Re: Meeting Venue Preference Survey

[Michael StJohns <[e-mail]>]

Hi Ray - 

I started to take this survey then bounced out of it on the second page.  This comes under the heading of bad survey design.

I object to the way gateway/secondary cities are defined here and specifically equating Maastricht with Minneapolis seems somewhat stacking the deck.

What I'm looking for in a meeting location is a venue with both formal and informal meeting spaces where I stand a good chance of having a good technical discussion with random people at pretty much any time of the day or night - that's my view of what has contributed to the IETF's success over the years. (Although the marathon session for the first draft of the Host Requirements document was probably stretching it) That generally means a central large hotel with attached conference space with access to non-hotel food and drink  in close proximity.  

With respect to tourism, at different times in my career, I've had different interests in the IETF.  Currently, I'm down to only a few WGs that I follow and as of the last meeting, none that I'm currently contributing to.  Considering that I'm now consulting as my main activity and paying for this on my own dime, I expect that my ratio of tourism to attendance will be somewhat skewed towards tourism, but wouldn't expect the IETF to cater to that.  My prime interest is still technical interaction and discussion.

With respect to getting there - I'm finding the trend of getting off an international plane in a gateway city and then getting onto a train for 2-5 hours somewhat worrisome.  I spent more time online for Maastricht trying to research how to get to Maastricht that I did reading IDs - and even then when I got to the Maastricht central train station, I had no luck buying a ticket for Maastricht Raandwyck.

I live in a gateway city and would prefer to go to another gateway city - but I realize that's not always feasible and not always the best venue.   

I don't know how to categorize Maastricht vs Minneapolis except to say that air connectivity is better to Minneapolis and the meeting venue has more of what I'm looking for in an IETF setup - and I can't see any way to indicate that on your survey.

To be honest, I don't think I'll find the output of this survey of much use in its current form.

Mike





At 03:12 PM 8/27/2010, Ray Pelletier wrote:
>All;
>
>Do you have IETF meeting venue preferences?  If so, the IAOC wants to know!
>
>Please take this survey at:  <https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8HPLZGJ>https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8HPLZGJ
>
>Thanks!
>
>Ray
>IAD 
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