On Jan 6, 2011, at 11:26 AM, Alessandro Vesely wrote: > I've never attended an IETF meeting. Why? Because it seems to me quite > unlikely to have a chance to say something useful by going there. I mean > useful with respect to a problem that I consider important. That is, not > just a minimal contribution to an already scheduled session that I may happen > to attend. Perhaps, I should request a session... > > Problems are often expressed in the form of tentative solutions. Such > solutions may occasionally happen to be discussed, refined, and agreed upon > by a group of individuals. Implementation, standardization, and adoption may > eventually follow --not necessarily in this order. Isn't this how the IRTF > and the IETF should work? > > A poster session would be a sort of plenary, lasting a couple of hours or so, > with posters hanged on numbered hardboard panels arranged along a walkway. A > poster may be sized A0, or ~50 in, or consist of an equivalent number of > smaller sheets. Posters may stay exposed for a few hours before/after the > scheduled time period. During the session time, however, authors should > stand beside their posters and thus have their chance to talk to any > interested ietfers, one by one or in small knots, informally. A few dozens > of posters per session may provide for adequate gathering. > > IME, this way of participating is easier and less binding for both authors > and attendees. A poster would suit subjects for which it's difficult to > carve a niche within a hosting WG's session, but it may also work as a means > to achieve consensus on a given topic before raising it in a more official > discussion. > > Opinions/suggestions?
Hi Alessandro. Following the Maastricht meeting, there was a lively discussion of a similar issue. The way things are, you need a lot of support to present an idea at a BoF, so the usual way to present new things has become to publish a "bar BoF" and present there. Despite the name, the modern bar BoF is not held in a bar, but rather in the empty conference rooms during lunch time and late in the evening. Understandably, people don't like this much. There have been a few suggestions for alternate ways of presenting and gathering supporters. One such suggestion is in this draft: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nir-non-wg-presentations-01 A poster session sounds cool, but it works well when the presenters are companies, rather than individuals. To get a good A0 poster, you need access to printing services (which are not cheap, but doable) and graphic design talent, which is neither cheap nor common in IETF attendees. To get such a poster up, I would need either my company's sponsorship, or else use my own talents in graphic design: Hmm, #12FF12. Now there's a nice shade of green for a background. As for fonts, let's go with Mistral, because http://www.cracked.com/funny-5647-fonts . Seriously, though, most of the presentation slides you see in an IETF meeting are either black-on-white with way too much text, sometimes adding some default design from the software, or else they're extremely well designed, where you know there's been some company sponsorship. Some of the Internet-of-Things presentations in recent IETF meetings are examples of the latter. I think that's too high a bar to set for new ideas that still don't have much traction. It could be done with some booths instead of the posters - maybe some desks arranged around a room. Yoav _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
