Subject: Barrel-bottom scraping

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 05:42:21 +0100

Phil Hallam-Baker just suggested in the plenary that we could
easily raise funds by going round looking for sponsorship
from industry, $10k and $10k there.

This ignores that this is *exactly* where ISOC's funds come
from, and those funds are largely used to support the IETF
(specifically the RFC Editor, plus a few smaller expenses that
would otherwise fall on the Secretariat budget). 

Unfortunately, we've been scraping the bottom of that barrel
thoroughly over the last two years. Speaking as a participant
in ISOC's fund-raising during that time, I can tell you that
the barrel is empty. In present economic conditions, those extra
$10ks are almost impossible to get.

While I'm talking, let me add that ISOC traditionally preceded
the INET conference with tutorials. But our experience of INETs 
for the last few years has been quite negative financially, which 
is why there is no INET 2003. So even this approach may not be as 
easy as we might think. However, I think doing some ISOC/IETF joint 
tutorials just before an IETF is definitely worth a try.

   Brian

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From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 06:58:32 +0200 (EET)

On Thu, 20 Mar 2003, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> [...] However, I think doing some ISOC/IETF joint 

That would unarguably incur a clear increase or tourists and/or disrupting
marketeers/managers. Bu this may already be considered to be happening --
now we'd just get the cash in.

But then again, we need more silent participants anyway, according to the 
slides.

I wonder if this would be a bug or feature.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

---

From: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 06:15:19 +0100 (CET)

> would otherwise fall on the Secretariat budget).

Also, why should any company pay another $10k when they already give
employees to work on IETF standards during office hours?

Henk

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That problem that we weren't having yesterday, is it better? (Big ISP NOC)

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 06:32:46 +0100

> employees to work on IETF standards during office hours?

All standards bodies cost money to run, and that is why most of
them end up as membership organizations with hefty fees paid
by companies. There are no free cookies.

   Brian

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 22:46:28 -0800

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

>>>>> "Brian" == Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> writes:
    Brian> the INET conference with tutorials. But our experience of INETs 
    Brian> for the last few years has been quite negative financially, which 
    Brian> is why there is no INET 2003. So even this approach may not be as 
    Brian> easy as we might think. However, I think doing some ISOC/IETF joint 
    Brian> tutorials just before an IETF is definitely worth a try.

  As far as I understand, the conferences that offer tutorials do so
with the conference because the people attending are the ones that are
targetted. Since many conferences are more of the "we watch/they talk"
variety, the tutorials are often have are well received. I.e. the people
came to *learn* things.

  For this to work at IETF, the question is: would *WE* (as individuals) be
willing to pay extra for a tutorial on something we don't know about.

  I think that there is significant value in having people from, for
instance, the routing world learn about IPP, or vv. This kind of organized
cross-fertilization is probably very valuable. Jeff Schiller has been doing
security talks for some time now on Sundays.

  The question is - would they make any money.
  If others find it 

  I would personally likely *not* pay. Maybe. Depends upon the price.
  
  So, I'd rather pay the $70/each and spend the time doing something else
(like making code interop!).  

  On the expense side, I find it interesting that the lack of attendance is
now hurting us. Some years ago, we were debating how to deal with 3000+
attendees. I guess I'm glad we banked some of that money.

  My question is: is 1600 an awkward number? (not a sweet spot)
  Do we need to be in a bigger hotel than, for instance, if we were at 800,
but do not make full use of the facilities? (I think not, but what are the
parameters here?) 

  In general, I dislike "5-star" hotels - I find them cold and way too
nose-in-the-air. Comfortable, sure. But, I'm happier in less expensive
hotels. But those ones do not have the conference space.

]       ON HUMILITY: to err is human. To moo, bovine.           |  firewalls  [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works, Ottawa, ON    |net architect[
] [email-masked] http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/ |device driver[
] panic("Just another Debian GNU/Linux using, kernel hacking, security guy"); [

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 13:04:18 -0500

> now we'd just get the cash in.

