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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: bring sense to the ietf - volunteer for nomcom
* Sean Donelan <[email protected]> [20000905 00:27]: > > I think its great some organizations allow/encourage its employees to > participate in activites such as the IETF. However, there is a postive > feedback loop. What is the return on investment of an operator sending > folks to the IETF? Most major operators already get private presentations > and submit individual requirements to the vendors to incorporate in their > products. If UUNET needs some operational feature in a protocol, they ^^^^^^^ > call up their Cisco engineer and say jump. Presto, in the next release > train, feature X shows up. Who needs rough consensus? > > I think the IETF is valuable, but what do you tell investors when they > ask what's in it for them? Last I checked the IETF invents the protocols, not the features. :-) *We* demand open standards. The IETF isn't perfect and some things certainly could use some change. The fact remains that the IETF is still the most effective at developing standards for the Internet community. If you participate in IETF meetings just to get features added to a protocol, you're not taking full advantage, IMO. You don't have to physically go to the meetings anyway; The real IETF work happens on the various e-mail lists. Sure, reading them costs you (or your organization) time. A precious resource indeed but the tradeoff of such a precious resource can sometimes bring you something much more valuable-- something you didn't know you needed to begin with. A new business model; A new network design; A new employee. :-) In summary: A new way of looking at something. Time is money, sometimes time well spent can mean more of the other. :-) In today's marketplace, where a good idea can blow another (once) good idea out of the water, can you afford to not take advantage of every opportunity you get to discover new ideas? Oh, and the IETF has got to be one of the cheapest (financially) conferences to attend anyhow. What was the last conference you attended that was not >= $995--just to get in the door? I'm not sure I buy the "real operators don't have time to do these sorts of things" idea. I've certainly worked and felt at times that there's no way that I'd have time for anything else, but that is the short-sighed way of thinking when it gets imprinted in your brain and always used as an excuse. Q: The benefit to shareholders (if I was asked)? A: *Your* network architects, engineers, operators, product managers, and researchers get to communicate with and discover knowledge and ideas with lots of other architects, engineers, operators, product managers, and researchers. Would you like our company to miss out on that wealth of knowledge? (And that is to say nothing of the morale gained in allowing your employees to meet with their peers.) -jr The opinions above actually *are* my employers, because *I* am my employer. Oh, but the grammatical errors are my own. :) ---- Josh Richards [JTR38/JR539-ARIN] <[email protected]/fix.net/freedom.gen.ca.us/geekresearch.com> Geek Research LLC - <URL:http://www.geekresearch.com/> IP Network Engineering and Consulting Attachment:
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