Re: Diversity of candidates was Re: NomCom 2020 Announcement of Selections

[Michael StJohns <[e-mail]>]

On 1/25/2021 2:14 PM, Salz, Rich wrote:
> Many of your ideas are good ones worth examining closer.
>
>>     One of the main drivers of our "diversity" problem is the input set of
>      people from which we draw our candidates - it lacks diversity on a
>      number of axes.  We've noted this before - that GIGO  or rather
>      Conformity In is Conformity Out.
>
> I strongly disagree with this.  Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the better.
>
> I looked at the 2020 and 2019 candidates, neither were homogeneous.  (I could not look earlier as the website just says "closed" and I couldn't think of an easy mail archive search query to find the list of names.)  There was diversity, even if it didn't really show up in the selections.
>
>
Rich - when compared to the general set of IETF participants, the Nomcom 
selections mostly mirror the distribution within that set. When compared 
to the general set of adults (or for that matter, the general set of 
adults in the tech space) they don't, and that's been a complaint for at 
least the last 15 years or so.

And one of the axes - from my POV - is small vs large organizations.   
For good and comprehensible reasons, large companies tend to dominate 
the Nomcom selections and have for at least the last 20-25 years.   
Prior to that academia and government were well represented - less so now.

Later, Mike