On 4/15/21 7:06 AM, Salz, Rich wrote:
I am more and more convinced that, instead on counting on some centralized way to attract new people and then get complaints when they do not stay, maybe there is a better way would permit to achieve our goal in a more distributed way. I do not think that group mentorship for the IETF is working -- I tried at a previous company, and none of the mentorees are still participating, so that's not the way.One idea I had, which I mentioned to Lars when we chatted after the Nomcom selections, was an "invite a friend" program. If you come to the IETF, and you "sponsor" a colleague, then they get reduced/free admission. Of course, all sorts of details to be worked out there. But I hoped it could encourage distributed diversity. Especially for junior engineers, you can keep travel and lodging costs low :)
That could help, although I am not sure that going to one or more IETF meetings should be an immediate goal for the kind of mentorship I am talking about. Reading RFCs, reviewing I-Ds, reading mailing-lists and learning to listen should come first. That would take care of the potential tourists so attending an IETF would be the next logical step. But I must say that the IETF did not help there by making itself in some aspects indistinguishable from a travel agency... -- Marc Petit-Huguenin Email: marc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Blog: https://marc.petit-huguenin.org Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petithug
