Executive Summary

With the increased use, availability and relative low cost of high speed internet access, the feasibility of using the web for multi-media communication, live or archived is a reality. Imagine a small church in Buffalo Narrows, Saskatchewan, receiving personal face to face real-time VR coaching without the expense of travel. Imagine a classroom of seminary students, interacting with their teacher and a dozen other students located across Canada….all seeing, hearing and experiencing the same material. Imagine a large conference presentation not only seen by the 648 people in the room but also by over 2000 people around the world. Imagine team leaders spread throughout Europe, able to video conference on a regular basis with no special equipment and at a price that their mission organization can afford. All of these examples are within reach today.

The purpose of Outreach Now Connect is to provide a platform for interactive multi-media communication for small and large group settings that could be used in a wide variety of configurations without requiring users to have special software or hardware. Within The Outreach Group of ministries it can be used for improved communications and to provide a closer sense of “team” when individuals are spread out across a wide geographic area. OG Ministries could also use it to enhance their reach and availability, for instance for some VR coaching or TLM Networking situations. The platform could also provide a source of income by making it available to other teams (OC Europe) and ministries (broadcasting church special events) in preset applications at a set pricing structure.

It also provides the necessary infrastructure for The Outreach Group to sell audio and video materials over the internet without simply allowing them to be downloaded and therefore losing control over what happens with/to the material.

System Requirements

From a technical standpoint Outreach Now Connect requires no additional software or hardware for people to use it. Almost any computer that is used to browse the internet already has all the software required. Each Viewer / Participant represents a location at which one or many people could be.

Viewer:
The user can see and hear prerecorded or live video, presentations, audio and more.
If allowed within the application, they can also type in comments or question via the provided “Chat” area or click on shared surveys and other such shared material.

Presenter / Participant:

In addition to the VIEWER capabilities, if the user has a microphone and/or webcam attached to their computer they can be seen and heard by participants and viewers.

Proposed Applications

Outreach Now Connect would initially provide the following applications (preset configurations of features and capacities) which could be customized or expanded on as needs were identified and funding secured.

Now Connect Presentation. Now Connect eLearning Room. Now Connect Meeting. Now Connect Conference Call.

Now Connect Presentation

One speaker/presenter at a time can be seen and heard as well as the presentation material (power point presentation / video / whiteboard / text) shown. Many (several hundred) people can view the presentation simultaneously.

Now Connect eLearning Room

A combined virtual / physical classroom, where at least one local presenter and optionally one or two remote presenters would interact with a real classroom of students as well as students who are at remote locations. Features include video/audio conference, Chat, Presentation of power point like material, shared Whiteboard and Notes.

Optional components would be Survey / Polling

Now Connect Meeting

Virtual meeting rooms where several (5-10) participants can video/audio conference, present power point like material, share a whiteboard and notepad.

Now Connect Conference Call

The Connect Conference Call can provide text messaging plus audio only or audio with video communication. The number of participants can be ??

Audio only: Similar to Microsoft Messenger or Skype, users can talk and type messages.

Video & Audio: Same as Audio only but with the addition of video capability.

Some additional applications could be Streaming Media Server, Vision Renewal Meeting, Coaching (small group, one on one) to name a few.

Now Connect applications are combinations of “components” which are the basic features built into the Adobe Flash Media Server. The following list provides a short