On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 6:15 PM, George, Wes
<wesley(_dot_)george(_at_)twcable(_dot_)com> wrote:
From: ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
[mailto:ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of
Mikael Abrahamsson
Personally I believe there could be value in describing what the value
is to attend the meeting physically. I attended the last meeting in
Stockholm because it meant I only had to pay the entrence fee, since I
live there.
Getting buy-in from management to allow me to go for a week somewhere
and not be available in the office, pay for hotel and travel, plus the
entrence fee, it's hard to justify to management. What is a good answer
to the question "why?".
[WEG] I've had to justify my participation in IETF multiple times in the last
few years, and while official duties as a presenter or WG chair made
justifying travel easier, prior to that point, I had to try to articulate
exactly this. As noted in my other message, this was the first remote meeting
for a while for me, and it put into sharp relief the difference between
in-person and remote participation. While most folks do indeed attend IETF to
attend WG meetings, I think that's only part of the story, and you're right,
it's something we need to do a better job of articulating and considering
when we attempt to replicate IETF attendance virtually or help new
participants feel included.
First and foremost, the act of getting away from the office and the financial
and time commitments involved in traveling to a physical meeting a few times
a year tends to reinforce the need to "prepare" for the meeting by reading
drafts, catching up on IETF work that has languished, etc. The travel and
meeting schedule imposes a deadline of sorts, in addition to providing
physical separation that allows people to reprioritize their work so that for
that week or so, $dayjob becomes secondary to focusing on what's happening in
IETF, since everyone "traveled all that way" and "spent all that money" to
meet together. The proximity provides an excuse to get work done, whether in
a WG meeting, or sitting in the hall collaborating with a co-author in
real-time. I don't know how you replicate that virtually, especially in the
extremes of timezone differential. I know for me, life intrudes a lot when I
haven't physically *left* my normal location and therefore I should be
available!
for the things I would normally do when I am home or in the office. Perhaps
if we move to a virtual-only model, we would be able to spread the work out in
smaller chunks over more time so that it's more manageable as a portion of your
overall workload, or perhaps we keep the defined meeting time as a way to
ensure coordination across many timezones, I don't know.
The other things that become important are the "hallway track" and the "many
fine lunches and dinners". Those come up when talking about attending IETF in
person, but often it's meant to imply that those involved are there for the
wrong reasons (i.e. IETF as company-sponsored tourism or job search) rather
than to acknowledge its value in ensuring that IETF does make progress by
forging personal and professional relationships between its participants.
There is so much networking that happens during those that is mostly lost to
remote participants, and it really is invaluable. Whether it's trying to work
out a compromise on a particularly contentious part of a draft, or stumbling
across a problem or solution in a freewheeling conversation, or just talking
shop with like-minded folks, I find that this makes IETF a much more
rewarding experience. I also find that this makes it easier to make progress
in WGs when limited to low-bandwidth communications channels like email, beca!
use you now know the other people involved. In person attendance, food and
drink provide the opportunity, and are the means, rather than the end. But that
requires you to know people well enough at least professionally that you can
take advantage of that. I can see that being challenging for those who are
newcomers or have only met someone virtually. I am quite sure that there are
ways to replicate those more unofficial/social interactions virtually with the
improvements in video conferencing and telepresence technology, but I'm not
sure it's possible to get past the strong psychology that makes doing it over
food and drink more effective.
Let me add my own experience here, related to a different environment
(scientific conferences), but also very similar to yours. Usually, if
I go to a conference it is because I have a paper to present, but that
it is not the only payback of being there. There is the hall (or bar)
talking with old colleagues of mine, there is the casual meeting of
other researchers (old and young) working in my field with which I
exchange experiences, point of view and maybe a new collaboration can
be born. Actually, I do not know how this could be replicated with an
online tool.
Let's face it: we are social animals, evolved with "socialization
tools" that work best in a face-to-face context.
The whole meatspace vs cyberspace argument has been going on ever since there
has been a cyberspace, so I'm not going to act like this is new, but I think
we're getting to the point now where the technology is catching up with the
science fiction portrayal such that it's worth having the discussion again.
Wes George
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