Subject: [77attendees] Ad hoc meetings in real meeting rooms

From: Dean Willis <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:21:18 -0500

I'm one of the instigators of using idle meeting rooms and equipment  
for ad-hoc meetings of all sorts, including design-teams, informal non- 
wg-forming-BOFs, break-outs, and general bashing-together of heads by  
WG chairs when we just couldn't find a consensus in the main meeting.

We used to have these sorts of ad-hoc meetings hurriedly in the  
hallways, and with a very restricted information flow due to not  
having a projector or whiteboard handy.

Then one day I realized that the IETF was paying for meeting rooms  
that were sitting there idle because Nobody Needed Them Right Now. So  
I started using those rooms and resources to make the IETF Work  
Better, and it was a Good Thing. Eventually, the Secretariat started  
requiring AD approval before letting me get a room, wand I thought  
that was a Good Thing, because by then, other people had started doing  
the same thing and some sort of approval process helped reduce the  
chance that the meeting room would be either conflicted or wasted.

I don't recall ever inviting an AD or IAB member to one of these ad- 
hocs. They occasionally showed up, but it wasn't really their problem.  
The results of such a meeting, if useful, would eventually be brought  
to their attention through normal working group processes. As a chair,  
I used such meetings many, many times to break deadlocks in the WG,  
and I did it without having to have an AD there to beat the team with.

I really don't want to go back to meeting in the hallway while seeing  
those comfortable and expensive breakout rooms sit idle just because  
Some People were trying to bypass the formal BOF approval process.

So I suggest instead simply having a FCFS system for ad-hoc meeting  
space, whereby any WG chair can reserve a room that hasn't already  
been set aside for some higher-priority purpose. Perhaps we need  
guidelines that say "Area Directors Are Not Invited".  But don't waste  
the meeting space and the money that paid for it!

--
Dean

---

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:48:14 -0700

Speaking for myself...

I don't have a problem with them using a room - or a projector - that happens to be idle, nor do I object to having BOFs. I do suggest that they check with the Secretariat, which I have always found to be supportive and helpful in such things. What I found problematic was
(a) the expectation of some (evidenced in this thread) that ADs-or-whatever would show up if they had a BOF
(b) the sheer number of them this time, which made people choose between meals/sleep and attending BOFs

I'm not actually sure you were the first to do such things. I for one have checked with the Secretariat and used rooms for BOfs since the early 1990's. As a working group chair, I have also taken key participants or design teams to a restaurant and bought them lunch or dinner to facilitate a discussion. I thought this was simply How It Is Done.

On Mar 29, 2010, at 3:21 PM, Dean Willis wrote:

> 
> I'm one of the instigators of using idle meeting rooms and equipment for ad-hoc meetings of all sorts, including design-teams, informal non-wg-forming-BOFs, break-outs, and general bashing-together of heads by WG chairs when we just couldn't find a consensus in the main meeting.
> 
> We used to have these sorts of ad-hoc meetings hurriedly in the hallways, and with a very restricted information flow due to not having a projector or whiteboard handy.
> 
> Then one day I realized that the IETF was paying for meeting rooms that were sitting there idle because Nobody Needed Them Right Now. So I started using those rooms and resources to make the IETF Work Better, and it was a Good Thing. Eventually, the Secretariat started requiring AD approval before letting me get a room, wand I thought that was a Good Thing, because by then, other people had started doing the same thing and some sort of approval process helped reduce the chance that the meeting room would be either conflicted or wasted.
> 
> I don't recall ever inviting an AD or IAB member to one of these ad-hocs. They occasionally showed up, but it wasn't really their problem. The results of such a meeting, if useful, would eventually be brought to their attention through normal working group processes. As a chair, I used such meetings many, many times to break deadlocks in the WG, and I did it without having to have an AD there to beat the team with.
> 
> I really don't want to go back to meeting in the hallway while seeing those comfortable and expensive breakout rooms sit idle just because Some People were trying to bypass the formal BOF approval process.
> 
> So I suggest instead simply having a FCFS system for ad-hoc meeting space, whereby any WG chair can reserve a room that hasn't already been set aside for some higher-priority purpose. Perhaps we need guidelines that say "Area Directors Are Not Invited".  But don't waste the meeting space and the money that paid for it!
> 
> --
> Dean
> _______________________________________________
> 77attendees mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/77attendees

http://www.ipinc.net/IPv4.GIF

---

From: Richard Barnes <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:22:27 -0400

Data point: I organized a Bar BoF at IETF 77, and checked with the
Secretariat, and they asked for AD approval to book a room in advance.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 01:35:23 +1300

On 2010-03-30 11:21, Dean Willis wrote:
...
> space, whereby any WG chair can reserve a room that hasn't already been
> set aside for some higher-priority purpose. 

Er, "any IETF participant" please. WG Chairs certainly don't have a
monopoly on this. I do understand why the secretariat has taken to asking
for a nod from an AD though; the IETF shouldn't be lending rooms for
purposes such as single-company meetings, and you can't expect the
secretariat to make that call. So any off-agenda meeting in an IETF
"owned" room needs a nod from somebody.

   Brian

---

From: Janardhan Iyengar <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:05:18 -0400

Brian,

> purposes such as single-company meetings, and you can't expect the

So, what is the IETF policy on single-company meetings?  I saw at least one happen at IETF77.

