[Chapter-delegates] ISOC Elections result

Tue May 13 06:11:25 PDT 2008

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 2:08 PM, Patrick Vande Walle <patrick at vande-walle.eu>
wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, 13 May 2008 12:28:13 +0530, "Sivasubramanian Muthusamy" wrote:
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>
>  One observation: Chapter representatives or Trustees elected by chapters
> are not elected to represent the chapter interests, but they are to be
> broadly considered as the chapter's 'contribution' to the ISOC
> administration to help ISOC in its policies and programs as a whole.
>
> If this is not understood well, the Trustees and officers that the
> chapters elect would go to ISOC's policy meetings with a narrow agenda and
> that could lead to a sort of politicization. But as part of this tasks they
> may have to ensure the balance which is perhaps where they can keep a note
> of the chapter proposals, in a manner that they don't cause a sub group
> within the Board of Trustees.
>
> Hello Sivasubramanian,
>
> I think you pointed out one fundamental "feature" of the elected trustees,
> i.e. that they are not, strictly speaking, representing the group that
> elected them to the board.
>
> This being said, every trustee comes to the board with their own
> background and experience. Each of the great people I met during the board
> meetings honestly suggest what they think is best for the Society as a
> whole. I do not have the impression that the current board is "against"
> chapters. All three of us, Alex, Franck and myself have hands-on experience
> on what it means to run a chapter. It is our job to maybe better share our
> experience with our colleagues.

Hello Patrick Walle,

I believe that it is not only the people who you meet at the Board of
Trustees who are great, I also believe that the chapters have elected three
representatives who are equally eminent. So I have no doubt that any of you
would be narrow in your perspective

The gentle note of caution that I raised is not directed to you as elected
respresentatives, but rather directed at us all as Chapter Delegates. We, on
our part as chapter delegates, have to have this attitude towards you as and
think of you more as three of the twelve people who are entrusted with the
larger task of steering the policy of this orgnanization with in its
enormous responsibilities. You happen to be from the chapters, you have your
chapter experience, you also represent chapters - ALSO, not solely represent
chapters. So we should allow you to be Trustees first and think of you
incidentally as our Representatives.

We also have to learn. Chapters are generally small entities. Chapter
> officers are involved in every aspect of the chapter's activities, from
> deciding to organize an event to actually moving the chairs in the room for
> the event.

ISOC chapters ought not to be small entities. Chapters can emerge to be
significant entities everywhere. Chapters everywhere have to be like some of
the most evolved ISOC Chapters. From this very thread I notice that ISOC
Poland is recognized as a partner in every major IT discussion, both coming
from industry or from the government; maintains strong links with all major
IT organizations in the country; the chapter's statements on issues like
digital signature law and e-voting are discussed widely. For this to happen
widely Chapters need all the support that they can get from elected
representatives, ISOC's officers, established chapters and from the ISOC
organization as a whole. Have we thought of a VPN for chapters? Chapter
offices for every chapter equipped with computers and paid assistants?
Identical chapter events such as One Web Day? We should do all this and
more.

> This is not the case with a larger organization like ISOC. The board is
> expected to think in terms of strategy. The operations are run by the staff.
> However, it is important that the board monitors the operations to keep them
> in synch with the strategy. Maybe the board did not in the past make its
> strategy sufficiently clear, which lead to misinterpretation by the staff.
> We are working on that, too.

>From my experience ISOC has an involved staff. I think ISOC's paid
executives and staff are prone to be in harmony with the thought process of
the board. Having said that, this needs to be examined objectively for
caution. Whenever there is a situation, as in a national government of
representatives elected for a term administering a nation through permanent
Adminstrators, there is always an attitudinal adjustment problem. The
permanent staff might tend to think of the board representatives as
impermanent, the board might think of the permanent staff as out of tunes
with the overall picture (sometimes) - all this is said objectively, the
tasks in constructing ISOC as a strong orgnanization lies in weaving a
harmonious structure, which could to a certain extent happen with
initiatives such as the Sphere project.

Thank you
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
ISOC India Chennai chapter
http://www.isocindiachennai.in
+91 99524 03099

>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Patrick

-- 
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
CEO
Isolated Networks
Whitefield, 389/1 Perundurai Road
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Tamilnadu India
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email: isolatedn at gmail.com
++91 424 4030334
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