On 11/14/2012 9:34 AM, Carsten Bormann wrote:
(Another aspect beyond capturing regular attendees, of course, is
gaining local mindshare and relevance.
I believe I understand the concepts that are meant by such language.
But I do not know what you mean, with respect to the IETF. I especially
do not know what you mean, in terms of the IETF's getting its work done.
Ultimately, if the IETF does not have the mindshare among the people who
consume our work, I believe that it is better accomplished by doing work
that has more community involvement and more operational relevance. If
we do that, it won't matter where we hold our meetings.
One argument for our going to many different places is that it makes the
IETF more 'credible' because the IETF is "seen". However I believe few
International standards groups do traveling shows like the IETF, and
they manage to be seen as credible.
In other words, I would have that our relevance is determined more by
the quality and utility of our work than by the marketing effects of
meeting venue.
Similarly, I think the meetings
in Prague were very useful for visibility in other central European
countries. Hitting the focal points of economy and culture is more
important here than a close-by airport. There *is* an -- indirect and
more long-term -- effect of this on participation from the parts of
the world we reach this way.)
Again, finding meeting venues that work well for an IETF venue is quite
difficult. When we add other goals, such as marketing the IETF to the
community, we make venue selection especially difficult.
In fact I believe, we actually wind up making the IETF more
/exclusionary/ rather than more /inclusive/ because we raise the barrier
to participation for serious participants, most notably participants
with less time and money that the average, corporate-funded attendee...
Showing up in various places does not make the work better. It might
have outward marketing benefits for the image of the IETF.
Historically, the IETF has done better by worrying less about its image
and more about the utility of its work.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net