Thanks Dan for that thoughtful note. On Jul 1, 2010, at 11:53 AM, Daniel Golding wrote:
> This is a very long email, so I can't reply to all of it, but here's a try. > > In terms of "room parties" - at regular conferences, those are called > Hospitality Suites and sponsors pay for the privilege of having them. > Or, the privilege is inherited as part of a high-lvel sponsorship. > Either way. (I once got yelled at by Susan Harris for having one of > these.) The solution is not to allow them, or to forbid them, but to > provide a mechanism to have them with the organization getting a cut. > That happens in two ways - you need to be a sponsor of a certain level > to have the suite, and the food and beverage counts towards our F&B > minimum. Interesting - So by providing a more cooperative and financially palatable outlet for the activity we can avoid the clash. That hasn't been tried at NANOG before - cool. There will probably still be private parties, but they would have to find a quiet way of getting people there. > > The way forward is to have sharp cut-off from having > quasi-professional meetings and transition into having real events. > Real events have real sponsorship models, not a few bucks for a break > or a beer and gear. Real events are planned a year in advance, not a > few months. Real events don't require hosts to dedicate a dozen staff > members - they can just write a check. > > Betty did a very good job of getting us on this path. That was as > opposed to Susan who was reflexively against anything that had the > foul odor of capitalist enterprise. We need to continue to > professionalize as the organization evolves. Agreed. That was always one of the dimensions of the NANOG debate - commercial vs. the original academic/research roots. I also believe we err'd too far on the conservative side of commercializing NANOG. It would be helpful to articulate what we *don't want* NANOG to become on the commercialization side to make sure we don't overstep a bound. One area I would like to see discussed out here in the open is the idea of having professional commissioned NANOG sales staff. In the early Merit NANOG days we expected sponsors to contact us, perhaps spreading the idea through attendee contacts we had. One could imagine a new organization with a commissioned sales person being a tad more aggressive than that. My personal feeling is that this is not really a sustainably volunteer job and is important enough to have someone full time on it. > > The idea of non-sponsors handing out schwag is the same. If we had a > real sponsorship model, we could say "only Gold sponsors get to do > that, sorry". Makes life easier for vendors, attendees, and > organizers. Just saying - tough to police and has caused friction in the past - a real us vs them thing could result when enforced. Just have to think a bit about how to communicate and implement. > > As far as crashers - at most conferences, there is an invisible line > around the sessions themselves. Sometimes, there is security. Common > areas are generally ok for crashers, but sessions, meals, and > receptions are not. I remember we tried security at an early GPF (Gigabit Peering Forum) in Dallas at the Infomart. It was really weird walking past guards into the room. My perception was that It caused a palatable but very subtle change in the tone of the meeting. That and the cowboy hats ;-). > > Commercialization and exploitation of BOFs has been going on forever. > Many folks have used the Peering BOF to promote other events, collect > data, push datacenter properties - whatever. There's always a fine > line, and you know you have crossed it when you get your ass handed to > you by someone you respect. It has happened to me, and I learned from > it. Obviously, repeat offenders shouldn't be on the agenda. > > - Dan One other NANOG idea I always wanted to see was "Neat Tech Toys for Geeks" - the NANOG audience I think is generally tech savvy or at least tech inclined, is risk seeking, and willing to be guinea pigs for trying out new stuff at NANOG. Thanks again for the thoughtful note. Bill > > > > > On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 12:59 PM, William Norton <[email protected]> wrote: >> I would actually like to steer this to a NANOG-Future topic -- what kind of >> NANOG do we want to have? >> >> Sorry this is a little long, but I wanted to share some data points and >> context. >> >> An organization is defined by how it behaves. Just to provide a little >> historical context and data for the discussion here... >> >> When I was chairing NANOG in the early days, we tried a bunch of new things, >> including beer-n-gear. We pretty much had to use the hotel services and >> catering - the costs were pretty high but the sponsors seemed to have the >> marketing money to get in front of the attendees. Then we started seeing >> more quasi-commercial activities we hadn't seen so much in the >> gov't-sponsored NSFNET days : >> >> 1) We started seeing folks having suite parties, in a couple cases these >> competed with the agenda or with the sponsored socials or BOFs. When I asked >> about their motivation, just to understand why, the answers for having >> these parties instead of participating in beer-n-gear were varied but seemed >> centered around the cost - that their little gathering was maybe one-tenth >> the cost of participating in beer-n-gear and everyone seemed to have a >> better time in this informal albeit cramped environment. To me, these >> parties felt more like a college parties vs. a formal event, and I >> personally liked the feel of these parties too. >> >> We (the NANOG team at Merit) had to decide how to deal with this - (and >> newNOG should decide its attitudes on these types of things as well as it >> defines its culture). We had really three options: >> a) do we play hard ball somehow to prevent