Subject: Feedback on Sunday's Meet and Greet

From: Alexa Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:49:33 -0800

I saw many of you mingling with the new attendees at Sunday's Meet and  
Greet, and I'd like to get some feedback. What worked well? What  
didn't? What would you change next time? Should there be a next time?  
Any / all input is appreciated.

We will, of course, be asking the same thing of the first-time  
attendees.

Thanks,
Alexa

-----------
Alexa Morris / Executive Director / IETF
48377 Fremont Blvd., Suite 117, Fremont, CA  94538
Phone: +1.510.492.4089 / Fax: +1.510.492.4001
Email: [email-masked]

Managed by Association Management Solutions (AMS)
Forum Management, Meeting and Event Planning
www.amsl.com <http://www.amsl.com/>

---

From: "David Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:11:03 -0600

I thought it worked well.
I would definitely schedule so that it does not conflict with
tutorials, which are there mostly for newcomers.

David Harrington
[email-masked]
[email-masked]
[email-masked]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Alexa Morris
> Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 12:50 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Feedback on Sunday's Meet and Greet
>

---

From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:13:28 -0600

I met a few folks there, who weren't that comfortable talking to 
existing IETFers - but I expected that level of intimidation and 
tried to work through it.  Therefore I feel this worked out.  If I 
were to plan this in the future, I'd like to be in a bigger room to 
allow more movement (which was incumbered a bit by tables in the 
way).  I think this is a good thing and should be done in the future.

Hopefully more newbees will come in the future too.

James

---

From: "Bert Wijnen \(IETF\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:11:38 +0100

If you plan to do it again, please announce well in advance, before we have made
our flight reservations.

Bert
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Alexa Morris 
  To: [email-masked] 
  Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 7:49 PM
  Subject: Feedback on Sunday's Meet and Greet

  Thanks,
  Alexa

  -----------

---

From: "DRAGE, Keith \(Keith\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:18:18 +0100

As I said verbally, I think we need to provide a better integration of
the tutorials for newcomers, leading into the meet and greet session. 

I think it would be useful to have some visual indication of which WG or
even area the newcomers are interested in.

I notice the people being left round the edges were some of the not
english as first language people, so maybe we need to either make a
better effort with them, or find some way of helping them along.

Keith

> Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 6:50 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> I saw many of you mingling with the new attendees at Sunday's 
> Meet and Greet, and I'd like to get some feedback. What 
> worked well? What didn't? What would you change next time? 
> Should there be a next time?  
> We will, of course, be asking the same thing of the 
> first-time attendees.
> 
> Thanks,
> Alexa
> 
> -----------
> Managed by Association Management Solutions (AMS) Forum 
> Management, Meeting and Event Planning www.amsl.com 
> <http://www.amsl.com/>
> 
>

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:21:15 -0000

I found it useful, as well.
In fact, I got in touch with no fewer than four newcomers with significant 
interest in one of my WGs and I was able to encourage them. This would not 
have happened without the meeting.

I think that in future it would be good to lean a little harder on the 
newbies to encourage them to think that attending is a good idea. Ditto the 
chairs.

Do you have any numbers? How many newcomers and how many turned up?

Conflicts with the education sessions are important. Also some thought about 
when most of the newcomers are in the building - had they all arrived by 
Sunday night?

Thanks,
Adrian
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alexa Morris" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 6:49 PM
Subject: Feedback on Sunday's Meet and Greet

>Greet, and I'd like to get some feedback. What worked well? What  didn't? 
>What would you change next time? Should there be a next time?  Any / all 
>input is appreciated.
>
> We will, of course, be asking the same thing of the first-time  attendees.
>
> Thanks,
> Alexa
>
> -----------

---

From: Henk Uijterwaal <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:34:13 +0100

> What would you change next time? Should there be a next time? Any / all 

I think we need some sort of algorith where we can match newbies with
the WG chair(s) of the groups they are interested.  One of them said
he'd be presenting a draft and would like to meet the chair beforehand.
Since I didn't know who the chair was or if he was in the room at all,
I couldn't help him.

Maybe we should just stand up like we did in this afternoon's
lunch and state our name and WG at the start of the event.

