Re: [802SEC] Final venue choices for our March 8-13, 2009Plenary Session for your review
John,
Thanks for the data, but with all respect, as Matt pointed out, interims and
plenaries are somewhat different in their "draw" factor.
Also, as I pointed out in my comments in response to Dave, I don't believe
that raw attendance should be the (or even a) primary metric in venue
selection and I don't believe that somewhat lower attendance will affect the
quality or "time to market" of our work. I am convinced that the primary
"doers" who actually do most of the work will show up more or less
regardless of where we meet.
Again, it's the issue of "walking the walk" of being international and an
issue of fairness to our EU and Asian colleagues.
Regards,
Carl
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-stds-802-sec@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> [mailto:owner-stds-802-sec@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG] On Behalf Of John Barr
> Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 9:00 AM
> To: david.bagby@IEEE.ORG; STDS-802-SEC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> Subject: Re: [802SEC] Final venue choices for our March 8-13,
> 2009Plenary Session for your review
>
> I have keep a running list of attendance for the
> 802.11/15/18/20/21/22 wireless interims over the last few
> years (attached). Note that the September count is only
> pre-registration. We typically get 50-100 walk-ins as well.
>
> It does show that if you pick the wrong location (e.g.,
> Australia) attendance suffers. Berlin was a good example of a
> nNA location that worked.
> Taiwan in January of 2008 will be a challenge to see if it
> does attract the Asian members we did not see in Australia
> (claimed to be an AsiaPAC location).
>
> Regards, John
>
>
> On 9/13/07 7:00 PM, "David Bagby" <david.bagby@IEEE.ORG> wrote:
>
> > 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
> >
> > ----------
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> >
> > ----------
> > This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email
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>
> --
> John R. Barr (John.Barr@Motorola.com)
> Director, Standards Realization - <http://www.motorola.com>
> Chairman of the Board, Bluetooth SIG - <http://www.bluetooth.org>
> (847) 576-8706 (office) +1-847-962-5407 (mobile) (847) 576-6758 (FAX)
>
>
>
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> This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email
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