the parties? The hotel didn't >> like them either as they didn't generate any $ for them. >> b) Or let it slide by quietly ignoring (not condoning) the behavior? >> c) Or do we enjoy the party with the rest of the participants? >> >> What actually happened was that people Merit folks were simply not invited >> to these parties for fear of what their attitude toward the party could be. >> There was a kind of "hope we don't get caught" on their side and our >> (personal) desire to socialize (be invited to the party) like everyone else >> while (Merit NANOG hat) making sure events didn't clash and the beer-n-gear >> sponsors didn't bail on the formal events. >> >> I think during my stead we slide towards enjoying the parties that we heard >> about, and a sort of *unwritten rule* emerged that the parties shouldn't >> clash with the scheduled agenda events. There was another kind of >> awkwardness as folks wanted to not clash, but didn't know when things >> occurred, so these unauthorized party organizers awkwardly had to keep >> checking the agenda to make sure their little parties didn't clash while not >> tipping their hat to Merit that they were doing something unsanctioned here. >> Even with this awkwardness, everyone kind of agreed and things kinda ran >> smoothly. >> >> NewNOG will have to decide how to handle this type of thing as well. This >> wasn't documented anywhere before, so I thought I would share it. >> >> 2) We started seeing people quietly passing out logo'd and funny t-shirts, >> one of the benefits we marketed to beer-n-gear sponsorship prospects. >> >> This too, during my time we let slide. What were we to do - police the event >> for T-shirts, vendor giveaways not done at the sanctioned times? What fun >> would that be? And for a 501.3c not-for-profit staff (not work for serious >> money compensation or stock), being aggressive about things like this tends >> to go against the personality grain. >> >> 3) And yes, over the years there have always been a few crashers - people >> attending the event without registering or paying. >> >> The question it seemed to me was the extent of the violation - how long were >> they there, did they eat or drink beer or get t-shirts at beer n gear, etc. >> >> In one incident we know about, a person stopped at the event to say hi in >> passing, was actually called to the mike to answer a question and then >> community name-and-shamed / chastised the person for not having paid. >> >> In another incident we know about, a person hung out in the lobby and was >> called out for reaping some of the benefits of NANOG (access to the >> population of people attending). To some it didn't matter that zero >> resources were consumed. >> >> In the recent incident, a person looking for a lunch date with a person he >> wouldn't recognize asked for help meeting the person. I assisted in his >> failed search. He was there for only a few minutes and left. >> >> One thing in common - These things sometimes causes some degree of uproar as >> everyone had an opinion as to where the line was. In most of these events, >> what seemed to cause the most problems to me was *how* the folks in charge >> of NANOG responded - if they did nothing, then people (especially people who >> paid with their own hard earned cash) felt a little cheated, and if the >> folks running things over reacted then the community responded with >> resentment of authority. This IMO was overreaction was one of the straws >> that broke the camel's back and helped roll the ball down the path towards >> revolution. >> >> 4) ...the list goes on... tours of data centers that don't sponsor NANOG but >> are local (we geeks like these things), promotion of other events not >> related to NANOG (GPFs are promoted during the peering BOFs for example), IX >> Updates seem to be advertisements of their services while other services are >> not afforded the floor, etc. etc. >> >> 5) Personality clashes, the tone of the meetings, and how those in charge >> communicate/interact with the attendees/membership. To me this is a key >> defining characteristic of the organization. I always wanted the NANOG tone >> to be facilitative, neutral and non-confrontational - keep everyone happy >> and subtle, confidential and a little bit cautious nudges in the right >> direction. >> >> Example: In the old days, there was only one incident where a vendor spammed >> the broader community and thanked them for attending their social even when >> they had not attended. This company did not recognize the spam issue as a >> problem - the subtle nudges did not help. This was the only incident where >> cautious and subtle failed. >> >> Anyway - Back then, we (Merit) had to make these types of decisions, and I >> would argue that HOW an organization behaves ultimately defines the >> organization. >> >> Now, the new organization, and I would hope the community, will have to make >> these types decisions. This is an important discussion especially as the >> new NANOG is looking to try a bunch of new things. >> >> Should we document these unwritten rules or document these incidents >> somewhere so people have some idea of the history and where these grey areas >> are ? Or does the organization deal with issues as they come up as >> completely new? Do we prefer a go-with-the-flow for the time being, a >> continuation of the current Tao of NANOG, or does this new organization >> prefer the harder more aggressive approach that some of us at Merit did not >> wish to pursue ? >> >> I hope this helps - >> >> Bill >> _______________________________________________ >> Nanog-futures mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://mailman.nanog.org/mailman/listinfo/nanog-futures >> _______________________________________________ Nanog-futures mailing list [email protected] https://mailman.nanog.org/mailman/listinfo/nanog-futures
