[Chapter-delegates] What ISOC is doing

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi,

On Wed, Jul 07, 2021 at 07:41:08AM +0300, Hank Nussbacher wrote:

>"Thank you for contacting us about joining ITU-T Study Group 3 mailing lists. 
>ISOC is a Sector Member of both the standards and development sectors.
>Regarding participation in ITU meetings and events, our policy allows only for
>the participation of ISOC staff. In view of this policy I am not able to
>approve your request. However, if there is some specific work in ITU-T Study
>Group 3 that you are interested in or are following, we can try to provide
>information on status of that work."

This policy predates my tenure, but I think it is a wise one.  The Internet Society is a sector member, and that comes with certain obligations for us.  We can ensure that we keep those obligations if we limit ourselves to staff or other people with whom we have a particular engagement for a particular event.  It is much harder (effectively impossible) for us to do this with the entire community, because while we can direct staff to take certain actions based on their employment relationship we obviously cannot do that with community volunteers.

One of this community's strengths is our willingness to hash out differences of opinion, sometimes extremely wide differences, in public.  In the ITU context, however, that would _not_ be a strength, but a sign that the Internet Society doesn't have its act together.

We work very closely with our technical colleagues on stances we take in any ITU context, and that co-ordination is generally through the IAB.  I therefore think it would be best for people interested in such topics to ensure they are active in the IETF in related areas, so that they are suggested as liaisons to the relevant study groups.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
President & CEO, Internet Society
sullivan at isoc.org
+1 416 731 1261