[190122] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: NANOG67 - Tipping point of community and sponsor bashing?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Thu Jun 16 03:54:45 2016
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAD6AjGTE3D_jcObRKcOMceWGxe9N9hmb=k0RjPJvNnBRyjCXDA@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2016 00:53:35 -0700
To: Ca By <cb.list6@gmail.com>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
> Cough cough ARIN cough. I don't know why they need to meet face to =
face 2
> or 3 times a year. But, i am sure ppml will tell you it is a ground up
> process and these people on ppml like traveling and talking about
> policy.... And they do what members want.
I don=E2=80=99t speak for the organization or even for the Advisory =
Council, but I can
tell you that we get more focused community input and participation =
during those
face to face meetings than we do during the rest of the year.
Like it or not, when trying to get interactive participation from more =
than 5 or so people,
there=E2=80=99s really no useful substitute for the face-to-face =
meeting. Every existing
alternative is less useful and comes with significant drawbacks.
So, yes, I believe ARIN does what the members want, but more =
importantly, I
believe that the face to face meetings are a useful mechanism to =
preserve the
bottom up nature of the policy development process.
> Much of our industry can be gleened by googling pictures of "peering
> cruise". At my office, we joke about that a lot. Peering cruise =
=E2=80=A6jeeshhh.
I suppose you can joke about anything you want. Personally, I=E2=80=99ve =
never been on a
peering cruise, but I will say that it=E2=80=99s a pretty classic =
fallacy to discount the
value of the social times at conferences. In fact, I find those times to =
often
be when most of the real work gets done and when most of the benefit of =
getting
everyone together in the same place is realized.
While NANOG puts on a good technical program, my company gets far more =
benefit from
the time I spend meeting with network partners, suppliers, and potential =
customers
during the conference than they will ever see from my time in the =
sessions. So much
so that I generally attend the sessions on an as-available basis when =
I=E2=80=99m not able
to schedule a more useful meeting. There are, of course exceptions. Some =
of the
sessions (maybe 3-4 per conference) are worth holding my time open to =
attend, but
most are not.
This does not mean that I don=E2=80=99t consider NANOG valuable, just =
that the primary value
is in the ability to meet with other attendees rather than directly in =
the technical
program itself.
I don=E2=80=99t mean this to be insulting to NANOG. I think the PC =
generally does a fine job
of putting on a good conference with great content. Most importantly, =
it=E2=80=99s good enough
that it draws in a large selection of people I need/want to meet with in =
a concentrated
time frame in a single location.
Peering fora, peering cruises, and the like have a similar effect.
So scoff all you want, but if you imagine that these events are silly =
junkets where
nothing gets accomplished, then you are seriously underestimating this =
community, IMHO.
Owen
