At 10:11 AM -0400 7/17/06, Jeffrey Altman wrote:
My belief is that working group sessions should avoid presentations whenever possible.
Visual material is something that is helpful but it need not be a presentation. E.g., if we still had blackboards it would often times be easier to express ideas in multiple dimensions.
After Dallas I commented on the lack of visual material as being detrimental to the process. One of the persons in the WG I used as an example took exception to that (not in a personal way, in an approach way) but this time did indeed have one slide to accompany his words. The slide was precisely what I thought was needed - one thing to focus on not a tutorial presentation. I noted during the meeting that non-English native (assuming I can judge this by looks) were taking photos of the screen for later reference.
I did listen to some of the sessions "on the radio" when I was caught in my hotel room and unable to make it to the venue in time. While doing so, I found myself wistfully thinking of remote participation of ICANN meetings, where video is supplied. ;) In-time video has also been available for other meetings as well. (BTW, while the sessions were on in the venue, bandwidth was great in the hotel!)
not physically present. This model worked so well in fact that in SASL one of the primary document authors who was not present at the meeting was able to lead the discussion with him typing away on Jabber and the rest of the room responding via voice.
That's an example of visual material.
When I attend IETF it is rare that I ever get to experience the world outside the conference hotel.
That is a red herring. The purpose of travelling the IETF is not to enable sightseeing or even cultural awareness. There are many side meetings, not on the public agenda, that are made possible via the travel. Some of these are private business meetings - those that really make the Internet go. Some are quasi-public meetings of policy folks who spend time tracking the IETF and then mixing with regulatory agencies and other organizations to provide a better (perhaps non-tech) environment for the technical work.
In the development of DNSSEC, we have had technical workshops connected to the IETF and other meetings. Local attendance at these were enabled by travelling the main meeting around.
The advancement of the Internet isn't just engineering anymore. It's about the use of a tool in civilization. There's still engineering work needed but it is not the (only) "long pole" in the tent.
-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Edward Lewis +1-571-434-5468 NeuStar Soccer/Futbol. IPv6. Both have lots of 1's and 0's and have a hard time catching on in North America. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf