WG meeting structure

["Pete Resnick" <[e-mail]>]

In part inspired by Dave Taht's thread on the IETF list; in part 
something I've been thinking about for some time.

Some of us chairs would like more discussing and less presenting in WG 
sessions. Even for the largest of WG sessions, I tend to see one or two 
dozen people coming to the mic and discussing, and the rest just 
visiting, so this is not an inconceivable idea for most WGs. Getting 
this accomplished is in part having the chairs structure the agenda 
somewhat differently, and we should really start discussing ways to 
accomplish that. But a practical tool to promote discussion is changing 
the room layout. The secretariat has already said that they're willing 
to set up something like this if there are enough takers, and I know a 
few chairs (including myself) who really want this, but I'd like to know 
if we've got enough critical mass to try this out, at least for one or 
two rooms:

The idea is to set up the room like this (check out this ASCII art!):

              +------+
              |screen|
              +------+
   X  X  X  O +-+  +-+ O  X  X  X
   X  X  X  O | |  | | O  X  X  X
   X  X  X  O |T|  |T| O  X  X  X
   X  X  X  O |a|  |a| O  X  X  X
   X  X  X  O |b|  |b| O  X  X  X
   X  X  X  O |l|  |l| O  X  X  X
   X  X  X  O |e|  |e| O  X  X  X
   X  X  X  O | |  | | O  X  X  X
   X  X  X  O | |__| | O  X  X  X
            O +______+ O
    M        O  O  O  O        M
       X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X
       X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X
       X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X
       X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X

Basically, the idea is to have U-shaped table setup, with the screen up 
at the open end. You'd get people at the table all the way around (the 
Os) who plan to participate in the discussion. (I've also seen this done 
with nested tables for more folks in the discussion.) Rows behind (in 3 
directions; the Xs) are for folks who plan to mostly just listen; those 
could fill the rest of the room and could probably scale to 100 or more 
seats depending on the size of the room. There would be a few wireless 
mics to pass around the tables, with perhaps a fixed mic at the bottom 
of the U for the WG chairs, and a couple of floor mics (the Ms) for 
folks who aren't around the table who happen to have comments.

How many of you be willing to run a WG session this way if the setup was 
offered?

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick http://www.episteme.net/
All connections to the world are tenuous at best