Tutorials, as a fundraising service of ISOC and IETF, don't need to be
contiguous with the IETF meetings.  

> I wonder if this would be a bug or feature.

Right.  I suggest we try some contiguous tutorials to start with, and if
they are *too* successful we can either add some discontiguous ones or
move the ones we have.  

I don't know what attendance was like at the later INET tutorials.
Perhaps we could just take over the whole format?

---

From: Peter Deutsch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 10:31:54 -0800

> > > tutorials just before an IETF is definitely worth a try.
...
> Perhaps we could just take over the whole format?

Folks, am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea?

What's being discussed here is starting a new consulting company,
specializing in IETF technologies and delivering its services through
tutorials. This is hard work, and there is already significant
competition in the area. More importantly, the effort required to get to
the volumes needed is immense.

To pull this off and make a profit, you will need to change from a
volunteer mentality to a professionally run, fee-for-service mentality,
with attention paid to advertising (or you wont get the needed volume of
traffic), printing services (people will need classroom and take-home
material), folks will need to track bookings, arrange the needed rooms,
there will be *additional* cneed for cookies and coffee, etc. I ran my
own company for quite a few years doing exactly this sort of work and
although you can make a reasonably good living at it the delta between
"the technology" and "the rest of the work needed" is far larger that
technical folks usually seem to grok at first reading.

Ask yourself this - if ISOC didn't make enough to justify a meeting this
year, why would the IETF think they could generate enough traffic to do
it during the current tech depression?

Nobody responded to my earlier post, but my suggestion is still to push
for an "IETF TLD". Once it's in the root, it's basically zero impact on
others, no need to negotiate revenue sharing, no need to lay out cash in
advertising courses, booking rooms, printing materials, finding
instructors, arranging cookies, following up on bad visa charges and the
host of other things needed to run a tutorial company. Your fixed costs
are well defined and quite amenable to covering with donations and your
profit margins once you past break-even are great. Oh, and it's a great
way for participants to show their direct support for the process by
using their IETF domain for posting to the IETF lists. What's not to
like here?

				- peterd

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
    Peter Deutsch                       [email-masked]
                      Gydig Software

          "No, Harry - even in the wizarding world,
            hearing voices is not a good sign..."

                            - Hermione Granger

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 13:52:16 -0500

> the volumes needed is immense.

Foretec is looking for more work.  We already have a framework if the
numbers are right.

> it during the current tech depression?

That's why I'd like to know about tutorial attendance at INET.

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From: Tim Chown <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 21:32:23 +0000

So what were all those "indirect" costs amounting to 600k?

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 17:33:53 -0800

Tim,

Thursday, March 20, 2003, 1:32:23 PM, you wrote:
TC> So what were all those "indirect" costs amounting to 600k?

a common contracting model for paying for these sorts of service, is
to pay for the specific resources that are consumed directly, and then
to add a percentage for "overhead", such as offices, administration,
telephones, and the other cruft that makes an organization complete.

The only interesting question is what percentage is charged. I haven't
tracked this sort of thing for awhile, but I believe, the Foretec
percentage is below average. Ie, they are charging us less than is
usual.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <mailto:[email-masked]>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>, <fax:+1.866.358.5301>

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From: "John A. Loughney" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 21:08:42 +0200

Hi all,

> > now we'd just get the cash in.

Aren't we being a bit holery-than-though?  Are we suggesting that we are
superior than tourists, marketers, mangagers? This is one very bad
feature of the IETF - many of us feel that we are superior than others.

I think that ISOC/IETF tutorials could be a very good idea.  It would at
least give us the opportunity to brain-wash others for the things which
we believe.

br,
John

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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 10:47:29 -0800

> least give us the opportunity to brain-wash others for the things which

yup.  but, as one would want them done by the well clued and best
speakers, it would be nice if they were not too close to ietf
meetings.

randy

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From: Charlie Perkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 11:06:59 -0800

Hello Randy,

Since they would be taught by IETF engineers, probably for
not all that much money, it seems a bit onerous to ask the
benefactors to do more travel so that they carry out a difficult
task mostly for the benefit of the IETF.

