Re: Trade show at IETF
On 03/16/2012 01:35 PM, Sam Hartman wrote: "IAOC" == IAOC Chair writes: IAOC>QUESTION: What do you think about doing a Beer and Gear IAOC> style of event on an evening that does not conflict with other IAOC> IETF activities? I think that hallway conversations, private meetings and other activities that people have already filled Sunday after the reception,Monday, Thursday and Friday with are more important. I think this would make an already crowded event more crowded and while it might be useful would detract from other more important uses of the time. So, I am not generally supportive of this idea. NANOG has network operators as the audience but the IETF has a more mixed audience. I support ideas to raise money, and I would go to this event, out of curiosity. I'm not looking to buy any networking equipment though. I would actually like more lunch-time lectures and discussions. (Maybe M, T, and Th so WG Chairs lunch on W does not conflict). Perhaps vendors or researchers would be willing to make a donation to get one of those lunch slots? Andy
Re: Trade show at IETF
Andy: > On 03/16/2012 01:35 PM, Sam Hartman wrote: >> >> IAOC>QUESTION: What do you think about doing a Beer and Gear >> IAOC> style of event on an evening that does not conflict with other >> IAOC> IETF activities? >> >> I think that hallway conversations, private meetings and other >> activities that people have already filled Sunday after the >> reception,Monday, Thursday and Friday with are more important. I think >> this would make an already crowded event more crowded and while it might >> be useful would detract from other more important uses of the time. >> So, I am not generally supportive of this idea. > > NANOG has network operators as the audience but the IETF has a more mixed > audience. > I support ideas to raise money, and I would go to this event, out of > curiosity. > I'm not looking to buy any networking equipment though. > > I would actually like more lunch-time lectures and discussions. > (Maybe M, T, and Th so WG Chairs lunch on W does not conflict). > Perhaps vendors or researchers would be willing to make a donation > to get one of those lunch slots? Yes. We need to make sure that lunch-time events do not interfere with the IETF meeting. For the last few years, ISOC has an event on Tuesday, the WG Chairs meet on Wednesday, and the Host presents on Thursday. That does leave Monday for a sponsor slot. Since we did not have a host until very late in the game for Paris, a sponsor was given the Thursday lunch slot. Now that we have a host, and Thursday is gone, we have given the host the Monday lunch slot. So, there are no more slots in Paris. But is also shows that we could probably get sponsorship dollars for the Monday lunch slot on an ongoing basis. Russ
Re: Trade show at IETF
On Fri, 16 Mar 2012, Russ Housley wrote: > Thursday is gone, we have given the host the Monday lunch slot. So, > there are no more slots in Paris. But is also shows that we could > probably get sponsorship dollars for the Monday lunch slot on an ongoing > basis. Another slot to consider ... breakfast before the daily meetings ... might be offered to a vendor for the right fee. As a dietician, my wife attends professional conferences. Recently she spent a week in Las Vegas during which she attended a catered breakfast training session put on by one of the nutritional suppliment vendors. Breakfast was nice and free and she continuing education credits and learned about that companies latest products for medical nutrition therepy. As I recall the session started at an obnoxious time like 6am. I can imagine quite a few topics that a large percentage of IETF attendies would find useful.
Re: Trade show at IETF
--On Friday, March 16, 2012 16:35 -0400 Sam Hartman wrote: > IAOC> QUESTION: What do you think about doing a Beer and > Gear IAOC> style of event on an evening that does not > conflict with other IAOC> IETF activities? > > I think that hallway conversations, private meetings and other > activities that people have already filled Sunday after the > reception,Monday, Thursday and Friday with are more important. > I think this would make an already crowded event more crowded > and while it might be useful would detract from other more > important uses of the time. So, I am not generally supportive > of this idea. FWIW, I have to agree with Sam. The notion that we have spare slots that could reasonably be used for this sort of thing on a non-conflicting basis is dubious. In my experience, "free" evenings tend to turn into individual meetings, design team meetings, company get-togethers. ISOC events, and lots of other things that keep either the IETF or other wheels turning. Similar comments apply to lunch: formally, we've got ISOC, WG Chairs, and Sponsor. Informally and in terms of small group activities, I can't remember an IETF at which I've had a free lunch slot: directorate meetings, WG Chairs or design team meetings for particular WGs (with or without an AD or two), IAB Project meetings, RFC Editor meetings, interviews, and so on, often with the opportunity to be double- or triple-booked. Recommendation if you want to try an experiment: find the next meeting when there is no sponsor and therefore no social (or no social scheduled for some other reason) and try Tuesday. Then ask the community afterwards whether it prefers this type of event or a social. And the above ignores my deep concerns about essentially inviting a collection of sales and marketing, and maybe recruiting, types to the IETF. That interacts with Fred's concern about audience but goes well beyond it. john
Re: Trade show at IETF
On Fri, 16 Mar 2012, Sam Hartman wrote: > > "IAOC" == IAOC Chair writes: > > IAOC> QUESTION: What do you think about doing a Beer and Gear > IAOC> style of event on an evening that does not conflict with other > IAOC> IETF activities? > > I think that hallway conversations, private meetings and other > activities that people have already filled Sunday after the > reception,Monday, Thursday and Friday with are more important. I think > this would make an already crowded event more crowded and while it might > be useful would detract from other more important uses of the time. > So, I am not generally supportive of this idea. I find my self needing downtime when I attend an IETF meeting. Crowding more opportunities into the schedule is possibly counter productive. But as an experiment, seems useful. Might thing about exhibit only attendees as well ... I frequently go to trade shows for the exhibits rather than the sessions. Wouldn't travel far, but I can see that being a valuable additional audience to interest vendors?
