[Pesci-discuss] Face-to-face meetings (was: Re: IETF Meeting Venue Selection Criteria)

Brian just posted a couple of notes on the IETF discussion list about 
"income that we badly need" from attendees at face-to-face IETF meetings.

I had the privilege of attending the SHIM6 and Softwires interim meetings 
last week (I guess they needed a note-taker :-), and the leadeship at both 
meetings was saying, "much more productive than an IETF face-to-face 
meeting".

This mode of operation (lock the same group in a room for multiple days) is 
what I see at the IETF meetings in the SIP community, where they start 
meeting together at 9:00 AM on Monday morning, and stay together through 
multiple meetings of SIP, SIPPING, SIMPLE, and only diffuse slightly into 
ECRIT, XCON, ENUM, AVT/MMUSIC, and BEHAVE (what did I leave out?) - and I 
note there's an ad hoc on SIP peer-to-peer scheduled for Friday afternoon in 
Vancouver.

This is very different from what I think is "normal" for the IETF (attend a 
couple of WGs that meet a couple of times during the week, attend a couple 
of BoFs, and spend the rest of the week talking to people). It's a lot more 
like what I think is "normal" for IEEE (the group stays together for the 
balance of the week, during IEEE plenary meetings).

There were several interim meeting participants who were not planning to 
attend in Vancouver, including one serious contributor who may be missing 
three face-to-face meetings in a row. All this would be fine, except that we 
seem to be financially dependent on meeting fees from the IETF face-to-face 
meetings.

Do we think that the IETF face-to-face meetings are sacred cows that we 
can't eliminate without eliminating the IETF completely? If "yes", is this 
only for financial reasons, or are there others?

Disclaimer - I like attending IETF face-to-face meetings, and even talking 
with you guys while I'm there, so I'm not trying to stir up trouble, only 
trying to understand where we're headed.

Spencer

>> Maybe I am an optimist.  I believe the world is a big place, and are
>> lots of venues where the IETF has not yet met, which would work for all
>> of us, and attract a lot of local participation.
>
> Which, BTW, means income that we badly need.
>
>>
>> My sense of why we are discussing "venue selection criteria" is that we
>> wish to encourage people to volunteer to be local hosts for future IETF
>> meetings.  To make the best use of the prospective local hosts' time, it
>> would help if we could articulate the venues that would be acceptable,
>> versus ones that would not 'meet' (pardon the pun) our venue selection
>> criteria.
>
> It will also help the IAD significantly in comparing hosting offers.
> We also badly need hosts for financial reasons. 

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