Subject: A presentation after the chairs' lunch

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 01:38:53 -0500

Hi,

I am currently sitting in intarea right now, and thinking about the
topic we discussed in the chairs' lunch.

I came to this meeting because there were some things I was interested
in.  But because softwire wasn't able to get through their agenda this
meeting, part of intarea has been taken over by softwire
presentations.

Now, no criticism of Rémi Després, but I'm just not that interested in
6a44.  I am only staying because I agreed to be jabber scribe.  I have
not read this draft, I don't understand the topic really, and I don't
even understand why this problem is remotely important: to me it
sounds like an academic problem (the discussion seemed to indicate
otherwise).  But I don't know, and to be perfectly honest I can't
think of a reason to care.

What we got was a presentation that was an overview of the technology
or the draft or something.  There were 9 real slides and then 6 more
pieces of reference material in the deck.  Slide 9 had some questions
on it.

I couldn't really understand any of it.  I didn't understand the
motivation, so there was no sense in which this was a way of causing
me to want to go and read this draft.  A bunch of people stood up at
the mic and had things to say about the mechanism, so they presumably
understood the proposal.  But then, they had probably already read the
draft.  And if they hadn't, I find it impossible to believe that they
were saying something that would move the draft along anyway.

This was a classic example of the very kind of "present the draft"
style of presentation that I was claiming is never, ever useful in any
IETF context.  If you don't know what the thing is talking about,
there is no way the presentation will communicate enough information
so that you can understand it.  The people who _have_ read the draft
already know the details, and want to discuss them.  It would have
been infintitely more productive to spent about a minute to describe
the problem this tries to solve and the things that it tries to do,
and then ask who had read it.  Then expose the open issues and start
discussion.  This is a three minute presentations that perhaps tickles
some discussion.  Alternatively, tackle the things that have been
controversial on the list.  But for heaven't sake, don't offer a ten
minute completely inadequate overview of the topic.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
Shinkuro, Inc.

---

From: Lindqvist Kurt Erik <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 08:02:58 +0100

> topic we discussed in the chairs' lunch.

Even worse is that I today I have seen a presenation for the second time, and will see it a third time in the next slot. Tomorrow I will see another presentation for the second time. 

All in different WGs. I think Alain had a good point that WGs should be a  bit more co-ordinated, especially the ops WGs and area WGs...

Best regards,

- kurtis -

---

From: Yaakov Stein <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 07:03:14 +0000

However, this was followed by Scott's talk.

He too presented a draft (although he prefaced his remarks with a statement that
we shouldn't read the present version of the draft).

He had about the same number of slides.
He presented them very fast, but it was completely understandable.

So, it is not the problem of presenting slides on a draft.
It has to do with the presenters ability to explain what he is doing
and why he is excited about it.

Y(J)S

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Andrew Sullivan
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2010 08:39
To: [email-masked]
Subject: A presentation after the chairs' lunch

Hi,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
Shinkuro, Inc.

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 02:33:53 -0500

> All in different WGs. I think Alain had a good point that WGs should be a  bit more co-ordinated, especially the ops WGs and area WGs...

And yet, sometimes the chairs have asked people to present in both MPLS and L3VPN, or MBONED and Multimob (to take two examples 
I know well) as they touch on both groups, and the audience is not entirely the same. I think that that is entirely appropriate if the chairs feel that the draft may require more expertise than typically in their room. 

Marshall

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From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 15:43:50 +0800

We have cross-wg activities the may require the treatment in multiple
locations... Given the scheduling problem (e.g. everyone can't be in
every working group) that we face, the result is unavoidable.

opsawg and v6ops people have been discussing the same issues related to
one draft all week. it will be discussed again tomorrow.

joel

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 02:45:00 -0500

> and why he is excited about it.

Exactly my point, and sorry if that wasn't clear.  I actually thought
that Scott's presentation immediately after was a fantastic
illustration of how to do this: touch on why this is important, issues
that are raised, things that need to be addressed, and ask lots of
questions without a lot of answers.  One wanted to understand Scott's
stuff and read more and follow that work.  Excellent contrast.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
Shinkuro, Inc.

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 03:27:20 -0500

> every working group) that we face, the result is unavoidable.

I don't think I agree.  That the same _draft_ comes up in five places
is not at all bad: we want cross-area review.  That the same
tell-us-what-the-draft-says is made more than once is crazy.  If there
are people in all these other working groups that need to be exposed
to the draft, then they need encouragement to engage with the draft.
The presentation I saw didn't come close: it summarized the content of
a draft in a way that I'm quite certain lost all kinds of important
details, so I couldn't do anything with the information I got.  It
also made me actively hostile to the idea that I would ever read the
draft.

The kind of presentation I saw is not socializing a draft or causing
people to read it.  It's counterproductive, it discourages review, and
it's the reason we have such long meetings all scheduled up against
each other and into Friday afternoon.  Several people at lunch, and
also at the plenary, were arguing that we wanted to go back to the
style of getting work done -- white boards, discussion vs. broadcast,
and so on.  As WG chairs, we have an opportunity to shape the
presentations we allow.  For me, the experience today was just an
excellent reminder of why we had lunch on Wed.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]
Shinkuro, Inc.

---

From: Ronald Bonica <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 04:09:09 -0500

Point well taken!

        Ron

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
> Lindqvist Kurt Erik
> Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2010 2:03 AM
> To: Andrew Sullivan
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: A presentation after the chairs' lunch
> 
> Even worse is that I today I have seen a presenation for the second
> time, and will see it a third time in the next slot. Tomorrow I will
> see another presentation for the second time.
> 
> All in different WGs. I think Alain had a good point that WGs should be
> a  bit more co-ordinated, especially the ops WGs and area WGs...
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> - kurtis -
> 
> 
>

---

From: Gonzalo Camarillo <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:35:14 +0800

Hi,

at least in RAI, we have been discouraging this type of presentation for
several years already. We remind chairs about this every now and then,
actually. In short, I agree with you comment.

Cheers,

Gonzalo

---

From: "Worley, Dale R (Dale)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2010 09:52:18 -0500

On 11/11/2010 2:38 PM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> It would have
> controversial on the list.  But for heaven's sake, don't offer a ten

This recommended style, namely starting with a description of the problem and why it is interesting, has an interesting benefit:  People who are present that *should* be aware of the draft but *are not* will be made aware of the draft's importance to them.  The introduction will not be enough to enable them to participate, but they will be stimulated to make themselves familiar with the draft.

Dale