RE: first steps (was The other parts of the report...)

["Wijnen, Bert (Bert)" <[e-mail]>]

Exactly, I agree with Steve here.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve Crocker [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2004 18:51
> To: 'Margaret Wasserman'; 'scott bradner'; [e-mail]
> Subject: RE: first steps (was The other parts of the report...)
> 
> 
> A brief comment on one specific aspect of meeting planning...
> 
> In broad terms, the planning for a meeting is partionable, rather
> cleanly, into two pieces.  One is the "envelope" of arranging for the
> hotel, an inventory of large and small meeting rooms, the 
> terminal room,
> the external network connectivity, the food and perhaps a few other
> things I've left out.  This "envelope" is reasonably constant and
> reasonably easy to specify.
> 
> The other part of meeting planning is the assignment of WGs, BOFs and
> other events to the specific rooms.  This requires intimate 
> knowledge of
> the areas and other relationships to avoid scheduling conflicts, work
> out priorities and maintain communication with all the 
> relevant people.
> 
> I believe the former could be farmed out, if desired, 
> although this gets
> a bit complicated because it includes finding sponsors and making
> arrangements for appropriate Internet service.  The latter is 
> tied quite
> closely, in my opinion, to the year round support of the WGs and IESG.
> 
> I don't have an opinion as to whether the envelope part of the meeting
> planning *should* be farmed out to a separate organization.  I'm only
> commenting here that the tasks divide reasonably cleanly.  That is, to
> first order, an IETF meeting needs a plenary room, about ten working
> group rooms, a terminal room, and a handful of side rooms for 
> auxiliary
> purposes.  That's a spec that can be sent out to hotels and meeting
> planners around the world.
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On 
> > Behalf Of Margaret Wasserman
> > Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2004 12:00 PM
> > To: scott bradner; [e-mail]
> > Subject: Re: first steps (was The other parts of the report...)
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Hi Scott,
> > 
> > At 5:06 PM -0400 9/11/04, scott bradner wrote:
> > >imo it would least disruptive to follow option #3 (combo 
> > path) and try 
> > >to negotiate a sole source contract with Foretec/CNRI for 
> what Carl 
> > >called the clerk function and maybe some other functions 
> > (imo it would 
> > >be better to outsorce the management of the mailing lists 
> and their 
> > >archives to a company in that business)
> > 
> > Mailing list management and web hosting (not content) are 
> two obvious 
> > candidates for separate contracts if we choose to go with a 
> > multi-part RFP process.  These items are quite independent and 
> > non-IETF specific.
> > 
> > Meeting planning is another chunk that could be considered 
> > separately, but the way we do it today has a lot of tie-ins to IETF 
> > activities -- rules/notices about WG vs. BOF scheduling, 
> proceedings, 
> > network, terminal rooms, multicast, sponsorship, etc.  So, if we 
> > outsource the meeting planning separately from the "clerk" 
> function, 
> > we would have to carefully define the line between the two, 
>  and that 
> > line may not be quite where it lies inside Foretec today.
> > 
> > Also, even if we somehow outsource a few of the more 
> > separable/generic tasks independently, there is still a 
> large amount 
> > of IETF-specific work that needs to be done by someone -- I-D 
> > handling, supporting the IESG review/approval process, handling IPR 
> > notices, keeping track of WG charters, maintaining our web content, 
> > etc.  It would not be easy to outsource these functions to multiple 
> > groups.  It would require extensive effort to define the interfaces 
> > between the different functions, and a lot of duplicate 
> work to train 
> > multiple groups in the details of the IETF processes and culture.
> > 
> > I have some concerns that if we try to break off a few of 
> the simpler 
> > chunks, the effort of coordinating between those chunks may 
> be larger 
> > than the benefits that would accrue from allowing 
> competition in the 
> > mailing list management, web hosting and meeting planning 
> areas.  So, 
> > this is something we should think about carefully.  A 
> multi-part RFP 
> > process that allows organizations to submit multi-part bids 
> (i.e.  if 
> > we run the clerk's office,  we will also do meeting 
> planning for $XXX 
> > ) might give us some insight into whether ecomomies of 
> scale make it 
> > cheaper to go with a single provider for all services, or if it 
> > actually works out that it is cheaper/better for some 
> functions to be 
> > provided by people who specialize in them.
> > 
> > Margaret
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ietf mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
> > 
> 
> 
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