Re: Appointment of a Transport Area Director

[Margaret Wasserman <[e-mail]>]

Hi Jari,

On Mar 6, 2013, at 8:24 AM, Jari Arkko <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> And I think we should have a broader view about this than just updating the requirements for the seat. There are a couple of other aspects to consider as well. First, perhaps the way that we have organised TSV is contributing to the problems. Would a different organisation, say, a different grouping of the working groups to areas help businesses see a bigger value in sponsoring an AD for the area? Should the area be merged with something else, and if we did that, would that change available funding or expertise? Or do we have the right number of ADs to begin with? Second, are there more general things that we could do about the AD role, making it easier to do the job, e.g., as an academic and on the side of your other duties? This might also increase the number of available candidates in other areas.

I completely agree with this.

The shortage of candidates is not only a problem in the Transport area, even though it might be more obvious in this area, so I think we should focus on this as a general problem not a specific one.

However, I question the wisdom of choosing to work on this issue _right now_ in the middle of the nomcom selection process, rather than choosing the best candidates we can and working on this problem for next year, or for future years.  It doesn't seem likely that there are any quick fixes here.

If the IESG does decide to reorganize the TSV area(s) and/or reduce the number of seats right now, I think you need to seriously consider the possibility that all of the ADs in the affected/related areas should resign, so that the nomcom can pick the best set of ADS to cover the area(s) given the remaining seats.  So, even that sort of change isn't likely to solve the problem next week.

I'd like to receive some explanation (privately or publicly) about why we are doing this in the middle of the nomcom process that makes any sense to me...

Margaret