Re: [Eligibility-discuss] Suggestions for nomcom chair selection?

[Adrian Farrel <[e-mail]>]

Andrew,

Thanks first for raising this subject, and more importantly for taking
extremely seriously the job of selecting NomCom chairs.

As I read your mail there are two questions that arise:
1. How can the ISOC President continue to select quality NomCom chairs
2. Should we consider a transition to some other way of selecting the NomCom
chair

The first point will, I think, be the subject of a number of suggestions,
and you've already seen emails on the topic. It might help the discussion if
we could hear from you a brief list of qualities you are looking for. I
could suggest a number such as: history of involvement with the IETF;
familiarity with people and task management; a bit of a process wonk;
personally willing to make the commitment; funded to do the work. But it
might be better to have your thoughts rather than my second-guesses. This
list will, I believe, not be used to judge how you make the selection, but
will be helpful to the community in suggesting where you might find
candidates.

The second issue should be approached with great care. You and the past ISOC
Presidents have served us well in this respect and we should be slow to
throw that away. In addition, as others have pointed out, some degree of
separation between those appointed by NomCom and the appointment of the
NomCom chair is highly desirable. But your point that you are gradually
becoming less familiar with the IETF community is important and I can
imagine that a things develop it could get harder and harder so that even
with a list of volunteers or recommendations, it would be hard for the ISOC
President to make a reliable appointment.

Thanks again for starting this thread in good time before it is an
insurmountable issue.

Best,
Adrian
-----Original Message-----
From: Eligibility-discuss <[e-mail]> On Behalf
Of Andrew Sullivan
Sent: 14 August 2020 20:22
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [Eligibility-discuss] Suggestions for nomcom chair selection?

Dear colleagues,

I'm the President and CEO of the Internet Society (ISOC), and I'm writing
with that hat on; but this account is where my IETF mail subscriptions
generally are so it's more convenient to use this address.

One of the things that I have been reflecting on in the discussions about
nomcom eligibility is that it would also affect the pool for nomcom chair
availability.  As you probably know, I'm responsible to appoint the nomcom
from year to year as part of my job.  When I am replaced, that person will
take over the responsibility.

My job pulls me ever more away from the IETF, and I found it challenging to
recruit and appoint the last two chairs.  I am grateful that, in my
estimation, I was able to get two people to volunteer that I thought were
well-qualified and likely to do a good job, but I'm also aware that my
familiarity with the IETF community is decreasing over time.  This is in
part due to the way the LLC has been designed, which I always understood as
intending to create a little more distance between the Internet Society and
the IETF.  In keeping with that institutional design, I have been limiting
my own participation; and ISOC has adopted a number of policies to ensure
that it is not possible for others to mistake staff participation as ISOC
control or dominance of the IETF.  But, this means that the informal
networks of connections that have historically bound the IETF and ISOC are
perhaps not as strong as they once were.  In any case, an IETF with very
different nomcom eligibility criter!
 ia will m
 ean different criteria for nomcom chairs, too, so this seems like a good
time to try to describe some sort of community mechanism to inform the
nomcom chair selection.  I could try it out for the next year, to see
whether it might be practical.

The trouble I have is that I don't really know where to start except with
the approaches I have, which are mostly informal and depend upon the
social-professional networks I have as well as those of others.  That seems
like a poor foundation on which to build, so I thought I'd ask to see
whether people here have other suggestions for a starting point.

Thanks and best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[e-mail]

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