Subject: RE: Request for IETF65 - Room Configuration

From: "Burger, Eric" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 07:52:45 -0500

There is an interesting paradox here.  If we're talking about the mega-WG's, like SIP, there is little value of "up front" microphones.  In this situation, I think the queues at the mics are a good thing.

It is in the smaller WG's, that have a *small* enough group to enable true real-time discussion, where the idea of more mics up-front is excellent. In speechsc, for example, the ONLY audience mike was in the back of the room.  That was not condusive to having an intimate meeting with all of the primary participants together in the front of the room.

I ended up giving the main participants the wireless speaker's mic. That worked OK, but it would have been better to have more mics up front.

On the presentation machine thought, unless one is in the situation that one simply does not have a laptop or does not have "compatible" software, I would offer the secretariat deal with that on a case-by-case basis.  The vast majority of chairs have laptops.  It would be an unnecessary expense and logistical opportunity to put machines into each room.

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Jeffrey Altman [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent:	Thu Nov 24 04:23:22 2005
To:	[email-masked]
Subject:	Request for IETF65 - Room Configuration

As chair of the Kitten Working Group, I have been trying hard to make
the best use of the limited time that the participants have in the
meeting room.  It has been my experience that the hardest part of making
progress on the documents within Kitten is getting everyone to focus on
the work at the same time.   The IETF meetings provides us that time.

I should also point out that many of the participants are unable to
attend the meetings for a wide range of reasons including geography,
financial considerations, and conflicts with other responsibilities.
As such it is crucial that remote participants be provided as much
opportunity as possible to interact with the in room participants
in real time

Given the limited time I strive to ensure that there are as few
interruptions as possible during the meeting.  I require that all
discussion leaders (we don't have presentations) provide an outline
of the work topics and background materials to me in some form that
I can convert to PDF no later than the night before the meeting.
This is for three purposes:

(1) it enables me to proof read the materials to correct typographical
errors and it also allows me to ensure that the discussion will be
focused on what I believe are the most important issues that face to
face communication can benefit from.

(2) it gives me time to reformat the presentation materials to PDF;
upload them to two locations (the IETF proceedings tool and a web
served AFS volume) so that they will be accessible to the remote
participants.

(3) I am able to preload the materials onto a presentation only
laptop that I bring to each meeting.  The use of this dedicated
laptop results in two major benefits:

  (a) there are no interruptions caused by discussion leaders
      swapping their personal laptops onto the video projector.
      this is a frequent problem for many laptops that now have
      display resolutions that far exceed the capabilities of the
      projectors.   Switching to 1024x768 on the fly often leads
      to significant delays as machines need to be reconfigured
      and many times require rebooting.

  (b) It leaves all the participants (including the chair) their
      own laptops for access to the Jabber room and their personal
      notes.

In my group I always have one participant taking minutes and two
participants scribing to Jabber.  We also try extremely hard to
ensure that all discussion takes place on the microphones.  This is
both to allow the remote participants to hear what is going on in
real time but also so that the audio stream recordings can be used
to supplement the minutes during fast paced technical discussions.
The format of the discussions is round table which leads me to my
request.

In order to support the types of high bandwidth discussions and
ensure that those discussions take place on the microphones, it is
crucial that there be an ample number of microphones accessible
to the appropriate participants.   I realize that the hotel a/v
staff places mics in rooms based upon what they feel is required
for those in the room to be able to hear each other.  It must be
made clear to them that we need the mics for other purposes as
well that are just as important.

