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

[Bryan Tan]

I realise that some of this discussion revolves around/emanated from the
New Charter Renewal Letter. As a member of a relatively new chapter
(Singapore), I do support more involvement from all in this process as this
is a multi-stakeholder organisation.

At the same time, some points are worth mentioning.

'Bottoms-up' - this term has been bandied around and if it is about
providing feedback upwards, I am all for it. If it is about the bottom
controlling the top, then I don't think a person walking with his head
below the waist is a good idea. I would like my country's prime minister or
president to listen to all views, but if he has to obey all views, then we
are in for trouble.

Along that theme, a bottoms-up approach does not mean that Chapters abandon
their primary role, which is to make sure the bottom gets taken care of. I
think there are some concepts in the Letter that should be seriously
considered as the Chapters are responsible for development and engagement
in their local areas - I don't expect ISOC Global or any other Chapter to
come in and run membership and meetings in my area for my Chapter. That is
for the benefit of my area and that is my area of influence and hence my
responsibility.  The day someone else needs to come into run membership in
a chapter or run meetings as the current officers cannot run a single
meeting indicates a severe problem in that chapter leading to issues in
renewal (as the name implied). i don't think having a target of a minimum
number of members (whether it should be 20, 25, 30 or 50) is a bad idea -
if chapter officers cannot convince a few other persons in their locales to
be counted as members, serious questions must surely asked and the
implications of the future of the Chapter will surely be a concern. If a
Chapter cannot run a meeting or event in one year for the benefit of its
community, again similar concerns must arise. If I can't fulfill that, then
I would ask myself the question why I am sticking around. History has an
unkind record of organisations and governments run by people who have stuck
around beyond their expiry date  - the day I lose my relevance or purpose
in my Chapter or if someone else can do a better job, then I should let
them do so for the sake of the community. I may be wrong but in Asia, we
believe that the benefit of the community comes before individual
entitlement (I did not use the term 'human rights'). In the Singapore
Chapter, we limited key positions to one or two year terms.

To me, the tone of the letter is reasonable -ISOC Global will provide
assistance to the Chapter, the Chapter is to provide benefit to its
community in a tangible way. I'm not saying that Chapters to do contribute
to the bigger picture, change the world - by all means do so but the local
community needs to be taken care of. There is no point in building the most
high tech, swankiest airport in the world when you haven't even constructed
proper roads to your communities.  Taking care of the local community is
down to the local chapters, we cannot derogate from that. We can look at
the details but my view is that the concepts are sound.


On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 6:15 AM, Gary W Kenward <garykenward at eastlink.ca>wrote:

> ++1
>
> On 2013.10.14, at 2:19 PM, 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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>
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