Re: Want to be on the IESG?

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 10/2/21 3:38 AM, Lloyd W wrote:

> Do you want... POWER?
>
> L.
>
> and are you willing to sit through dull conference calls to get it?

A slightly different view from one who has been there (though it's been 
awhile):

You learn a HELL of a lot by serving on IESG.  You get a pretty rare 
view of all of the technical issues facing the Internet (and some other 
kinds of issues also), all at once, as in "drinking from a firehose" all 
at once.   And that view probably doesn't go stale for several years.  
That kind of breadth is surely valuable to high-level people in many 
companies.

Unlike a lot of jobs that confer some measure of power, being on IESG 
probably provides more power to do good than to do harm. The best things 
you can do on IESG are to help people resolve tussles and technical 
differences so that they can make progress.   You can do this because 
your knowledge of both the technical issues, and of people working on 
various problems, can help you get people with different views to see 
how to work them out.   You're not always successful, of course, but 
sometimes you might be.

It can be an exhausting job but also a very rewarding one.    And the 
community needs more people who are willing to serve in this way.

Keith