[Foundation-l] Expert board members - a suggestion

[Florence Devouard]

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