[governance] Some Further Thoughts on the 2012 NomCom

[Thomas Lowenhaupt]

Dear All,

Let me provide some "off the record" reflections on my recent NomCom 
experiences. These are my recollections, and should an Appeals Committee 
be appointed, I'll check emails to verify the details and cooperate in 
any way necessary. But my hope in preparing this is that the activation 
of the Appeals Committee will be found unnecessary, and that we can 
focus on more productive efforts such as the Human Rights on the 
Internet document <http://www.igcaucus.org/digressit/archives/34>.

For background, I've been on IGC since shortly after its inception, read 
thousands of emails, and responded perhaps a hundred or so times over 
the years. But I've thought of myself as a bit of a lurker when compared 
to the many who are more fully engaged. Feeling a tad guilty, when calls 
for NomCom volunteers have arisen, I've submitted my name, albeit on the 
second "come on guys" call from the coordinator. Once before my name was 
picked, for an Appeals Committee. I never heard a word from that 
experience other than an eventual “Thank you for your participation” as 
there were no appeals.

Prior to this IGC NomCom, my experience with nominating committees was 
limited to a Parents Association at my children's grade school. It was a 
newly formed Association and with the expiration of my term as the 
initial co-president, I needed to fill several seats - President, 
Vic-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. We'd started the Association 
two years prior and filling those seats required a half hour of pleading 
with the 50 or so parents at the general meeting before several arose to 
take on the responsibilities. Quite different for the recent NomCom.

In this instance I was selected as a reserve in June 2011, and advanced 
to the NomCom in July when some those picked declined the appointment. 
I'd expected it to be a learning experience, which it was and continues 
to be.

Early on there was a note from the chair to the effect that, as 
activities at the MAG were in some disarray, “Let's wait until we're 
needed.” I acquiesced and awaited further direction. That came on 
January 3 with the following from Izumi:

Dear Jeremy and all,

Dear respected members of NomCom of the Civil Society Internet Governance Forum:
Antonio Medina Gómez , Carlos Watson, Jacqueline Morris, Julián
Casasbuenas G., Shaila Mistry and Thomas Lowenhaupt.

You are the very important part of the CS IGC.
In December, the UN Under Secretary in charge of IGF called for the
formation of the MAG and invited the submission for the nomination...

A day later Jacqueline sent a draft "call for nominations" letter to 
which I submitted comments. Several days later she sent it out 
incorporating the recommended changes.

Over the first week or so I made several inquiries of the chair 
regarding policy and process and received some response. As has now 
become apparent, for unknown reasons Jacqueline became increasingly 
unable to perform the duties for which she had volunteered.

Her inability only became apparent as we approached the deadline for 
submission of the names. On January 25 Jacqueline forwarded to the 
NomCom members all the nominations she had received. Effort was put to 
initiate a conversation about the nominees including a Doodle (an 
organizing tool doodle.com) and a suggested list of possible nominees. 
With little activity on the list, I submitted to the NomCom a group of 
candidate names that I thought were qualified and representative.

Jacqueline's ability to participate diminished further and as the 
deadline approach (I presume) she gathered and reviewed the information 
available to her and met her commitment to the IGC by submitting the 
names of candidates, all of which I believed met the selection criteria 
and would represent the IGC well at MAG.

Shortly thereafter Jacqueline totally dropped out of the picture and, 
with a little time on my hands, I volunteered to put a final NomCom 
report together. (I have not heard what precluded Jacqueline's 
participation, but one January email mentioned health troubles.)

After submitting the NomCom report the missing APC nominations came to 
light. Also, an extension of the submission deadline by IGF provided a 
possible 10 days additional for review. So, with the surfacing of the 
APC nominations and sparks beginning to fly, the active members of the 
NomCom sought a resolution by using the IGF extension as additional 
review time.

At first we thought we would be able to reopen the process and review 
the APC nominees, and we thought we'd allow others to submit 
applications as well.

At some point it seems the APC lost faith in our ability to resolve the 
situation (understandably) and submitted their nominees directly. At 
that point we decided to just go with the original nominees, and to 
suggest that the IGC support the also qualified APC nominees. We 
realized that this passed on more latitude to IGF decision makers than 
we would like, but it seemed the most acceptable option. As well, we 
made some preliminary recommendations on avoiding a repetition.

To my knowledge the process faltered due to a convergence of timing, 
process, health, and knowledge/experience issues. I doubt they would 
recur, but the recommendations we made might be a first step in taking a 
look at the situation.

This "Further Thoughts" was written with extreme reluctance as I'm 
certain Jacqueline entered this effort with all good intents. Things 
fell apart and I'm certain there's no one more sorry than she. (I wish 
here well.) I started out saying this was “off the record” as I wish 
there was a more private, humane way to review what has happened. But 
apparently there's not.

I think a review of process rather than an appeal is appropriate. But if 
an Appeal is desired, I will help out, as I'm sure will the other 
committee members.

However, I think we should move on and put our energy into efforts such 
as enhancing the Human Rights document.

Best,

Tom Lowenhaupt

P.S. If people have additional questions I will do my best to answer 
them off-line.

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