Re: [802SEC] Plenaries outside N.A.
Bob, I was speaking of consensus of the membership not just the EC. Suppose we find we are losing 25% of our attendance at international venues because many of the companies who support our attendees are not agreeable to paying for full attendance at expensive foreign venues ??? And if those attendees are absent at both international plenaries and interims that could severely impact our productivity and discourage folks from participating at all. In theory your suggestion makes perfect sense, but may have serious side-effects especially in today's uncertain economy and the declining dollar. Before we decide to ignore the costs and impacts and charge ahead, we should do a modicum of homework to assure we are not being over-presumptive. At a minimum each Working Group should have the opportunity to discuss the options and register their sentiments on how important it is to give the appearance of being "truly international". If we all agree that we are willing to raise o!
ur fees to the level of the IETF's or the ITU's to support international venues then I'm more than willing to move ahead. But I continue to hear complaints from folks who were not allowed to attend an interim because of the foreign travel location and therefore felt somewhat disenfranchised (some of my own colleagues from Boeing share this complaint). At Boeing your manager can approve travel to anywhere in the US or Canada, but to get authorization for non-North American travel you need the approval of a Senior Vice President, and in this period of cost-cutting and outsourcing many managers are unwilling to even ask for such an approval because "it sends the wrong message." I know corporate realities are unpleasant to grapple with but I do think we should tread lightly on this matter until we have some hard data to back-up our assertion that "cost is not an important consideration" since there is at least some hard evidence that it is. I won't even try to bring up the !
considerations about terrorist threats to travel and the consequences
of heightened security postures, although those are real concerns for some.
So let's talk with our members, let's try some experimental venues, and let's make sure we understand what we are signing up for before we make promises that we can't keep or that have a serious negative impact on our long-term viability. Planning for and implementing something on the scale of an 802 Plenary with >1600 attendees is an awesome logistical feat under the best of circumstances. To do something on a similar scale in a foreign venue where facilities are both scarce and expensive can multiply both the cost and the complexity by a factor of 2 or more. I wonder how many of our European attendees will be ready to pay twice the cost and travel time just to do a meeting in China, or our Asian attendees just to do a meeting in Rome ??? Every scenario has winners and losers but with the US being a "Best-Buy Mid-Way Location" right now for foreign travellers, I think we may be minimizing the costs for everyone by favoring US venues, and now that we are getting some of !
the "Best-in-the-World" facilities to work with is an extra bonus for the Best-Buy location.
Maybe I'm just a Luddite worrying about things that nobody else cares about, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Groups up to 500 are vastly more portable than those with over 1000 attendees, and the consequences of being less than perfectly prepared are much less severe, so I'm not surprised that our non-NA WG interims have done well. There are now dozens of hotels in the US that have excellent facilities for groups over 1500. I am not aware of even one such property outside of the US. Your only choice is to capture a major convention center with 3 to 6 surrounding hotels to get enough rooms and meeting space. That can require 4-7 contracts in foreign languages and legal systems instead of just one in English. Negotiating for prices and services is also multiplied by 4-7 times. There is not a linear scale factor on this; it is more more like an exponential.
So what can we do ??? Is there no hope ??? No wait ... there's a way !!! If we were to require a solid and cooperative corporate or governmental Local Host for any international venue that we consider, we can easily reduce the difficulty and complexity of the logistical tasks, while probably substantially enhancing our ability to get favorable contracts, pricings, and services. This is the smart way to achieve your goal. We say to our international partners, we're willing to do this for you, but we will need your support and cooperation to make it workable and manageable. This helps us to answer our question about what is the correct frequency as well. If we get lots of solid Host volunteers, maybe 1 IEEE802 session per year is do-able. If we have few willing Hosts maybe 1 every three years or less is enough.
So let's consider making any "promises" contingent on there being a cooperative sponsoring Host, who is willing to facilitate our obtaining an adequate venue and facilities in their area. That's a formula for success in the long run, and I think enhances our relationships internationally.
Thanx, Buzz
Dr. Everett O. (Buzz) Rigsbee
Boeing - SSG
PO Box 3707, M/S: 7M-FM
Seattle, WA 98124-2207
(425) 865-2443 Fx: (425) 865-6721
Cell: (425) 417-1022
everett.o.rigsbee@boeing.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob O'Hara [mailto:bob@AIRESPACE.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 4:51 PM
To: STDS-802-SEC@listserv.ieee.org
Subject: Re: [802SEC] Plenaries outside N.A.
