[Linux-aus] Converting Linux Australia's "Committee" to a "Board"

[Jonathan Oxer]

On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 14:31 +1100, Steven Hanley wrote:

> I am hanbing out to see how many people jump up and down about naming and
> semantics and how it sounds,

Like you, I've been waiting for the jumping up and down to start.
There's been surprisingly little jumping though so it's about time I
made some more comments myself to prompt a bit more feedback.

> also is it all as simple a s changing an
> organisation through liberal use of sed.

Steven, I know that you already understand very well a lot of what I'm
about to say but this seems like a perfect opportunity to explain a bit
of the background for the benefit of everyone on the list, including
people who may have joined after LCA2007 and be wondering what the fuss
is about.

It may sound stupid but I think some careful re-labelling would actually
go a long way toward making things run a bit more smoothly. Changing
labels in itself doesn't fix anything structurally, but it can have
major implications in terms of the way various roles are perceived. That
perception then determines both how people go about fulfilling those
roles and also the expectations by others of the people in the roles.

The fundamental nature of Linux Australia is that it's totally
volunteer-driven. None of us are paid to put in the time that we do,
which makes it even more critical that role perceptions are correct. We
aren't in a position to simply pay people to do things: we operate by
harnessing the passion of people who want to do those things anyway.
That's why we can claim to be an organisation that represents the
community. We have no commercial goals or interest, no investors to
provide a return to. We represent the community because we *are* the
community. A perfect example is your organising team for LCA2005: you
and a bunch of people chose to work your butts off for a long period of
time to provide a huge benefit to the rest of the community, without
being paid a cent for it. The other LCA teams have done the same, of
course, and the rest of us who've reaped the benefits are extremely
grateful to you all.

For that "do it because you love it" approach to work we need to provide
an organisational structure that does its best to help all of us to get
on with doing what we love doing. We need to make sure that when there
is the spark of enthusiasm we recognise it, encourage it, and help it to
grow.

Sounds like I've wandered off topic, but...

> The thing I wish to know with respect to this proposal is, does the use of
> Board rather than Committee have some special differentiation in Australian
> Law or something? If not is it ismply because it wil help people think it
> works different to use different terminology?

...the terminology is largely it, yes. So let me digress again for a
moment to help explain why.

A few years ago there was a strong perception that to help out Linux
Australia actively or to do something officially in its name meant being
on the Committee. The result was that people would stand for Committee
positions specifically so they could "do" something in the name of LA.
And of course the highly active and enthusiastic people on the Committee
also happened to be involved in lots of other activities, making it a
somewhat self-perpetuating perception. High-profile people doing things
in LA's name also happened to be on the Committee, so joining the
Committee was seen as the way to do things in LA's name.

That approach does not scale. As LA started taking on more activities
the burden on the Committee to either make or authorise every little
decision or to be personally involved in various activities became quite
a problem, at least for some people. Being on the Committee became far
more exhausting than it needed to be. This is not a new problem, and
those who have been around for while will remember the controversy
started by my "Can Linux Australia survive?" post:

http://lists.linux.org.au/archives/linux-aus/2005-July/msg00003.html

Part of the response to the problem was to create Sub-Committees for
various purposes, allowing volunteers to operate on specific projects
such as the Mirror or Education or Advocacy roles officially without
being elected to the LA Committee.

That move started the separation between the oversight (Committee) and
execution (Sub-Committee) roles, but it was a half solution and it's
time now to do something more serious. We now have partial separation
but that separation is not obvious. Until this thread started I doubt
that many LA members would have been consciously aware of the
oversight/Ctte vs execution/Sub-Ctte differentiation.

And *that's* why I want the terminology to change.

I want the organisation structure to be clear, and for people to know
where they can fit in for whatever type of involvement they're
interested in.

We also have a lot of catch-all task execution still happening within
the context of the Committee when it really should be done in the
context of a Sub-Committee invoked for the purpose, even if the person
who ends up doing the work is exactly the same at the end of the day.
That's only natural of course because the kinds of people who stand for
the Committee are exactly the enthusiastic "let's just get it done"
people who also fit right in to the execution role of a Sub-Committee.
Clarifying the roles of the Committee and Sub-Committees would help us
overcome that and make it more obvious to Committee members when they
should really be doing something in the context of a Sub-Committee.

> I guess the problem you point out is the current constitution does not allow
> the ocmmittee to run optimally.

Yes, but not just the constitution: It's also our understanding of how
we should act within the constitution, and a lot of that comes down to
culture and perception.

> Is this regular expression all that is needed to make the constitution allow
> LA to run differently? It seems more like the constition would need changes
> specifically allowing certain practices and it is not necessarily tied to
> terminology of "Board" vs "committee" but iis tied to what the constitution
> says roles in the governance of LA do.

Yes, I expect the changes would actually be more than applying a regex!
I put it in those terms though to get people thinking about this in the
right way. If we can grasp what we want the organisation to be
conceptually then we can remould the constitution as necessary to make
it reflect that concept.

Cheers   :-)
-- 
Jonathan Oxer
Ph +61 3 9723 9399
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