For me, it's a trade-off between getting sleep and having additional time for meetings versus
getting fresh air, any exercise, and possibly seeing something of the city.
The number of morning meetings vary - for the IESG it's usually 2. For the IAB it's
usually 2. For the overlap, that's usually 4 - though not all needed liaisons in Yokohama.
If I have meetings after dinner, those usually go until late and are quite useful. However,
that varies by IETF.
I also got to see absolutely nothing in Yokohama except the hotel and adjacent mall.
Walking or taking a taxi to/from the conference venue would encourage seeing more and
I'd appreciate not getting stuck at the hotel for quite so many meals. However, the
trade-off is not being as available or getting as much sleep.
This probably sounds similar to many other attendees who want to be in the conference
hotel. Certainly, before I became an AD, it was quite busy but not usually quite the same
level of nearly constant intensity. I generally have preferred to be in the conference hotel,
because of a bad experience where I had an asthma attack and couldn't do the walk and
because I've brought along all three of my children when they were babies and having them
close made feeding them much much easier and meant I actually saw them. On the other
hand, in Berlin, I stayed at a different hotel because 5 in a room was complicated and I really
enjoyed the 15 minute walk through the park twice a day.
One factor that may be causing issues is the idea of a "peak-night" when all those booking
early reservations don't know the agenda and thus need to book for the whole week.
I certainly don't think of staying at the main venue as a "perk" but I do find it useful to help
me be more rested and easier to interact with. It does also reduce the stress factor of
figuring out a new city - though that means that if I don't find time to get out of the hotel
on Sunday, I'm much less likely to get out.
Regards,
Alia
On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 11:21 AM, Adrian Farrel <adrian@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hopefully "perk" is not quite the intended word, but "necessary convenience" might serve better.
Although...
How many IESG breakfasts were there in Prague?
And, as a member of NomCom I had breakfast meetings every day of the week in Yokohama, but no preferential treatment.
I agree that the I* needs to be around the meeting venue.
The Secretariat even more so.
But it wold be useful thought experiment for them all to examine how their weeks would be different if they had a 20 minute walk each way each day.
Adrian
> First meeting for IAB/IESG members during IETF week is 8am, possibly earlier.
>
> My first meeting I have to be at is 9am on some days of the week.
>
> Sure, I might arrange a breakfast meeting etc. But there is a big
> difference between a meeting I arrange at my convenience where I
> expect four or five people to be at and one that is set by others and
> will have two dozen people discussing something that is complex and
> not necessarily my stuff.
>
> I am all for greater openness and accountability in IETF. But the
> starting point for that would be recognizing that we do actually have
> a membership and officeholders should be accountable to it rather than
> petty attempts to strip officeholders of the only perk they get for
> doing the jobs.