Re: Trade show at IETF
On 3/16/12 3:32 PM, David Morris wrote: I find my self needing downtime when I attend an IETF meeting. Me too, and while I'm pro-beer I'm ambivalent about gear. I don't really understand what would be in it for any of the parties involved. No harm in looking at it, though. Questions about what it would offer that participants would find useful (other than beer). Might thing about exhibit only attendees as well ... I frequently go to trade shows for the exhibits rather than the sessions. Wouldn't travel far, but I can see that being a valuable additional audience to interest vendors? I don't think I'd like that. Too many people already refer to IETF meetings as "conferences." We're there to move work forward. Melinda
Re: Trade show at IETF
--On Friday, March 16, 2012 17:49 -0800 Melinda Shore
wrote:
>...
> No harm in looking at it, though. Questions about what it
> would
> offer that participants would find useful (other than beer).
Not to pick on Melinda (her note was just handy), but I want to
push back a bit on the "no harm in trying this" hypothesis
("looking" is another issue).
Many participants in the IETF, including people from exactly the
vendors one might expect to be looking for booths (or whatever),
have been complaining in recent years about pressure on travel
budgets, especially for multiple attendees from their
organizations. So suppose vendor X is now sending 10 people to
the IETF (and used to send 15 or 20). Suppose we offer them a
show floor or equivalent and they decide they need to send five
market or sales folk to staff it. There are certainly companies
whose travel budgets for engineering staff are completely
separate from those for sales and marketing, but my experience
and some studies I've seen in recent years suggest not a huge
number of them.
Especially for the others, do we really believe that starting
with 10 engineering attendees and deciding that one needs five
marketing/sales people present is going to produce 15 people
traveling total? I'd say "maybe" if the sales/marketing people
could be pulled out of an office that was local to the IETF
venue but "almost certainly not" if people had to be put on
airplanes and put up in hotels. For the latter situation, maybe
one would get lucky and end up with a dozen people (i.e., a
reduction in engineering attendance at the IETF of only three).
Less lucky and the "10 people" remains constant and IETF
participant attendance goes down by half.
Note too that, if the company sends only five technical people
and concludes that it doesn't suffer harm from that small a
number, the odds of getting back up to 10 if the experiment is
terminated and those five sales/market types disappear is just
about zero, at least until the economy improves considerable.
Scale and juggle the figures as you like, this is not a
zero-risk experiment.
