Re: IETF WG meetings and remote participation

[Robert Raszuk <[e-mail]>]

Hey Victor,

Let me add one more - honestly IMHO hardest one take on:

(4) Conflict of interest. If IETF makes remote participation to be
effective and working well it will likely result with less on site
participation. That means less revenue for IETF.org from registration and
perhaps sponsorship. Today meeting revenue assuming 1000+
participants roughly covers meeting expenses. ISOC Contribution covers
operating expenses. So if say 50% of attendees will choose remote option
yet meeting expenses continue the be the same it IETF may get on the
negative balance.

REF https://ietf.org/media/documents/IETF_2019_Budget_Public_2018-12-19.pdf


Kind regards,
R.


On Sat, Feb 15, 2020 at 11:48 PM Victor Kuarsingh <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Melinda,
>
> Your are right, we seem to have come back to how to manage remote
> participation.  I am hoping this discussion does not die off and we do have
> enough desire to address the challenge once and for all.
>
> I agree we need to look at structural changes, but I think this falls into
> a few categories.  I list this in order of importance (based on my
> opinion).
>
> (1). Full Group Support.  Having managed remote participation for large
> groups at the day job, the ability to do this successfully starts with all
> participants agreeing and being respectful that the meeting will have
> remote participants.  This is the most important part of the equation.  If
> the people in the room are not ready to participate in a manner which
> allows remote folks to be engaged, than it's likely not going to work out
> very well.
>
> (2). Chairs.  As many have noted, how the chairs structure the
> conversation will have significant impact on how the meeting flows..  This
> includes both the topics in general, and remote participation.
>
> (3). Tools.  I think having the right tools is important, but many tools
> can be made to work.  I don't have strong opinions here as to which
> specific tools we use; however, from day-job experience, tools that are
> simple to use, get the job done are a great start.  Complexity does not
> always beget success here.  We may also want to consider that not all
> participants may have the same level of technical experience as others, so
> "easy to use" should be top of mind.  Having the best technical solution is
> less important, IMO, than tools everyone can use.
>
> regards,
>
> Victor K
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 15, 2020 at 5:26 PM Melinda Shore <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
>
>> It seems inevitable that any discussion of meeting logistics will
>> devolve into a discussion of presentations during working group
>> sessions.  At this point I think this pattern goes back several
>> decades and while there are some working groups that manage meeting
>> time, and particularly discussion, very well, in general I doubt very
>> much anything is going to change without structural changes to how we
>> meet.  It would be excellent to see some proposals around that.
>>
>> I have been in some sessions where discussion and participation by
>> remote participants went very well.  I don't have a sense of how
>> well that would scale, but I do think that managing multiple queues
>> is likely to get messy and may lead to some participants feeling
>> as if they've been treated unfairly.
>>
>> Melinda
>>
>> --
>> Melinda Shore
>> [e-mail]
>>
>> Software longa, hardware brevis
>>
>>