- jana

-- 
Janardhan Iyengar
Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Franklin & Marshall College
http://www.fandm.edu/jiyengar

---

From: Magnus Westerlund <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:36:30 +0200

> So, what is the IETF policy on single-company meetings?  I saw at least one happen at IETF77.

At this IETF I know that Ericsson and at least one more company paid for
a meeting room on Sunday.

cheers

Magnus Westerlund

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Multimedia Technologies, Ericsson Research EAB/TVM
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ericsson AB                | Phone  +46 10 7148287
Färögatan 6                | Mobile +46 73 0949079
SE-164 80 Stockholm, Sweden| mailto: [email-masked]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

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From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:44:10 -0500

I didn't see a bill for it, but I wasn't the requester, either - anyway, my 
understanding is that Huawei paid for a meeting room on Sunday night as 
well.

I'm remembering various companies doing this as far back as the late 1990s 
(and I wasn't around before that, but wouldn't be surprised if the practice 
started earlier). Is there a reason the IETF should have a policy about such 
things? ("what problem are we solving?")

Thanks,

Spencer

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Magnus Westerlund" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 9:36 AM
Subject: Re: [77attendees] Single Company Meetings (Re: Ad hoc meetings in 
real meeting rooms)

cheers

Magnus Westerlund

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:18:29 +0200

>At this IETF I know that Ericsson and at least one more company paid 
>for a meeting room on Sunday.

Which doesn't seem particularly problematic. They're basically subletting the space for a non-ietf-purpose. Arguably ISOC, DNSRG or whatever it's called, etc do this as well.

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:22:24 -0800

On Mar 30, 2010, at 7:44 AM, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
> I'm remembering various companies doing this as far back as the late  
> 1990s (and I wasn't around before that, but wouldn't be surprised if  
> the practice started earlier). Is there a reason the IETF should  
> have a policy about such things? ("what problem are we solving?")

I've been with several companies that have done that and in those
cases the companies booked and paid for the rooms independently
of the IETF.  I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a reason for
why the IETF should have any policy about those cases.

Melinda

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:41:21 +0200

I think there is some confusion.  Brian is suggesting that the IETF 
not finance company meetings.  If your company paid for the meeting 
(regardless of whether you saw the bill), as far as I'm concerned, what 
business is it of the IETF?  I wouldn't even mind the IETF letting out 
unused rooms to companies but for the fact that we'd surely run low, and 
there would be no easy way to fairly allocate them.

Eliot

On 3/30/10 5:44 PM, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
> I didn't see a bill for it, but I wasn't the requester, either - 
> anyway, my understanding is that Huawei paid for a meeting room on 
> Sunday night as well.
>
> the practice started earlier). Is there a reason the IETF should have 
> a policy about such things? ("what problem are we solving?")
>
> Thanks,
>
> Spencer
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Magnus Westerlund" 
> <[email-masked]>
> To: <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Re: [77attendees] Single Company Meetings (Re: Ad hoc 
> meetings in real meeting rooms)
>
>

---

From: Thomas Hardjono <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:42:25 -0400

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
> Behalf Of Melinda Shore
> Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 1:22 PM
> To: Spencer Dawkins
> Cc: [email-masked]

If the IETF is selling green dots, why not sublease rooms to companies. Perhaps even make some $$ out of it :)

May be it should've sold T-shirts too...

/thomas/

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:41:41 -0400

> Secretariat, and they asked for AD approval to book a room in advance.

If the IETF is responsible for the room that week, managing it as a
resource, then you are meeting in an IETF room.

---

From: "YAO Jiankang" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:44:58 +0800

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thomas Hardjono" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 2:42 AM
Subject: Re: [77attendees] Single Company Meetings (Re: Ad hoc meetingsin real meeting rooms)

> If the IETF is selling green dots, why not sublease rooms to companies. Perhaps even make some $$ out of it :)

that will transform ietf into a profit organization.

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:47:05 -0400

Excerpts from YAO Jiankang on Wed, Mar 31, 2010 10:44:58AM +0800:
> > If the IETF is selling green dots, why not sublease rooms to
> > companies. Perhaps even make some $$ out of it :)
> 

Only if it tries to make a profit by doing so.

---

From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 23:00:20 -0400

> Only if it tries to make a profit by doing so.

The definition of for-profit and not-for-profit have absolutely nothing to
do with whether the organization charges money for something or makes or
seeks to make a net surplus on some activity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not-for-profit

Thanks,
Donald

---

From: Magnus Westerlund <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:52:40 +0200

Hi,

I see that I was unclear. Ericsson rented the room from IETF. I find
subleasing rooms that aren't currently used and don't interfere with the
meeting and its functions as a good thing.

Cheers

Magnus

-- 

Magnus Westerlund

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2010 08:01:55 +0200

Melinda,

> I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a reason for

We discussed this in the IESG some time ago. There are a couple of 
reasons why IETF would sublet rooms. First, we sometimes control the 
entire meeting space, at least in the facility that holds the IETF 
meeting. Second, its a revenue opportunity (maybe not big, though). 
Finally, from a corporate perspective its easier for some of us to 
contact the IETF and ask for a room than it is to find out who is in 
charge in the hotel and book from them. And its definitely more 
convenient to get meeting space from the IETF hotel than from some other 
place.

(And picking up from the other thread... I do hope that note well does 
*not* apply ;-)

Jari