john
Re: Trade show at IETF
On 3/16/2012 8:04 PM, John C Klensin wrote: Suppose we offer them a show floor or equivalent and they decide they need to send five market or sales folk to staff it. wow. that's very creative thinking John. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Trade show at IETF
On 3/16/12 20:04 , John C Klensin wrote: > Note too that, if the company sends only five technical people > and concludes that it doesn't suffer harm from that small a > number, the odds of getting back up to 10 if the experiment is > terminated and those five sales/market types disappear is just > about zero, at least until the economy improves considerable. > > Scale and juggle the figures as you like, this is not a > zero-risk experiment. You know nothing about marketing budgets. > john >
Re: Trade show at IETF
On 3/16/12 21:28 , Joel jaeggli wrote: > On 3/16/12 20:04 , John C Klensin wrote: >> Note too that, if the company sends only five technical people >> and concludes that it doesn't suffer harm from that small a >> number, the odds of getting back up to 10 if the experiment is >> terminated and those five sales/market types disappear is just >> about zero, at least until the economy improves considerable. >> >> Scale and juggle the figures as you like, this is not a >> zero-risk experiment. > > You know nothing about marketing budgets. to me more succint and less terse. PMO or whatever it's called in given organzation is a different pool of money. whether it gets spent at the ietf or not has little or nothing to do with whether R&D dollars are spent on standards activity. if there are potential customers at the ietf or reach to customers through the ietf PMO is potentially interested. if not they aren't. >> john >> >
Re: Trade show at IETF
--On Friday, March 16, 2012 21:28 -0700 Joel jaeggli wrote: > On 3/16/12 20:04 , John C Klensin wrote: >> Note too that, if the company sends only five technical people >> and concludes that it doesn't suffer harm from that small a >> number, the odds of getting back up to 10 if the experiment is >> terminated and those five sales/market types disappear is just >> about zero, at least until the economy improves considerable. >> >> Scale and juggle the figures as you like, this is not a >> zero-risk experiment. > > You know nothing about marketing budgets. Sorry, Joel. I have both had to administer those budgets and policies, been the victim of them, as well as seen it go on in companies with whom I've done consulting work on organizational and strategic matters. Companies differ -- I tried to say that -- but in many companies that are really oriented toward the bottom line, marketing controls virtually all travel budgets. In a few, sales and/or controls and perceptions of their needs control almost all budget categories: Engineering is rarely a profit center, the money has to come from somewhere, and the organizational question is how much control the money source and its needs affect how it is spent. I didn't mean to suggest that the effects would be felt immediately -- there are usually budget cycles. But, over the medium term, even more relaxed organizations in tight budget situations do tend to eventually notice "total number of people attending from company", and push back. If the attendees include both people from cost centers and people from profit centers, the latter tend to win the battle for slots, or at least to win less. But I suppose I should defer to your superior experience in senior management and corporate finance roles. john
Re: Trade show at IETF
On 3/16/2012 11:10 PM, Joel jaeggli wrote: PMO or whatever it's called in given organzation is a different pool of money. +1 -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Trade show at IETF
Separate budgets, but it really all depends on the type of "Trade Shows" the IETF is contemplating. I will note it does spike my interest to consider going to a IETF event from a technical sales standpoint, illustrating products built on IETF standardized protocol efforts, developing technology transfer agreements, joint ventures, etc. But if targeting a consumer market, thats a different set of departmental cost issues (Sales, engineers, technicians, etc). My only warning with this is that it make become too successful! It may actually attracts more vendors, especially among those whose main interest is as implementators and don't care much for the getting involved with the protocol development politics. As it gets bigger, the IETF will need to be ready with larger locations and offering pre-ordering space selections for the next events. This is very important part of the strategic booth location planning. Finally, a certain level of commitment will need to be shown because if the IETF does eventually decide it no longer wants (or can't) to get into this area, then refunds will be needed and whole slew of legal messy contract lawyers are needed. Also, once its reaches of level where its big part of the IETF, it might begin to see the unions knocking on the door which adds even more cost. -- HLS John C Klensin wrote: --On Friday, March 16, 2012 21:28 -0700 Joel jaeggli wrote: On 3/16/12 20:04 , John C Klensin wrote: Note too that, if the company sends only five technical people and concludes that it doesn't suffer harm from that small a number, the odds of getting back up to 10 if the experiment is terminated and those five sales/market types disappear is just about zero, at least until the economy improves considerable. Scale and juggle the figures as you like, this is not a zero-risk experiment. You know nothing about marketing budgets. Sorry, Joel. I have both had to administer those budgets and policies, been the victim of them, as well as seen it go on in companies with whom I've done consulting work on organizational and strategic matters. Companies differ -- I tried to say that -- but in many companies that are really oriented toward the bottom line, marketing controls virtually all travel budgets. In a few, sales and/or controls and perceptions of their needs control almost all budget categories: Engineering is rarely a profit center, the money has to come from somewhere, and the organizational question is how much control the money source and its needs affect how it is spent. I didn't mean to suggest that the effects would be felt immediately -- there are usually budget cycles. But, over the medium term, even more relaxed organizations in tight budget situations do tend to eventually notice "total number of people attending from company", and push back. If the attendees include both people from cost centers and people from profit centers, the latter tend to win the battle for slots, or at least to win less. But I suppose I should defer to your superior experience in senior management and corporate finance roles. john
