Disclaimer: not a member of the SC/BoD, just talking out of my backside. If this sucks, tell me to STFU.
One aspect of this that I have lobbied for is actual voting membership. The current "membership" structure was never really ideal - basically, you were a member if you attended a conference once in a blue moon. At least, you got to vote - there was no membership, per se, because Merit owned things. Of all the engineering, design, and operational disciplines, Network Engineering is the ONLY one without some kind of real professional organization. IEEE, ASCE, ACM, ASME - heck, the guys who operate boilers in midsized office buildings have a professional organization. Only network engineers don'.t Why is this desirable? For one thing, you get something to put on your resume that shows you are serious about the industry, that you partake in forums to improve your knowledge, that you are willing to share and teach what you know, and to learn what you don't. There's a strong networking/career element. I come from an engineer (mechanical) background, and grew up with a civil engineer as a dad - these organizations can be very useful. NANOG has been, slowly, evolving (slouching?) towards that for years. Now's the time to make that happen. So, how do we do it? /modest proposal/ The "new" organization needs a voting membership. We can set a modest fee (not ACM or IEEE crazy $$$) for annual or life membership. You get to display a logo on your business card (when someone gets around to designing it) and you can put it on your resume. No journals or membership cards - lets not get crazy. Members can vote. Members get a discount for conferences so that the membership is break even, if you attend two(?) per year (I have done no math here). Most of us could get our companies to pay, and those that can't get a tax break. Folks who can't attend conferences could then still participate. Folks who do attend conference who don't give a crap wouldn't participate. Before anyone says it - the IETF is a standards org, not a network engineering professional society. And I think its broke. Anyway, I'll bloviate about this on Sunday when the mic gets opened up, but something we can all think about. BTW, I know everyone has their panties in a knot about not getting stuff soon enough or not getting enough communications. Please come to the community meeting prepare to volunteer - I think when we go our own way, they'll be a lot more opportunities for volunteering. - Dan On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 2:42 PM, Jared Mauch <ja...@puck.nether.net> wrote: > > On Jun 9, 2010, at 7:08 AM, Sean Figgins wrote: > > > [1] Working as defined as the Internet presence was up and reachable for > > 99+ percent of the time, and the meetings took place as expected with > > topics that were interesting, although not interesting to all the people > > all the time. > > One thing that was always frustrating (As a SC member) was that the "active > community" could be defined as SC+PC+MLC(CC)+Small set of people. > > This was clearly seen in voter turnout numbers each fall. > > - Jared (not a lot of time these days..) > _______________________________________________ > Nanog-futures mailing list > Nanog-futures@nanog.org > https://mailman.nanog.org/mailman/listinfo/nanog-futures >
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