RE: [IAB] Change in Sunday Newcomer Activities for IETF 105

["Black, David" <[e-mail]>]

>     > Side question: if you need (quiet) time to catch up with
>     > chairs/ADs/whatever, why can't you schedule that time instead regardless
>     > of whether there is a restricted-access social or not?  If there was a
>     > blank hour in the Sunday agenda why wouldn't that work just as well?
> 
> It would not work as well because it requires that chairs know they need to
> meet.   A typical case would be a chair chats with an AD, the AD says,
> "well, that needs cross-area review from XYZ WG" ... and then they go to find
> WG chair from XYZ.  It works because everyone is more or less in the same
> spot, is relatively idle (no laptops out), due to the abundance of beer.

+1

There's also a locality optimization - if I know in advance that I need to
buttonhole 3 ADs for independent brief discussions, I could try to schedule 3
meetings, or just plan to talk to all three of them at the "newcomers" session.
This can be a very convenient/effective way to check multiple items off the
to-do list in short order at the start of the week, especially as the area signs
on the tables simplify the search algorithm :-).

In addition to beer/wine, start of the week timing is important, as one of the
lesser-known talents of many ADs is handing out follow-up items in response
to being buttonholed ;-) ... and receipt of those at the start of the week
provides more opportunities to get them done during the week.

Thanks, --David

> -----Original Message-----
> From: WGChairs <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Michael
> Richardson
> Sent: Monday, May 6, 2019 2:10 PM
> To: [e-mail]; Wes Hardaker
> Subject: Re: [IAB] Change in Sunday Newcomer Activities for IETF 105
> 
> 
> Wes Hardaker <[e-mail]> wrote:
>     > Stewart Bryant <[e-mail]> writes:
> 
>     >> Whilst that was not its intended purpose, as a venue for the chairs
>     >> and ADs to find each other before the meeting started and sync up on
>     >> matters that need to be resolved ahead of the other sessions it was
>     >> very useful in making the main business of the IETF meeting more
>     >> successful.
> 
>     > I think that's a very valid point (along with the dialog that followed,
>     > which was all valid as well), and confirms exactly what the problem was:
>     > it was advertised as a session to help newcomers but wasn't looked at
>     > that way by most senior IETF folks actually going to it.  It sounds like
>     > people would actually rather not have the newcomers participate in it at
>     > all but instead having a leadership gathering, which is far outside the
>     > scope of the EDU team and it's purpose certainly.  And begins to look
>     > exclusionary too, if you stare at it long enough.
> 
> Yes, it definitely does.
> 
>     > Side question: if you need (quiet) time to catch up with
>     > chairs/ADs/whatever, why can't you schedule that time instead regardless
>     > of whether there is a restricted-access social or not?  If there was a
>     > blank hour in the Sunday agenda why wouldn't that work just as well?
> 
> It would not work as well because it requires that chairs know they need to
> meet.   A typical case would be a chair chats with with an AD, the AD says,
> "well, that needs cross-area review from XYZ WG" ... and then they go to find
> WG chair from XYZ.  It works because everyone is more or less in the same
> spot, is relatively idle (no laptops out), due to the abundance of beer.
> 
>     > [the obvious answer to me is that if everyone is in the same room, it
>     > makes bouncing between people better but adds the risk that you still
>     > won't talk to everyone you wanted to because it wasn't a scheduled
> meet-up]
> 
> It's not the efficiency of finding people, but the immediacy of the
> contact...
> 
> 
> --
> Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>, Sandelman Software Works
>  -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-
> 
>