On Mar 10, 2013, at 10:20 PM, S Moonesamy <sm+i...@elandsys.com> wrote: > > Diversity of IETF Leadership begins at the bottom. It is challenging for > reasons which I unfortunately cannot describe. I am supportive of the > effort. I am not comfortable with quotas. My preference is to see that the > IETF is accessible. I'll describe that as reaching out to individuals at the > point of entry and see what can be done for them to have a lesser barrier > within the IETF.
This is an excellent point. More diversity in top-level leadership begin with more a more diverse set of active participants, followed by a more diverse set of document editors, directorate members and WG chairs. The diversity of our active participants (as judged by the diversity of meeting attendees) has gone up significantly over the years, but we need to figure out why that has not been fully reflected in diversity among WG chairs, document authors, etc. I've been thinking, for instance, that one thing we could add to our list of immediate actions is for IESG members to review their directorate membership and, if it makes sense, attempt to increase the diversity of their directorates. This would have two effects: the IESG would get better advice, and it would give the people they appoint more opportunity to interact with other senior IETF participants and demonstrate their abilities. It is important that people realize that if we have a selection process (from beginning to end, not just the NomCom) that is picking a less-diverse group of leaders from a more-diverse group of participants, that selection process _is not_ selecting the best possible candidates. Figuring out the root cause of that problem is hard -- it is not something we can pin on the NomCom, because the NomCom may not end-up with the best candidate pool to choose from for various reasons. It is something we should fix, though, because the result will be _better_ leadership and a more effective organization. Margaret
