On 3/22/2013 8:24 PM, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
While I work for a very large shop now, for most of my career I have worked for small or mid-size shops. Even startups. And all saw value in sending me to IETF meetings.
Personal reference can be helpful for suggesting lines of analysis, but not for obtaining the results of that analysis.
As example of possible 'sampling bias', note that you were already targeting IETF attendance and a company that hires you is likely to therefore already make that decision.
As usual, we need to be /very/ careful in treating ourselves as representative of a market segment.
A better test of whether the IETF is seen as useful and cost-effective for small companies is to compare there proportion of presence in the IETF with their proportion of presence in the industry.
Or look at the presence of /new/ participation by small companies, compared with the past, if we have the data.
Of course, these sorts of comparisons takes more thought and more work... d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net