Re: [802SEC] Final venue choices for our March 8-13, 2009Plenary Session for your review
G'day Dave
Ah, "the facts". Facts may be interpreted in many ways.
One interpretation of "the facts" is that if you mainly hold IEEE 802
meetings in NA then:
* Most participants will come from NA
* Many potential and desirable participants from outside NA will not
start attending, even if held elsewhere occasionally
* Many participants will complain about it being held elsewhere, and
will not attend elsewhere
The IEEE SA for various good reasons has a policy that IEEE standards
work should be international. We should do everything possible to
support this policy.
Andrew
BTW I apologise if it is not appropriate to send this e-mail to the EC
reflector, not being an EC member.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-stds-802-sec@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
[mailto:owner-stds-802-sec@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG] On Behalf Of David Bagby
Sent: Friday, 14 September 2007 10:01 AM
To: STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: Re: [802SEC] Final venue choices for our March 8-13,
2009Plenary Session for your review
Hi -
I've been reading a fair amount about how SEC members wish the world
were, but not much discussion about how it is. For me, the recent venue
discussion thread is missing significant points -
Heinlein may have said it best:
"What are the facts? Again and again and again - what are the facts?
Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars
foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind
the unguessable "verdict of history" - what are the facts, and to how
many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are
your single clue. Get the facts!"
I'd like to form my opinion re non-NA venues from some facts. I think
802 has the desired data, let's see what it tells us.
1) attendance vs. locations - what is the data?
802 is an organization that depends on volunteer labor. What are the
facts wrt to attendance at various categories of locations? I don't have
the 802 attendance data or I'd have done the exercise myself. I'd like
to see some simple analysis of 802 attendance data. A starting idea: a
simple 2 bar graph - one bar is average attendance at NA location for
some period (say the most recent 5 years) and the other bar is the
average attendance at non-NA locations for the same period.
I suspect there is a significant difference between the two bars.
Further I suspect that the NA bar will be the higher one (that's just
what my experience over 17+ years of participation tells me I would
expect - but again, what are the facts?)
2) what does this data tell us?
Set aside the discussion of how SEC members "want" 802 to be perceived
in the world (and then asserting that this justifies non-NA venues), and
let's spend a little bit of time considering what the membership is
telling us about what they want for locations.
The requested data is likely to tell us something significant about what
the aggregate membership is (and has been) willing to support wrt to
venue locations.
For each session the members have voted with their time and dollars -
and I suspect the reality is that there is a real, significant, manpower
cost to non-NA venues. Take the difference in the bars from the graph,
and do the math - add up the delta man-hours and apply an average
burdened manpower rate (between $200 and 4250/hr the last time I looked)
to convert to $ - this will be a first estimate of a real $ cost from
venue dependant manpower deltas.
If the membership has been willing to pay the direct costs of non-NA
venues for the time period for which we have data, the bars will be very
close in magnitude. If the bars are not close, that also tells us
something.
802 offers a product - standards. 802's primary customers for the
product are it's members. The members use the product to create products
for their customers. I suspect we have a case of a company's (802's)
customers (802
members) speaking pretty clearly.
The venue/price issue has elasticity. I personally suspect that a
significant number of members have been telling the organization that
they are not willing to pay the costs of non-NA venues (the Rome
situation would just another example that corresponds to the data we
already have). As the
802 participation costs go up, attendance goes down. As attendance goes
down, organization productivity also goes down (the work doesn't get
done by people that don't show up).
Perhaps a bit of consideration is also in order as to why we hold
sessions?
When I read comments of the form "I've already been to location XYZ", I
have to wonder: Is the 802 business to produce standards products or to
provide interesting travel locations?
Now I finally come to the sub-topic in this thread which tipped me into
writing this email...
When you see people staying elsewhere, they are voting with their
wallets.
Personally, I've stayed 99% of the time in the session hotel. That is
not usually the lowest cost option. There are reasons this works for me
- it's a matter of ROI - and the balance that works for me may not be
the one that works for others.
Attempting to "penalize" attendees by charging them what someone thinks
they "should have paid" had they stayed where "you wanted them to stay"
(not where they wanted to stay) is doomed to failure. You won't get the
"extra"
$, you'll just eliminate some more attendees - resulting in even lower
income to 802 for that session. That's the nature of the concept of
elasticity.
Like it or not, the reality is that 802 simply does not have the ability
to reverse the economic forces in play. Increase the costs of attending
(time, hassle and/or $) and less attend - doesn't matter how you
allocate the $ between hotel, reg fess etc.
802 doesn't have to like the facts, The facts are simply what they are -
and the facts don't care if they are liked. But.... IMHO 802 management
would be wise to pay attention to what the data says.
Personally, I think the best business decision is to do what maximizes
the productivity of the volunteer labor pool that creates the 802
product.
If the DATA supports more non-na venues, so be it; if the data says zero
non-NA venues so be it. If the data says all meeting should be in
Timbuktu, so be it.
So what does the data say?
David Bagby
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-stds-802-sec@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
[mailto:owner-stds-802-sec@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG] On Behalf Of Carl R.
Stevenson
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 4:22 PM
To: 'John Hawkins'; 'Bob O'Hara (boohara)';
STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: Re: [802SEC] Final venue choices for our March 8-13,
2009Plenary Session for your review
Better judgments/earlier adjustments for attendance can likely be
obtained by making the early registration period open sooner and the
"ratchet up point" occur earlier (with significant steps up for later
registration).
I also liked the suggestion (I think it may have been Buzz's, but don't
recall for sure) to have a 2 tier registration ... With a "surcharge" if
you will that would cover the "fair share" cost of meeting space and
other things for folks who choose not to book hotel rooms in our
hotel/block. To me, that is fair, because those who stay in other
hotels are impacting our costs for other things that are provided (and
in EU charged for) by our meeting hotel.
Regards,
Carl
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-stds-802-sec@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> [mailto:owner-stds-802-sec@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG] On Behalf Of John
> Hawkins
> Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 4:43 PM
> To: Bob O'Hara (boohara); STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> Subject: Re: [802SEC] Final venue choices for our March 8-13,
> 2009Plenary Session for your review
>
> That ability certainly exists. We have a healthy reserve at the
> moment, and we have time to add to it if deemed necessary for the Rome
> session (or any other one for that matter). Note that any session
> defict by definition comes out of that reserve. Where else would it
> come from? So the trick is being able to predict attendance. This was
> the case w/ London, and will be the case going forward. It's hard to
> predict how many folks will show up, and how many rooms they will
> book.
>
> john
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ***** IEEE 802 Executive Committee List *****
> [mailto:STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG] On Behalf Of Bob O'Hara
> (boohara)
> Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 3:14 PM
> To: STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> Subject: Re: [802SEC] Final venue choices for our March 8-13,
> 2009Plenary Session for your review
>
> Even with all the uncertainty about attendance and cost, I support
> going to the Rome venue.
>
> I would like to hear John Hawkins' thoughts on the ability to use a
> growing reserve to partially offset the large meeting registration
> fee.
>
> -Bob
----------
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.