Re: [chairs] Individual members representation?

[Christopher B Ferris <chrisfer@us.ibm.com>]

David,

Please see my thoughts below.

Cheers,

Christopher Ferris
STSM, Emerging e-business Industry Architecture
email: chrisfer@us.ibm.com
phone: +1 508 234 3624

"David RR Webber" <david@drrw.info> wrote on 11/29/2003 11:17:22 AM:

> As we are approaching year end some retrospective thoughts and
> looks ahead occur.
> 
> Would it make sense to add a Board member who represents all
> the individual members?

As Eduardo indicated, Board members are elected as, and serve
as individuals. You can always send them email to communicate your
concerns just as you might send a note to your congressperson
or MP, etc.

> 
> Clearly there are large numbers now contributing to every OASIS
> team.  But only corporate members get to vote and nominate 
> board members.
> 
> Do we need balance, and would input from individual members help?
> Would this help toward working with groups such as ISO in the 
> future?

I'm not sure that I understand how any of this would help with ISO.

> 
> Some ground rules would be needed - and also OASIS would need
> to cover expenses for the person - as obviously they do not have
> a corporate sponsor.  If the person subsequently joined a corporation
> would this automatically trigger a new appointment - or could it
> be discretionary?

There's always OASIS staff. They too can represent your concerns at
the board level.
 
> 
> We could certainly also have a meeting room and feedback area
> for individual members via Kavi as another resource.

Why limit it to individual members? I think that this might be a 
worthwhile
experiment, although my experience suggests that it might simply be
forgotten over time. Would it be by subscription only? I doubt that 
people will be receptive to a list for all members... It will simply
generate an exponentially growing "remove me from this list" thread
as soon as someone kicks off a discussion thread;-)

> 
> Personally as an individual member I would definately value reports
> back from the board from an independent member there.

As Eduardo responded, you and any other member, whether an individual
or an employee of a member company can always read the minutes:

        http://www.oasis-open.org/private/bod_minutes.php

> 
> OK - so I've taken the lid off a large can of worms here, but this
> was an itch so I thought I'd better scratch it! 
> 
> What are the pro's and con's?  Is this workable? 
> 
> DW.