Buzz,
Consensus is what I am trying to demonstrate by this motion. If it fails, there is no consensus. If it passes, well, that tells us that there is consensus. From the discussion on this topic, both in the 802 meetings and on this reflector, I believe there is strong consensus for an 802 PLENARY session outside of North America, as soon as possible. I think there is also consensus that the cost of such a session is not an overriding issue.
Running a survey of the membership would not provide any significant information, I think. Since the vast majority of the membership is based in North America, I believe the outcome of such a survey is a foregone conclusion.
We have a duty to the IEEE and to the industry to operate as a truly international standards development organization. I think that having at least one plenary session outside of North America is the minimum we can do. If we were to be truly international, I think that we would be rotating plenaries to be held once each year in the Asia-Pacific region, the Europe/Africa region, and the Americas region.
-Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: Rigsbee, Everett O [mailto:everett.o.rigsbee@boeing.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 4:26 PM
To: Bob O'Hara; STDS-802-SEC@listserv.ieee.org
Subject: RE: [802SEC] Plenaries outside N.A.
Bob, I can assure you that if we try to do an international venue for March 2008 then January 2008 will not be an option. Further I would recommend that we wait until we have the proposals and the costs for the January 2007 Session to review before we start passing motions requiring international plenaries at some regular frequency. It would also be prudent, I think, to run a survey of our entire attendee poulation as to what frequency they would be willing to support for international plenaries. I would prefer that we not lock ourselves into something until we've had a chance to know what we are getting in for and have a solid consensus about it. We do understand the desire and the need, but we should avoid knee-jerk reactions on matters that can affect the viability of the organization as a whole. That does not reflect well on the group as a whole. We're supposed to be consensus driven.
Thanx, Buzz
Dr. Everett O. (Buzz) Rigsbee
Boeing - SSG
PO Box 3707, M/S: 7M-FM
Seattle, WA 98124-2207
(425) 865-2443 Fx: (425) 865-6721
Cell: (425) 417-1022
everett.o.rigsbee@boeing.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob O'Hara [mailto:bob@AIRESPACE.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 3:35 PM
To: STDS-802-SEC@listserv.ieee.org
Subject: Re: [802SEC] Plenaries outside N.A.
Buzz,
If the first open plenary session is March 2008, then I will modify my motion to make that the first outside N.A. plenary. It would seem that if we do both a January 2007 and January 2008 all-interims session out of N.A., that should be enough practice to support a plenary in March of 2008. We might even be able to start with an interim session in January 2006, if a location can be found. Why wait two years? Nearly all of the working groups have held interim sessions out of N.A.. I am sure that they will be willing to offer advice and lessons learned.
Paul, Please enter the following motion for me, seconded by Jerry:
"I move that beginning no later than the March 2008 802 plenary session, at least one 802 plenary session shall be held outside of North America in each calendar year."
-Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-stds-802-sec@ieee.org [mailto:owner-stds-802-sec@ieee.org]
On Behalf Of Rigsbee, Everett O
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 2:40 PM
To: STDS-802-SEC@listserv.ieee.org
Subject: Re: [802SEC] Plenaries outside N.A.
Bob, Unfortunately we have signed contracts through Nov 2007 with our first opening at March 2008 (and only because we missed on getting HR-NewOrleans in San Antonio). That is why I propose that we do 802-Hosted Interim Sessions with all Working Groups present for January 2007 and January 2008 and then plan to do a Plenary Session in 2009. Let's walk before we try to run.
Thanx, Buzz
Dr. Everett O. (Buzz) Rigsbee
Boeing - SSG
PO Box 3707, M/S: 7M-FM
Seattle, WA 98124-2207
(425) 865-2443 Fx: (425) 865-6721
Cell: (425) 417-1022
everett.o.rigsbee@boeing.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob O'Hara [mailto:bob@AIRESPACE.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 1:30 PM
To: STDS-802-SEC@listserv.ieee.org
Subject: [802SEC] Plenaries outside N.A.
To make this perfectly clear to everyone, is a motion to be dealt with via email appropriate? If someone else will second this motion, I will be happy to make it:
"I move that beginning no later than the November 2006 802 plenary session, at least one 802 plenary session shall be held outside of North America in each calendar year."
If we already have signed contracts for the November 2006 session, I will be happy to modify this motion to refer to the first session for which we do not yet have signed contracts.
-Bob
Bob O'Hara
Director of System Engineering, Founder
Airespace, Inc.
110 Nortech Parkway
San Jose, CA 95134-2307
Phone: +1 408 635 2025
Mobile: +1 408 218 4025
Fax: +1 408 635 2020
email: bob@airespace.com
http://my.infotriever.com/to6ul4jo
----------
This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.
----------
This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.
----------
This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.
----------
This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.
----------
This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.