Venue Selection: Expanding the Options

1. Venue Selection: Expanding the Options Authors: Date: 2012-January-16 Name Company Address Phone email 8120 Irvine Center Drive, Ste. 200, Irvine, CA 92618 +1 (415)572-6221 coffey@realtek.com Sean Coffey Realtek Abstract: There are many positive aspects of having the option to have 802.11 meetings separately from other 802 working groups. The 802.11 Working Group should start the process of disentangling from the other groups. Sean Coffey, Realtek

2. Summary • The venue issue: • Significant concerns have been expressed by members about 802.11 meeting venues • Very high meeting expense • Poor rotation of venues • Unrepresentative meeting locations that are not well adapted to 802.11 member locations • Purpose of this document: • A “Venue plans and analysis” document (doc. 802.11-12/0089) was presented by the 1st Vice-Chair at the midweek plenary • That document presented only negative aspects of an independence option—a pessimistic and one-sided view • This document presents the positive side, and addresses 12/0089 Sean Coffey, Realtek

3. How it could work • The “independence option” means that 802.11 will hold some of its meetings separate from .15 and the other wireless groups • Doc. 12/0089 seems to assume it would be all-or-nothing (would have to “close the Concentration Bank Account”, “split the Treasury”, etc.) • Why? Once we set up our own accounts we have the option of holding joint sessions every plenary, or one interim separate per year, etc. • The independence option allows us more freedom to tailor our own schedule to whatever we would prefer • We could choose to make interim meetings be 3 days • Reduced travel expense, hotel expense, tailors meeting time to workload—our choice! • Could we do this now? Not without getting agreement long in advance from 802.15 and others that their meetings would also run only 3 days • Expanding our options only helps • Not a proposal to add a different (but equally unnecessary) constraint Sean Coffey, Realtek

4. Example proposal • We would like to hold more 802.11 meetings in Asia, to reflect the large proportion of the 802.11 membership that is based in Asia • But this doesn’t necessarily reflect the composition of 802.15 and the other groups, so we have the problem of persuading the other groups; plus we have the problem of finding new sites for huge meetings • Somehow it just doesn’t seem to happen • But why is there a problem? • Under the independence option we can simply decide that the January interim every year shall be held as an 802.11 meeting in Asia • 802.15 and 802.16 are welcome to tailor their meetings to their own members Sean Coffey, Realtek

5. The “negotiating position” fallacy • Supposedly there are cost benefits of having joint meetings that we would be giving up • 12/0089: “Multi-event contracts provide discounts to meeting costs” • This reasoning ignores the downside: we also greatly limit our choice of venue by always having gargantuan meetings • Why do we circulate among a small number of hotels? Because it’s very hard to find sites that support so many parallel sessions. The few sites that are appropriate have a corresponding negotiating advantage • It appears that costs riseas meeting size increases • Try it yourself: organize a small meeting of 50 people. Will you be quoted a fee of $950 per person? Almost certainly it will be much lower • But why? You wouldn’t have the “economies of scale” that come with “multi-event contracts” Sean Coffey, Realtek

6. Other thoughts • “The hotels require payment in advance, so signing fees can be up to $500,000” (12/0089, slide 11) • Irrespective of meeting size? Or is it a proportion of overall contract? If the latter, it’s another downside of having large meetings—also unstated in 12/0089 • If your 50-person meeting is quoted a $500,000 signing fee, walk away! • “Reduced effort to identify/validate/contract venues” (12/0089, slide 20) • Smaller meetings are easier to organize than large meetings • Can leverage other groups by arranging same hotel, different times • Some members like to maintain voting rights in multiple groups • It’s true that some members like to do this; is it necessarily a good thing that we should have to support? • In any case, at present such members have to choose one to attend anyway, in order to maintain voting rights; they could continue to oscillate • If our current system did not exist, would we invent it? • Wi-Fi Alliance meetings are held separately. This works excellently! Sean Coffey, Realtek

7. Next steps • The debate has just begun, so no motions or straw polls from this presentation in this meeting • But here’s an example of what next steps we could take (if there is support for this idea): • Vote on and adopt new 802.11 policy at March meeting that enables future (uncommitted) 802.11 meetings to be held as separate or joint meetings • Instruct the Treasurer to create a separate IEEE 802.11 account • Add venue selection as a discussion item for WG Plenary meetings at each future 802.11 meeting Sean Coffey, Realtek