Ole Jacobsen wrote:
On Thu, 13 Oct 2005, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
How about adding that the mean outdoor temperature at the time of the
year the meeting is being held should be above 0 degrees Centigrade?
Why?
There is some logic in this.. Participants need to be able to get from
airport to hotel to venue on foot/public transport without needing to
bring excessive personal protection gear that they might not otherwise
own, or experiencing heat stroke because they aren't used to the
temperature/humidity (oh, and touristing before/after isn't much fun
either).
Another related criterion is that the expected weather is not going to
produce a high risk of transport disruption.. southern USA in the
hurricane season??? continental Canada in December??? Asia in the
monsoon season??? whereever in the peak holiday influx season for that
region???
More importantly, the venue must be able to maintain a sensible
temperature/humidity in the conference rooms (20-23 deg C, 50% Relative
Humidity). Remember that the side effect of allowing 80% of people to
plug in their laptops is that each of them may be dissipating an extra
150-200 watts of heat into the room over and above what the human body
does. This is actually more than doubling the heat load into the room,
and cooling systems may not be able to cope - the IETF is an unusual
body and it imposes cruel and unusual punishment on cooling systems.
Sitting for a week in excessively warm and humid rooms is not pleasant
(working efficiency falls off even at 26C). For example, the Paris
meeting turned out ok because the outside temperature dropped right
about when the actual conference began, but I was at an Interop event in
the same building the previous week when the temperatures were much
higher, and being in one of the smaller rooms with lots of bodies and
more computers was unpleasant.. the cooling just wasn't coping. My
mind has blanked out the location, but we had a very unpleasant week in
a US venue two or three years ago when the cooling couldn't cope.
Reference:
http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/studentdownloads/DEA350notes/Thermal/thcomnotes1.html
http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/studentdownloads/DEA350notes/Thermal/thcomnotes2.html
http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/studentdownloads/DEA350notes/Thermal/thcondnotes.html
Other health risks: Would participants need vaccinations before
attending? Is it in a malaria risk area? Are there other infectious
disease hazards or nuisances - e.g., West Nile fever, Lyme disease,
Scottish Highland midges. Even if visas are not required are there any
health checks at immigration?
The airport (and/or other wide area transport links) need to have
adequate capacity and decent connections.. probably not an issue if the
venue is sufficiently large but worth checking.
The criteria say nothing about accessibility for the differently able.
There is also the matter of break time refreshment provision..
succouring 1300 thirsty, half-starved nerds (sorry, IETFers) two or
three times a day at a reasonable cost can be a challenge.
You need to differentiate the technical requirements of the venue from
what the network providers need to do.... there are some fuzzy edges
here e.g., the WAN links
Editorial note: You should flag up that continental European conventions
are in use for numbers.
Regards,
Elwyn
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