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/ -- Dave Crocker <mailto:dcrocker@brandenburg.com> Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com> Sunnyvale, CA USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>, <fax:+1.866.358.5301>