Reducing to two meetings per year means we lose some economy of scale
and would have to raise the price further. Regardless, we looked at
this option and the SC felt there was a need for 3 meetings per year -
so here we are.
Don
Martin Hannigan wrote:
(forgive my top of post email)
people will not attend Nanog when the cost goes up? What if the cost
goes down, would more people attend which would reduce the need to
reduce costs?
Reducing costs is good, but some of those reductions are going
to end up in effort worth a lot less than it takes to implement them.
People aren't attending because it's turned into a social
club. That has "some" value, but people are still looking for the value
of education and learning new things which is why the rest of the
people come to the meetings. NANOG has a 'brand' so to speak, and it
was attractive. I'm starting to believe that the mailing list has
impact on the attendnace and I did not see any linkage to that before
- which is why I still firmly believe we made a mistake electing an SC
instead of an MLC.
Someone pointed out that this might not affect many as the cost to
attend is paid for by the 'company'. Every company I know has a limited
T&E budget. By bringing the cost up $100/meeting or $300/year, that
extra $100 could force someone who attended 3x a year to only 2x a year.
2 x a year is not such a bad idea if it could help with costs, and
I believe that this would be a far more effective way to increase
revenue i.e. removing a meeting, and make it the winter meeting.
It would potentially expand available content for the lacking program
as well which is a plus towards the cause side which I would support.
Steve Gibbard? mentioned that he is seeing redundant content. It's
possible that this is a sign that there are too many meetings overall.
If Merit could swing it, I would like less meetings, but continued NANOG
with continuing NANOG being the focus even if less attended and less
meetings, but better quality.
-M<
!DSPAM:45749058218431109327609!
--
Donald J. Welch, Ph.D.
President & CEO
Merit Network, Inc.
www.merit.edu <http://www.merit.edu/>
734-615-0547
1000 Oakbrook Drive
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
