Internet DRAFT - draft-lear-we-gotta-to-stop-meeting-like-this
draft-lear-we-gotta-to-stop-meeting-like-this
Network Working Group E. Lear
Internet-Draft Cisco Systems
Intended status: Informational July 22, 2019
Expires: January 23, 2020
Meeting Modalities for the Future
draft-lear-we-gotta-to-stop-meeting-like-this-01
Abstract
The IETF currently meets three times per year in various parts of the
world. Somewhere around 1,000 people all get into planes, consume
carbon, and then attend various meetings in what often is a jetlagged
stupor. We gotta stop meeting like this. This draft calls on the
LLC to research on the community's behalf new modalities for IETF
face-to-face meetings.
Status of This Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on January 23, 2020.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Why We Meet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2. The Negatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Finding alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Changes from Earlier Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1. Introduction
For the last few decades, the Internet Engineering Task Force has
brought together between 900 and 2,000 engineers and support staff
from various points around the globe to various points around the
globe, three times per year. This, despite the fact that we're
supposed to be the people who design, maintain, and showcase the
latest Internet technologies.
There are both positive and negative impacts on in-person meetings.
1.1. Why We Meet
[I-D.ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process] explains in great
detail why we as an organization meet in person. The largest
positive impact is that we are able to work together in a collegial
way to accomplish tasks in person that for whatever reason could not
be accomplished via other means.
Also, as perhaps is demonstrated by societies more broadly, there is
a need for people to establish relationships so that people can more
recognize each other as people, rather than just as bits on the wire.
We also meet to cross-fertilize between efforts, so that transport
people can provide application discussions, and security people can
help the rest of us to develop secure protocols.
Finally, we meet to test interopability and capabilities in
"Hackathons", where the focus is on coding in a social context. If
code is law, this is law being made.
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1.2. The Negatives
Due to the number of working groups meeting, each working group often
gets between one and three hours to meet, and no more. Unless the
value to a person is the hallway conversations, if someone's primary
task is to advance work in one or two working groups, that person has
travelled a long way for a very limited amount of face time.
o The cost of bringing us together on individuals and sponsors can
range from US $2,000 to $5,000 per person, when considering
registration, food, travel, and hotel costs. The costs are even
greater for those who live in remote locations.
o People who cannot travel, either because they cannot afford the
costs or the time away, are put at a disadvantage to those who
can.
o The environment takes a pretty big hit. While we all have to eat,
wherever we are, and we all have to sleep, we don't all have to
travel to get to where we eat and sleep. For most of us who will
have traveled to Montreal will have generated between sixty and
120 kilograms of CO2, and that's before we generate hot air in our
meetings. And when we do get to these meetings, hotels themselves
are generally not as good at managing their environmental impact
as individuals are. Specifically, it is often difficult to
separate trash, lots of plastic is used for drinks, and we
generally use more energy.
We gotta stop meeting like this.
2. Finding alternatives
As I just mentioned, it is not possible to eliminate in-person
meetings. However, it may well be possible to reduce our plenary
face to face meetings from three times per year to two times per
year, and at the same time improve productivity.
And so, a number of alternatives should be considered, with an eye
toward eliminating one of our three in-person meetings per year:
o Simply eliminate one meeting. We try to do our work with two
meetings per year.
o Replace one meeting with several different smaller meetings in
which working groups are grouped together based on likely common
interest and attendance.
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o Replace one meeting with one or more optional F2F meetings for
individual working groups.
o Replace one meeting with a virtual plenary meeting.
o A combination of some of these or others.
To determine what is best, the LLC is requested, in consultation with
the IESG to develop and present to the community an analysis of
available options to change our meeting structure, with an eye toward
improving productivity at meetings, reducing our impact on the
planet, and maintaining financial health of the organization.
This is not intended to be a short affair, but one where the LLC is
encouraged to bring in appropriate expertise, consider what
information they have, what information they need, collect it,
analyze it, and bring it back to the community for our consideration.
This memo does not propose particular solutions quite simply because
it is already recognized that substantial legwork needs to be
performed before any particular experiment can be proposed. It is
hoped that the positives mentioned will be preserved and improved
through this exercise.
As part of this effort, the LLC should ask venues what their
environmental footprint is and how they calculate it. It should be a
requirement for selection that venues answer these questions, as a
desirable feature under
[I-D.ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process].
Once the LLC has presented the analysis, the community is called upon
to consider and discuss the options. The IESG and LLC are called
upon to facilitate those discussions, to bring them to a productive
outcome, from which next steps can be take. Those next steps could
include one or more experiments, or nothing at all if the community
cannot then come to a consensus.
3. Security Considerations
None.
4. IANA Considerations
None.
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5. Changes from Earlier Versions
Draft -00:
o Initial revision
6. Normative References
[I-D.ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process]
Lear, E., "IETF Plenary Meeting Venue Selection Process",
draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-16 (work
in progress), June 2018.
Author's Address
Eliot Lear
Cisco Systems
Richtistrasse 7
Wallisellen CH-8304
Switzerland
Phone: +41 44 878 9200
Email: lear@cisco.com
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