[Chapter-delegates] Fwd: Re: Slides from the LoA/Dashboard/Guide webinar

Thu Mar 8 05:57:33 PST 2012

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Slides from the LoA/Dashboard/Guide webinar
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:51:45 +0100
From: Klaus Birkenbihl <Klaus.Birkenbihl at Isoc.de>
Organization: Internet Society German Chapter e.V. (ISOC.DE)
To: Anne Lord <lord at isoc.org>
03-07 16:47:

Hi Anne,

being one of those to deliver here my answer.

Unfortunately its not the wording is rather the content of the LoA
Peter's slides don't improve it. Lets look at the slide 9:
 - ISOC staff will provide some tools to ease work for ISOC (which
   should not considered as a benefit from ISOC to chapters but
   rather as working in ISOC's best interest).
 - communication channels and forums (just the same). If ISOC
   membership maintains staff this is what you can expect.
 - member database (yet another common tool)
 - Use of brand and logo. Ha? This is owned by the membership.
   And members are us (as we learned on previous slides).
 - Guidance and support through ISOC's Bureaus ... thank you, we
   will let you know when we need your help - and we are not spoiled
   by getting too much attention.

So sorry to say this: there is no meat on it. The first four are
rather common peas not worth mentioning in this context - and
the last one is so unspecific that it could even be seen as a
threat. And as if this has to be justified slide 13 lists the
benefits for ISOC (from having chapters?):
 - Positive presence at the local level
 - Deep pool of expertise/feedback
 - Strength in numbers

These all are side effects IMHO. ISOC Chapters in first place
provide a room for local members to meet, discuss, communicate
and address local topics and issues. In many chapters members
pay a local fee and set up a legal entity to make this happen.
Of course chapters have a lot in common. So communicating with
each other, exchanging experience etc is a good thing to do.
If this all is well done it might generate the other effects
mentioned above.

ISOC membership has an interest that any organized subsets of it
rather promote ISOC's goals than particular individual interests.
So ISOC can phrase some expectations to ensure this - keeping in
mind that chapters primarily are guided by their membership. The
LoA chose to have
 - a membership of at least 25 (seems OK for me, but I head its
   might be too much in some parts of the world)
 - activities (well this is in the chapters own interest)
 - communications - dito
 - Governance (IMHO it should be completely up to the chapters
   and its bylaws to define the rules. As long as it follows
   ISOC's vision, mission. As far as chapter data is concerned
   it might be OK to require that the chapter lets ISOC know
   about its membership)

The dashboards as outlined for HQ as well as chapters is rather
useless. To give you an example: it is without effect to downgrade
the member database as long as we don't use means to improve it.
For now the tracker seems to be ignored by everyone.
There is one slide on HQ dashboard seven on the chapters dashboard.
The chapter dashboard as outlined is boldness pure. No chapter
should allow to publish its data in the way outlined there and
take any means to avoid it.
As an ISOC member it makes me angry that ISOC spends money, effort
and excellence to develop such nonsense while our new website is
suffering from severe quality issues since it was published 3 month
ago without much progress.

The Chapters guide should be seen as just another helpful tool to
organize. It should be left-up to chapters to select what makes
sense for them.

So what about the LoA now? For ISOC Germany I assume we don't need any.

If you want to do chapters a favor start with some rules from ISOC
saying things like:

  we will support <activities> by <kind of support> and here is how
  you can apply <some form> answer is guarateed within < n<4 > weeks

This would be a start and give chapters a base for planning. I hear
others (esp. Veni) plea for more chapter influence within ISOC.
Would not be my focus so much. I'd rather go for more members power.
But this said: isn't it ridiculous that chapters have to register
their corporate members as individuals with AMS? Did you ever
consider this insane? And why don't ISOC provide a substantial
share of the local corporate members fee to chapters who work
in their region - covering their Internet concerns too? Why don't we
even get a database excerpt for corporate members in our region?
Who represents the company to ISOC? Would be very helpful in
acquiring sponsoring means. IS there a need to protect corporate
members from their chapters?

You see ISOC has quite some means to better meet chapter's
expectations (admitting that other chapters might have other
requirements) and show more cooperation and support. But a
LoA -as the one proposed- is not helpful by any means.

Best, Klaus

> -- 
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> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Anne Lord,                                 <lord at isoc.org>
> Director of Chapters               http://www.isoc.org
> Internet Society     "The Internet is for everyone"
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
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