Someone else pointed out that tutorials don't automatically
make money.  This is very true.  In order to succeed, the tutorials
would have to be publicized well, and taught by instructors who
can relate to an audience of less-informed but interested people.

I understand the desire to maintain a high level of technical
competence at IETF meetings, but I am pretty sure that does
not preclude raising the general level of awareness of the
"great unwashed".   Perhaps just the opposite, in fact.

Regards,
Charlie P.

PS. I wouldn't suggest asking people to teach the tutorials
       for free.  It's amazing how much better it feels to get some
       money for the effort, even if the sponsoring organization is
       getting most of the financial benefit.  Maybe instructors
       could get a plaid sticker for their badges :-)

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 11:14:39 -0800

> task mostly for the benefit of the IETF.

charlie, you're talking to someone who has spent a considerable amount
of their time over the last 15 years doing pro bono technology transfer.
so my lack of sympathy for your argument may not be very representative.

randy

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From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 00:05:40 +0200 (EET)

> feature of the IETF - many of us feel that we are superior than others.

I'm not saying *superior*, just *different*.  I'm not really interested in
marketing, management etc. conferences either.

I fail to see what added value they might bring, but as long as they
wouldn't waste any more time on the meetings (by de facto requiring making
dumber slides etc.) or make the meeting room reservations more difficult,
it might not be too bad.

---

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 16:10:40 -0800

At 12:05 AM +0200 3/24/03, Pekka Savola wrote:
>I fail to see what added value they might bring

They could be very useful to explaining to our management and 
marketing departments and so on the value of standards, particularly 
IETF standards. Further, because most companies focus on a small part 
of the Internet, they could show why the whole picture is important.

And I agree that they should not be held next to IETF meetings. Maybe 
once a year between meetings, or in conjunction with other 
"networking events" that these people might go to, such as N+I or 
Comnet.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

---

From: grenville armitage <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 11:25:18 +1100

"John A. Loughney" wrote:
	[..]
> superior than tourists, marketers, mangagers?

If one isn't any better than tourists, marketers or mangagers then
I'd suggest one re-thinks why one is attending _working_ group meetings.

cheers,
gja

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 19:16:42 -0800

John,

JAL> Aren't we being a bit holery-than-though?  Are we suggesting that we are
JAL> superior than tourists, marketers, mangagers?

of course.

but separate from the possibility of ethnocentric arrogance is the
reality of distraction. to the extent that such participation makes it
difficult for us to get our engineering work done, those other folks
are a problem.

(my own opinion is that their presence is fine, as long as we do not
distort our agendas and schedules to accomodate them.  constantly
doing mini-tutorials and presentations during extremely scarce meeting
time might be an example of that.)

JAL> I think that ISOC/IETF tutorials could be a very good idea.

As an idea unto itself, it does sound appealing. As you note, there is
benefit is spreading the IETF technical word beyond ourselves but by
ourselves.

As a means of trying to fix basic IETF financials, it means that we
would be relying on a new business venture that is a) unproven for the
IETF to do, and b) entirely unrelated to the core work of producing
specifications.  As such it is a distraction.

Organizations often lose focus in this way.

d/

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From: Bill Manning <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 05:38:37 -0800 (PST)

% And I agree that they should not be held next to IETF meetings. Maybe 
% once a year between meetings, or in conjunction with other 
% "networking events" that these people might go to, such as N+I or 
% Comnet.
% 
% --Paul Hoffman, Director

	Some already are.  There is active training on DNS issues
	in/around most operators mtgs and elsewhere, both commercial
	and pro-bono.  Folks active in DNS development have developed
	and provided to ISOC that material.

--bill
Opinions expressed may not even be mine by the time you read them, and
certainly don't reflect those of any other entity (legal or otherwise).