Henk

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henk Uijterwaal                           Email: henk.uijterwaal(at)ripe.net
RIPE Network Coordination Centre          http://www.amsterdamned.org/~henk
P.O.Box 10096          Singel 258         Phone: +31.20.5354414
1001 EB Amsterdam      1016 AB Amsterdam  Fax: +31.20.5354445
The Netherlands        The Netherlands    Mobile: +31.6.55861746
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ceterum censeo Asplain esse delendam  (Cato & Henk)

---

From: "Mary Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:33:18 -0600

I thought it worked quite well. Three of the new attendees that I met on
Sunday joined me and two other "old" attendees for dinner on Monday
nite. I advertised the dinner on the ietf-food list and 2 of the 3 new
folks were interested in specific types of foods for restricted diets. 

I think it was a great idea and should be repeated. The new folks even
asked if we scheduled the dinners on a regular basis, so I will plan on
doing that again.

Thanks,
Mary. 

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf Of Alexa Morris
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 12:50 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Feedback on Sunday's Meet and Greet

I saw many of you mingling with the new attendees at Sunday's Meet and
Greet, and I'd like to get some feedback. What worked well? What didn't?
What would you change next time? Should there be a next time?  
Any / all input is appreciated.

Thanks,
Alexa

-----------

Managed by Association Management Solutions (AMS) Forum Management,
Meeting and Event Planning www.amsl.com <http://www.amsl.com/>

---

From: "David Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:07:08 -0600

I made it a point to ask if there was any specific chair the newbie
wanted to meet, and then I helped them locate the right person. The
list that was given to newbies with the list of WGs and chairs helped
a lot in this effort.

(This could be made easier by publishing chair photos with the list,
but that could be a time-consuming task)

dbh 

> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Henk Uijterwaal
> Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 1:34 PM
> To: Alexa Morris
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Feedback on Sunday's Meet and Greet
> 
> Alexa Morris wrote:

---

From: George Michaelson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:10:13 -0600

I was asked by an ISOC fellow to help locate a WG by <vague  
description of interest area> that bore no real relation to a WG as I  
understood it right now.

thats actually a lot harder. In the end, you need to ask experts,  
which means other WG chairs or AD to guide where to go.

(he wanted help with standards work in low bandwidth IP, and got  
pointed to 6lowpan, and said that he made
  at least *some* connection with people holding shared interests)

-G

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:19:54 -0600

I'll echo the comments. I met a lady named Kamella at the meet+greet  
that I bumped into a couple of other times this week. I am mentoring  
an ISOC Fellow, whom I met at the event and have spent some time with.  
I thought it mostly worked modulo the obvious scheduling issues.

On Nov 19, 2008, at 12:49 PM, Alexa Morris wrote:

> I saw many of you mingling with the new attendees at Sunday's Meet  
> and Greet, and I'd like to get some feedback. What worked well? What  
> didn't? What would you change next time? Should there be a next  
> time? Any / all input is appreciated.
>

---

From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:20:11 -0600

1. +1 on my routing the random newbie to meet their chair.

2. Remember, we are not only welcoming the newbie to their chair, but  
welcoming them to the IETF. I spoke with a number of people in totally  
different areas, just to be interested and let them know there is a  
lot more to the IETF than a single work group.

3. +1 on the idea of Chair photos. We could do something as simple as  
posting them at on the board at the venue or complex as using this  
Internet thing (Facebook?).

4. Chair introductions could work if the event immediately follows the  
Newcomers' Tutorial. I would offer we introduce ourselves there and  
accompany the newbies to the venue. I found people coming at various  
times, so introductions at the beginning of the event would be lost  
for most of the newbies.

5. I noticed not only newbies on the edges sorted by language, but I  
noticed newbies on the edges in general. It felt almost like the  
chair:newbie ratio was on the order of 2:1. That meant we did  
occasionally clump. That's OK. What's not OK was letting newbies drift  
off. This may or may not be a popular proposal, but I would offer a  
bit of training for the chairs on how to work a room and engage people  
would go a long way.

---

From: "James M. Polk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:35:13 -0600

>  at least *some* connection with people holding shared interests)

FWIW, LEDBAT is likely who he should have talked to for this, IMO