Subject: survey on Friday IETF sessions

From: Aaron Falk <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 14:50:03 -0700

One of the issues we seem to be running into is an increased number of
conflicts in meeting slots at IETF meetings.  For instance, two years
ago the meeting slots predominantly were used for 6-7 meetings, whereas
the agenda for the upcoming meeting has no slot except for Friday
without 7-8 meetings.  There has been some discussion about IETF
meetings on Fridays, possibly extending the agenda to later Friday
afternoon.  In the interest of creating a more informed discussion,
we've put together a short questionnaire to gather some data on
attending meetings from IETF participants.

See http://ietf.levkowetz.com/survey/attendance/

--aaron  (for Aaron Falk, Henrik Levkowetz, and Mark Allman)

PS. Please don't complain about the questions.  If you have better,
feel free to build your own -- more data is good!  :)

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From: George Michaelson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 13:03:00 +1000

if we ran shorter sessions, we could get more flexibility into how sessions
line up.

if we run tighter sessions, we can run shorter sessions. 

ego restraint appears to work in some groups more than others.

IAB/IETF/WG-chair egos also need to be restrained.  self restraint is good.

I can't think straight for long sessions. I doubt if most participants can. maybe
smaller bite-sized chunks are the way to go?

-George

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 13:11:15 +0200

--On 21. juli 2004 13:03 +1000 George Michaelson <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I can't think straight for long sessions. I doubt if most participants
> can. maybe smaller bite-sized chunks are the way to go?

we made the option available, but people seem to have voted with their feet 
- one-hour slots have regularly been booked in pairs for 2-hour meetings, 
so there are fewer of them each time.

                   Harald

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From: Matthew J Zekauskas <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 10:04:17 -0400

So, something not captured in this survey are additional
reasons for not being able to attend the whole week.

For the last three Novembers, mine has been a conflict
with the SC'xy conference, where I also help lead network
measurement efforts.  I can generally work around "work"
constraints; I have a hard time working around other conference
conflicts.  (As it turns out, there is a Seattle prep meeting
that conflicts with IETF in San Deigo, and SC04 in Pittsburgh
conflicts with the IETF to be scheduled in November.  My solution
will be to blow off the Seattle meeting, and end up flying in
for whenever my working groups meet in November.  Luckily,
the two conferences have not been unreasonably distant for
the last three years...

--Matt

--On Tuesday, July 20, 2004 2:50 PM -0700 Aaron Falk <[email-masked]> wrote:
[snip]

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From: Bill Sommerfeld <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 13:41:50 -0400

> maybe smaller bite-sized chunks are the way to go?

Agree.  At least once I asked for a 1-hour session after they were all
gone or had unacceptable conflicts.  Perhaps it's time to fragment
another afternoon into 1-hour sessions?

						- Bill

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From: Jeffrey Hutzelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 16:16:59 -0400

> another afternoon into 1-hour sessions?

That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
A working group that wants more time can always be scheduled into two 
(possibly adjacent) one-hour slots instead of a single two-hour slot.

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From: Gregory M Lebovitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 14:56:07 -0700

>another afternoon into 1-hour sessions?

it's not a bad idea. If chairs are jonesing for 2 hrs, they can get two of 
the 1 hour slots, as often happens anyway.

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From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 22:26:43 +0200

Are the SC meeting planners aware of the future schedule for IETFs?

Should we get SC meetings listed on 
<http://www.ietf.org/meetings/events.cal.html>?

           Harald