In the typical small room for 50 people there are usually two columns
of seating.  In Vancouver we often had tables for the first two
rows of participants.  This is a great idea and should be repeated
in Dallas and all future meetings.   It is standard practice at
IETF that the first two rows are reserved for those who have read
the drafts and will be actively participating in the work while
those in the back of the room read their e-mail and prove how open
our meetings are.  In order to facilitate the active participation
of those in the first two rows of seating I would request that one
microphone be provided to each column of seating for use by those
in the first two rows.  It can be either a wireless or a wired
microphone.  It doesn't matter which.  The only requirement is that
the microphone be capable of being passed around those who are seated
in the first two rows of each column.  These mics would be in addition
to the mics that are typically provided:

* one mic for the chair

* one mic for the discussion leader

* one mic for those in the back of the room who wish the queue up
  periodically

In addition, because of all of the recent troubles we have had
with network access in the room and the instability of the Jabber
clients, I would request that at least one room (the one Kitten and
Kerberos are assigned to) be provided a second video projector onto
which the Jabber room of the meeting will be displayed.  This is to
enable all of those in the room the ability to monitor the Jabber
session and observe the real time comments coming from those listening
to the audio stream.

Thanks.

Jeffrey Altman

---

From: Jeffrey Altman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 10:55:41 -0500

Burger, Eric wrote:
> On the presentation machine thought, unless one is in the situation that
> one simply does not have a laptop or does not have "compatible"
> software, I would offer the secretariat deal with that on a case-by-case
> basis.  The vast majority of chairs have laptops.  It would be an
> unnecessary expense and logistical opportunity to put machines into each
> room.

Eric:

I as Chair have a number of different functions that I must perform
during a meeting using my laptop.   They include:

* keeping my own notes of questions to raise during the discussion

* keeping track of time so we stay on schedule

* keeping notes of the decisions made during the meeting

* providing feedback to the Jabber room when I feel the scribes have
  missed something important

* acting as a gateway to ensure that questions raised in the Jabber
  room make it into the discussions

* using the web to verify references in documents brought up during
  discussion

* etc...

The chair should not be using her/his personal laptop for presentations.
The chair really needs their laptop to perform their job as chair.

This is why I bring a second laptop.   I happen to be in a position to
bring an extra laptop.  I'm not sure that all chairs are.

Jeffrey Altman

---

From: Thierry Ernst <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 10:57:33 +0900

Fully agree with Jeffrey.

This is why I think it would be nice for the IETF to provide some
laptops to WG chairs who has made the request. And, although I
know the laptops will not be able to accommodate all needs, I guess that
a few installed softwares would meet the needs of 90% of the
presenters. At least more than my Powerbook which has not running
software from the company you know for some reasons you might guess.

What would also be nice is such a device which allows to switch from one
laptop to another one without actually removing the cable. 

Thierry.

 On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 10:55:41 -0500
Jeffrey Altman <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Burger, Eric wrote:
> > On the presentation machine thought, unless one is in the situation
> > that one simply does not have a laptop or does not have "compatible"
> > software, I would offer the secretariat deal with that on a
> > case-by-case basis.  The vast majority of chairs have laptops.  It
> > would be an unnecessary expense and logistical opportunity to put
> > machines into each room.
> 
> Eric:
> 
> The chair should not be using her/his personal laptop for
> presentations. The chair really needs their laptop to perform their
> job as chair.
> 

-- 
Thierry ERNST, PhD
WIDE, Jun Murai Lab., Keio University, Japan
Nautilus6 Chair: http://www.nautilus6.org
Web: http://www.sfc.wide.ad.jp/~ernst/
T:+81-44-580-1600 F:+81-44-580-1437
--

---

From: Cullen Jennings <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 19:11:51 -0800

On the hope that we could let folks concentrate on the important things,
like making sure the network is working, I will propose a close to nothing
solution. I imagine most Chairs can borrow a friends computer for their
session. I suspect the number of people that want two computers, don't have
a co-chair, and can't round up another computer for a few hours is pretty
small but I'm glad to help those people out. How about anyone who really
needs a second computer for the Dallas IETF, please send an email to this
list a couple weeks before the meeting and see what we can find. I'm glad to
bring an extra notebook and yes I can bring Mac, Linux, or Windows along
with the typical arcane software that people do presentations in.

Cullen