[chapter-delegates] Re: ISOC Annual Report 2003

[Fred Baker]

I'm looking through some old mail and realize that I didn't reply to 
your email of 2 May.

I guess the place we have to start is with a common view of what ISOC 
is and what it is not. ISOC was created in (IIRC) 1992 when the IAB 
collaborated with Larry Landweber to build an organization that would 
do four things:

 - provide a legal home for the IETF,
 - carry on the work of what were then called "the Landweber 
conferences",
    which basically provided a place for potential Internet users of lots
    of stripes to get together and talk through the issues,
 - provide pro bono training workshops to stimulate the development of 
the
    Internet,
 - provide a professional society of people interested in the Internet.

You will recognize these as being instantiated in (a) ISOC's 
relationship with the IETF, (b) INET, (c) the Developing Countries 
Workshops that were held along with INET for many years, and (d) paying 
individual memberships - people like me have paid for their memberships 
since 1992 in any year that ISOC could get a bill out to us. You will 
notice that there is no mention of chapters in that. Chapters came 
later, intended as a way to provide discussion fora and training in 
local settings and meeting local needs. There is also no mention of a 
free individual membership - that came later as well.

Time has elapsed and the Internet and the world it connects have 
changed dramatically. So have the needs that ISOC - both ISOC globally 
and ISOC's local instantiations in the form of chapters - needs to 
address. From my perspective, the first question we have to ask is 
"what are the needs in 2005", followed by "how can we together address 
those needs?"

IETF still needs a legal home, and as you know ISOC continues to step 
up to that. That doesn't make ISOC an IETF organization; if you look at 
the IETF web site (http://www.ietf.org) you will find that the IETF is 
an organized activity of ISOC. It does mean that IETF is important to 
ISOC. You asked about an IETF newsletter; the IETF Education Team, 
working with ISOC's education team headed by Mirjam Kuehne, is in the 
process of developing a newsletter. It would be appropriate to forward 
these to the chapters when they become available. The annual report in 
2004 includes some IETF information by area.

There is also still a broad need for discussion and education. This 
need is addressed in a number of ways. The RIRs operate conferences for 
their members, which are generally ISPs. Two ISP conerences that are 
well known and produce a lot of web-accessible materials are NANOG and 
RIPE. Perhaps less well known but none-the-less important are WALC, 
AFNOG, SilkNOG (which is in formation), and Apricot (which is 
educational but also has some characteristics of a trade show). 
Companies like Cisco and Microsoft license educational materials to 
schools and universities that train and certify operational support 
staff, and there are a number of commercial schools that provide 
similar training to professionals. There are also more targeted 
workshops, such as the iLaw workshops held by Harvard's Berkman Center 
for Internet & Society.

Since perhaps 1998, INET has not been financially viable; in my 
opinion, it was a victim of its own success. Two specific INET 
conferences that the society was hoping would provide funding in fact 
technically drove us into bankruptcy, and only a fast infusion of cash 
from the Organizational Members and very tight management of budgets 
since have kept us alive at all. The PIR funding is not being used to 
erase debt, but since many of our projects and activities are (by 
design) in keeping with PIR's mission, we are able to fund a lot of 
things from that money. While funding our projects with PIR money, we 
used Organizational Member funding to support other activities such as 
the RFC Editor contract and the IETF budget, and are now fiscally 
stable. By the way, we also use Organizational member funding for a 
variety of projects that don't fall under PIR guidelines, often 
projects that are specified as a condition of the donation.

So we very much want to provide a place for Internet users to get 
together and talk through issues, but INET as it was held in the 1990's 
is no longer the right vehicle for accomplishing that. From my 
perspective (and in this I only claim to peak for myself), I think that 
there remains a place for occasional world-wide meetings, but the key 
venues are regional and local. As such, ISOC has been seeking to be 
involved with regional conferences, such as the recent conference in 
Cairo, the CITI conferences in Venezuela, WALC, SilkNOG, AFNOG, etc. 
They have the benefits of being targeted both in topic and audience, 
and therefore are tuned to the attendee. ISOC has been supporting these 
workshops in various ways and plans to continue doing so.

The obvious local venues for this same activity are the chapters. By 
nature, these operate in a somewhat entrepreneurial fashion. ISOC 
cannot fund every chapter doing everything it wants to do - unless the 
chapters want to find a way to contribute to ISOC's budget, even with 
PIR funding ISOC simply does not have a tap into an infinite resource 
pool. So the funding for a lot of what the chapters want to accomplish 
has to be local. ISOC can, however, provide seed funding to help make 
things happen, which is where the "project funding" comes in. By the 
way, ISOC's professional members (which is to say "people like me", 
whatever it turns out to be politically correct to call us) travel to 
various places for various reasons, and are often willing to visit 
chapters and give educational talks when we do.

The other obvious function, important today but in 1992 simply one of 
the topics of the Landweber conferences, is public policy. This covers 
a range of issues, of which the WSIS/WGIG issues are a subset. What 
ISOC has tried to do, with IETF help, has been to put together member 
briefings and technical commentary (like 
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1984.txt and 
http://www.isoc.org/briefings/) that will educate people - ministers 
and anyone else - on the topics. This breaks down in two ways: we can't 
predict every poorly-formed thought that enters a minister's head, and 
we can't speak personally to every minister. It seems to me - again, 
only my opinion - that this is a wonderful place for the chapters and 
ISOC-central to collaborate. ISOC-central needs to know what questions 
are lurking in the dark corners of the globe that it can address and 
help. It also needs review of those briefings that says "this helps, 
but that doesn't". In the end, having the local chapter (acting as the 
minister's countrymen) advise the minister, dispel the dark notions, 
and plant useful ones, helps both the local chapter and the Internet at 
large - a win-win if I do say so myself. Chapters could also produce 
briefings of their own, to share from their own site if of only local 
importance, or from isoc.org if of wider applicability. The one issue I 
will raise there is that the folks generating such briefings should 
ensure that ISOC speaks with one voice.

So, what is ISOC, and what are the chapters? To me, ISOC is a global 
organization serving a variety of interests, and chapters are its local 
instantiation. Those interests are local in various countries, 
regional, and global, and in some cases are industry-related. In 
WSIS/WGIG, we are classified as a Civil Society organization, based on 
the premise that we are non-governmental and not controlled by 
industry, and represent Internet organizations and ISOC members. From 
that perspective, we need to do a better job of communicating within 
ourselves and cooperating. But in fact, the key consideration is that 
we each joined as a way of supporting the considerations in 
http://www.isoc.org/isoc/mission/principles/, and we should be 
considering how to collaborate in achieving those things. To the extent 
that we collaborate, we are likely to succeed. To the extent that we 
squabble among ourselves, we dilute our own effectiveness and test the 
patience of those who might benefit from interactions with us.

One thing that would be very helpful would be if you and the other 
chapter delegates could review our draft strategic operating plan, 
which you will find at http://www.isoc.org/isoc/chapters/sop.php. David 
has sent notes requesting review as it changed, including one last 
week, and we have held two chat review sessions on it. Any comments, 
questions, or issues you have would be of interest.
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