been hearing requests for adding web conferencing like tools to our teleconferences for several years, and it has certainly been discussed again more recently. Rather than wait another year while we all talk about how things could be better, I thought it would be novel to try something new to improve participation in the Council call. The choice of tool was based on convenience (it is the same provider (MCI/Verizon) as our voice conferencing service), and based on the requirements I have seen on the list so far. The GNSO Secretariat only returned from leave the day before the call, and I asked her to add this service to give it a try. There was no requirement from any Council members to try the service. The call was run the same way as usual as a voice conferencing call. I didn't want to waste too much time on the call itself to talk about the tool. Once we have a tool that seems to meet all the requirements, we can then arrange some more structured training in its use. - Possibility to show online presentations e.g. Powerpoint - Possibility to access to a online realtime scribe - Possibility to ask questions via a messenger system - Possibility to "raise a hand". - Possibility to see who's on the call - MP3 recording - product/service should be independent of any the operating system I believe that it meets most of the requirements above, although it doesn't seem to be a good solution for those that are not using a Windows PC. If someone has an Apple Machintosh and is willing (or able) to investigate further - I would be interested to know if it is possible to use this service. I am not sure whether the vendor provides a real-time scribe - we could certainly arrange for someone to do that separately - or potentially use some voice/text software to try this in real-time. This matter is being discussed in open discussion on the list. I took into account the list discussion before requesting the Secretariat to give it a try - at least this can help get the requirements more refined. Note that my personal resources and ICANN staff resources are quite limited - so constructive help is appreciated more than complaints. The policy staff does not have any direct technical support, and in fact the technical resources at ICANN are stretched very thin. In terms of Council work practices - for most of the meetings you have participated in so far in person - we have tried different things to make us more productive. So it is not surprising that the work practices are hard to understand - that is because we are trying different approaches to make progress, and we mostly volunteer our own personal time. I do agree that next time I will try to give more notice of the test, and provide links to help files etc. I agree that it also would have been useful at the end of the call to allow some time for discussion - but it was then midnight for me after a very busy day - and chairing a call that is contentious at times is also very tiring. I welcome other Councillors taking some initiative to set up some technology for use by the Council. Ross Rader in particular has been helpful in this regard. Regards, Bruce Tonkin