[OSGeo-Discuss] Board Geographic Diversity

[Steve Lime]

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
<121725E9-9647-447E-929F-E0E88A77A121 at osgeo.org>, "Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)"
<tmitchell at osgeo.org> wrote:
> On 11-Aug-07, at 7:51 AM, P Kishor wrote:
>> On 8/10/07, Steve Lime <Steve.Lime at dnr.state.mn.us> 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
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