The original post used geography as an initial example but also mentioned there are most certainly other balances that could make more sense - Steve
>>> On 8/13/2007 at 1:26 PM, in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 11-Aug-07, at 7:51 AM, P Kishor wrote: >> On 8/10/07, Steve Lime <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> Hi all: Perhaps this has been discussed before, but... Given the >>> apparent desire to maintain geographic diversity amongst OSgeo >>> leadership perhaps in the future we might consider regionally >>> based board seats. >> >> This is absolutely the most wonderful, workable, and simplest idea to >> this problem. > > I'm not convinced that enforced geographic distribution at the board > level is the best, though I acknowledge the value of the diversity > and the need to make the organisation sensitive to particular > geographic needs. > > Implementing a geographically diverse board may be truly hard and is > quite arbitrary. I believe local chapters would need to develop > further first, so they would provide the nominees or choose who would > represent them on a board. However, it pre-supposes that there are > leaders available in all regions, that they are the best (however you > define that) to lead the organisation and that those leaders are even > involved in a local chapter. Will this always be the case? It's > pretty hard to say... > > Distributed geographic representation sounds good to us because we > know geography is important - but it is still as arbitrary as saying > we need equal representation from business vs. academia, or > programmers vs. hobbyists, or distribution of languages, etc. > > Instead, I would suggest something like an international congress > that is made up of the chair of each local chapter, plus the main > board. It would be the OSGeo UN and meet several times per year, > with decisions guiding final board decisions. It would be an ideal > way of having interaction between local chapters and the main > organisation that might not otherwise happen. This allows more > people to become known and their leadership potential recognised more > broadly. It would be natural to that some members of the congress > would end up running for board positions in the future. > > This is just some rough brainstorming, please don't take it too > seriously, but thought I'd share some of my personal reflections on > the topic. > > Tyler > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
