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

[CW Mail]

+1

This is not about assertiveness (Heavens! it is difficult enough to put together enough resources and consensus to assert anything.)

It is about Inclusiveness. And if I may mention a heresy: 'bottom-up'.

Regards

CW



On 14 Oct 2013, at 19:19, Dave Burstein <daveb at dslprime.com> wrote:

> 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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