[Chapter-delegates] Chapter advice on live streaming

[Barry Leiba]

I'm responding to something in Luis's note, but it's not really a
response to Luis -- it's a clarification of what the roles are.

>  Our BOT elected members (and of course, IETF and OMAC ones if isolated) are a minority in the Board
> and they are promptly remembered that they are not representing a sector but the Internet Society as a
> whole, as written in the legal framework.

For the record: I'm a trustee who was elected by the Organization Members.

First, on the "minority" point, I want to highlight that the
Organization Members used to select half the board, six members.
Three each were selected by the Chapters and by the Standards
Community (the IETF, trustees appointed by the IAB).  This change
around ten years ago to the current balance -- one Organization
selection was transferred to the Chapters, and one to the IETF -- so
we now have each of the three communities having an equal say (four
trustees each) in the constitution of the board.  We also have a
thirteenth trustee now (Funke Baruwa), who was appointed by the board
itself and whose background lies outside all three of those
communities.

Second, as Luis said and which can't be stressed enough, once any of
us becomes a trustee we are not representing the community that put us
here: we are representing the Internet Society itself and acting in
the interest of the Society as a whole.  We have both a legal and
moral responsibility to do that.  Of course, we each come with our
respective individual backgrounds and experience, which certainly
affects our individual views, and that diversity is crucial in getting
a broad global perspective.  Sometimes that means that we have
different views of what is best for the Society.  But it doesn't
change the basic truth that we are all acting not as representatives
of the communities we came from, but as trustees of the Internet
Society.

Third, the board's role is never to manage operational decisions for
running the Society -- that's the job of the Internet Society
management.  It is to work with the Society to set strategic
direction, to oversee the mission of the Society.  A board that would
micromanage things would be overstepping its role and would be toxic
to the health of the organization, whose management has to have the
freedom and flexibility to handle day-to-day operations as it sees
appropriate, within the strategic plan that we worked with them to
create.

Barry Leiba
Internet Society trustee