These are some cool ideas, and I think we need to try some or all of them.
I'm happy to support a newcomers list if we do that, as well as the
development of the informational packet for newcomers. I also like the
"billeting" notion; if I were to be paired up with a newcomer, something
like meeting during the breaks at a specific place if that person needs me
would make sense. If I need to talk to someone else, I can just give that
person the same location.
As for scheduling breakfasts, I agree that this or any kind of outreach is
to be encouraged, but the first concern that came up for me is scheduling
conflicts. There will be a lot of collisions for the 8am slot, more so
than conflicting working group schedules throughout the day. So don't
limit it just to breakfast slots prior to your WG meeting.
Then again, I co-chair APPSAWG which is always first thing Monday morning,
leaving us with very few scheduling options for such a thing.
To provide one data point, MAAWG (an messaging working group external to
the IETF) has tried newcomer breakfasts for the last few meetings. They're
held daily for their three-day conferences. Feedback on them has been
mostly positive at the beginning of the week but their utility peters off
after that. My read on the idea based on their experience is that such
events could be quite successful if appropriately structured; they need to
be publicized, and "staffed" by experienced IETFers who span more than just
one or two areas.
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 10:42 AM, John C Klensin <john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com>
wrote:
--On Thursday, 14 March, 2013 14:07 +0000 "Romascanu, Dan (Dan)"
<dromasca(_at_)avaya(_dot_)com> wrote:
I like it a lot!
Starting with IETF-87 I will reserve a breakfast slot for the
WG I am co-chairing and invite (in advance, the week before
the meeting) the new attendees interested in this WG to attend.
Ok, three suggestions:
(1) We should start working, now or next week, on an
informational packet for newcomers. There should be a link to
it in the registration acknowledgment if someone checks
"first-time attendee" or its equivalent and it should be handed
to the newcomers in paper form when they pick up registration
materials (not put on a table somewhere, or accessed through a
link, but handed to them with their badges).
(2) The online registration materials should say, explicitly and
ideally in response to someone's identifying themselves as a
newcomer, that, if there are particular WGs they are interested
in, they should
-- join the WG mailing list immediately, rather than
waiting for the meeting
-- send mail to the WG chair(s) or designee introducing
themselves.
Of course, that requires that we tell them how to do those
things.
(3) I'd like to see a slot on the WG page (charter page maybe)
that identifies the newcomer-welcomer for the WG. By default,
that ought to be the first-listed WG Chair. That might provide
lots of incentive for delegation, but that is good too. The
welcomer might merely be a human mentor-pointer, but that is ok
too. The point is that every WG should have someone explicitly
responsible for being a newcomer contact point and we shouldn't
automatically stick the WG Chair(s) with the job.
john