Re: How to get diversity of nominees was Re: Diversity of candidates was Re: NomCom 2020 Announcement of Selections

[Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>]

STARK, BARBARA H <[e-mail]> wrote:
    > IIRC, all the nominees were WG Chairs. This is generally considered an

Thanks for highlighting this.
It has been my petpeeve since 2003.

    > Most organizations that have improved their diversity at various
    > management layers have done so by instituting a policy that requires
    > the "hiring boss" to interview a diverse candidate pool. In many cases,
    > the organizations also had to implement policies that made it easy for
    > people interested in a position to self-nominate (apply) for it, rather
    > than allowing the "hiring boss" to choose the candidate(s) from among
    > the people they like, hang out with, and are comfortable with (or
    > recommendations from such people). I've noticed that WG Chair positions
    > are rarely broadly advertised and that each AD seems to have their own
    > method of figuring out who to interview for a Chair position. It might
    > make it easier for ADs to interview a more representative (of regular
    > attendees) set of people if available WG Chair positions were posted
    > and people were allowed to ask to be interviewed (or nominated by a
    > "friend") for the position.

There are a couple of steps to being noticed such that you might be WG chair
eligible.  They are:
  1) being Document Shepherd.
  2) WG Secretary.

What I'd like to have is a list of people who would be willing to Document Shepherd.
They need to care about the work (and understand any controversy in it), so
it can't be just random, but at the same time, they can't be too intimately involved.

This is where I'd put the self-nominate spot.
I also agree that WG positions are not widely advertised.

    > Another part of this, though, is the scarcity of open WG Chair
    > positions. People mentioned that they don't want people hanging out in
    > AD and IAB positions for many terms. But what about long-standing WGs
    > where all the Chairs have been there for 10 or more years? Might it be
    > useful to encourage a little more rotation of WG Chair positions?

I strongly support this idea.
WG chairpersonship has become a bit of sinecure.

--
Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>   . o O ( IPv6 IøT consulting )
           Sandelman Software Works Inc, Ottawa and Worldwide