Re: Venue selection (Re: Options for IETF administrative restructuring)

[Iljitsch van Beijnum <[e-mail]>]

On 30-aug-04, at 9:29, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

> The subject of continent selection is, BTW, one of the real touchy 
> ones; my statistics show that in the North American contingent, the 
> attendance is cut in half when we meet outside North America; in the 
> Asian contingent, the attendance from the host country quadruples or 
> more when we meet in their country, while Europeans show more steady 
> attendance statistics.

Are you sure about this? The number of attendees in Vienna was a bit 
higher than in Minneapolis last year. I also ran into a much larger 
contingent of fellow countrymen in Vienna. (Don't look too far in the 
past as you can't compare the 2000+ attendees of a few years ago with 
the 1500- ones now, I'd assume the people who still come are more 
loyal.)

Also, it's not just about the continent. I find the US somewhat 
visitor-unfriendly in places like Minneapolis, and very much so on the 
international airports of larger cities. I would very much like to see 
a meeting in North America but outside the US.

> I think the organizer needs to be able to make these tradeoffs in real 
> time, and without going back to the IETF for a consensus process on 
> individual meetings - but we do need to have our criteria right out in 
> the open.

> I would prefer to split the process into two rather independent parts: 
> One (open) that sets the criteria, and one (subcontracted) that 
> attempts to find sites that fulfil the criteria. Then we can evaluate 
> the result - for economics, for venue performance, for sponsor 
> satisfaction (that too matters!), and for "fairness".

> As to how to achieve all that.... I'm not at all sure.

Speaking as someone who has to pay for going to IETF meetings out of 
his own pocket and as someone who has been trying to muster up some 
enthusiasm to host a meeting, I'm not all that happy about the way 
things are going now. I'll concentrate on the second role for now.

First of all, I'm not surprised it has been getting harder to find 
sponsors. There are two main reasons for that: the duties of the 
sponsor are solely defined by what's convenient for the people who 
organize the meetings on behalf of the IETF (I'm assuming Foretec and 
the secretariat but I can't be sure). This means the prospective host 
is left with a plethora of duties, some of which are easily solved with 
money (which some sponsors have), others with manpower (which some 
sponsors have) and others with some very specific knowledge (which some 
sponsors have). However, few sponsors are going to have all three.

Also, the process is completely un-transparent both from the view of 
the attendee and from the view of the would-be host.

Last but not least, the people who handle this on the IETF side really 
don't seem to care. For instance, for the past year I've been trying to 
get an answer to the following questions:

> Can you provide me with the current numbers that are relevant to 
> hosting the terminal room (and the social event) for an IETF meeting? 
> And which are the upcoming meetings for which there is no location 
> determined yet?

(Ok, I've only sent four or so messages, but still.) All of this makes 
it hard to create enthusiasm within prospective host organizations.

I think it's essential to start publishing the following information on 
a regular basis:

- meeting status: decided, under consideration, open
- date specific constraints, such as the continent that has been 
selected
- up to date numbers for hotel rooms, meeting rooms, terminal room and 
so on


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