Ting Chen wrote: > Hi Thomas, > > one year ago when I run for the board election I came with the same > proposal as you. Meanwhile I have changed my oppinion. The problem is > that this would not work out. > > I totally agree with you that voting is the minor part of the board > decision making process. Actually in many cases it is only for the > protocol and formality. The really big part is before voting, while > discussion. Here you are totally right. > > There are a lot of differences between a board member and an advisory > board member. The most important difference is the dedication. As a > board member you MUST attend board meeting, you MUST take part in > discussion. As an advisory board member you are not obliged to do that. > Naturally, if we have an issue and we feel lack of expertise, or simply > because we want to get more input from more sources, we go out and ask > members of the advisory board. This is for example why some of our > committees has advisory board member in it. This is also why the > advisory board would play a crucial role in the strategic planning. But > it is totally different between that expertise is already inside of the > board or if the expertise must at first be asked from outside of the > board. The best examples you can see are Stu West and Jan-Bard de > Vreede. Stu with his technical and financial expertise is simply there, > in every meeting, in the board mailing list, we don't have to go out and > ask someone from the outside, especially because these expertise are > really direly needed in every meeting and most of our topics. The same > is it with the organizational expertise that Jan-Bard brings into the > board both in how an ordinary procedure should look like as well as how > discipline must be excercised in the board. This is the reason why they > are asked to be on the board again and again and why they hold so > important offices in the board. Indeed, my experience with both of them > is why I have changed my opinion. I don't know Matt that long yet, just > met him in one board meeting. But I do feel that in this one meeting he > gave very interesting and important insights. For example how > measurement of success should look like. There are also other reasons > why we need expert seats. One is that sometimes you are in a discussion > and stumbles over something where you didn't see the need of an expert > before but where you feel really thankful to have one in the board. > Naturally you can say, hey, we need here an expertise, let us at first > ask someone in the advisory board and then make a decision. This > actually happend in the past year more than once. But this is a slow > process, you would go out and e-mail that person, she or he would > answer, there would maybe more questions that you would ask again, or > the board must first discuss internally and then ask again. This is > totally different as if you have already that expertise in the meeting > and can directly go forward. I also need not to mention that it is > totally different to talk with someone from face to face or via e-mail > and we cannot fly all advisory board members whose expertise are needed > in to the board meeting. > > As I said before I had the same idea as you last year. But some times a > change of perspective or new experiences show that the idea doesn't work. > > Greetings > Ting
Incidently, in the context of the strategic planning process, I talked this morning with Laura and Barry from the Bridgespan Group, as well as with Eugene yesterday. From what I understood, the Bridgespan Group is trying to interview all advisory board members to collect information and feedback for the work started on the strategic wiki (http://strategy.wikimedia.org). I think that is an excellent way to make use of the Advisory Board member and I thank them for our implication in that process. Ant _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
