[Chapter-delegates] Let's make sure everything moves us forward

[Dave Burstein]

Vint, Bob, Dave, Narelle

   I hope some of those who built ISOC will take a strong role now holding
us together while moving forward.

I've cc'd this to you because there's an emerging divide within ISOC
between the staff and the chapters, brought to the fore by the move today
to from an assertive chapter group. I think that's great, but it's crucial
to make sure the energy goes to making ISOC more effective, not to the kind
of battles I've seen diminish so many progressive efforts.


All

I see and applaud the effort of the chapters to work together. But I wanted
to stop a minute and ask everyone to keep in mind that our goals are
generally unified, an open Internet affordable for all.

   I've spent my life watching progressive institutions spend too much of
their energy on internal battles. The struggles seemed worth the price at
the time but in the long run generally distracted from what we wanted to
accomplish. I was deeply involved in Pacifica Community Radio and worked
(parttime) at WBAI-FM here in New York for 18 years. The word has just come
they are shuttering the station.

    So to those in the chapters asserting themselves: yes, let's come
together.

   To Markus, Lynn and Walda and the rest of ISOC staff:  If we believe in
multi-stakeholder, we need to be more open in how we deal with each other.
In particular, I bring an invitation directly from Hamadoun Touré of ITU to
play a more important role and send much larger delegations to ITU events.
He sees ISOC as an open organization and an effective way for more of civil
society to get involved in ITU.

   We are an ITU sector member and have full privileges in almost all the
work of ITU. The U.S. set the precedent by bringing 104 people on the
delegation to WCIT in Dubai; we can bring our best as well. As someone
who's been involved, I know that showing up and speaking forcefully can
make a difference. There are dozens of active ISOC members who can advance
our agenda in ITU, a crucial organization.

   Let's do that and all work to make ISOC the open organization it needs
to be to support an open Internet. I'm lucky having personal access to most
participants but ISOC as an organization can bring far more activists into
the governance discussion.

---------------

There is a very unfortunate "north-south" divide in the Internet, growing
ever larger. The ISOC staff, for better or worse, is overwhelmingly from
the affluent parts of the world. The growth on the Internet is
overwhelmingly from the less developed regions. In 2-4 years, Africa will
have more Internet users than the United States as smartphones come down to
$50. So will India and I believe Latin America.

   To do our job, ISOC has to communicate across that divide. Internally,
that means staff needs to let the chapters in the developing world come to
the fore rather than trying to direct them.

   For the health of ISOC and our mission, we need to learn from and
respect the emerging nations on the Internet, not believe we know better.
I've seen some of the most exciting new ideas for the net coming from
Vietnam, Kenya and Rwanda. ISOC needs to be strong beyond Switzerland, the
United States and our allies.

Dave Burstein
ISOC-New York

-- 
Editor, Fast Net News, Net Policy News and A Wireless Cloud
Author with Jennie Bourne  DSL (Wiley, 2002) and Web Video: Making It
Great, Getting It Noticed (Peachpit, 2008)
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