Re: Internet organisations coordination meeting

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All,

I have no strong feeling which word is used too describe the folks that
in one way or the other speak for these organizations. I can live with
spokesmen, spokespersons, leaders or chairs.

However it is in the order of ten years since management consultancy
gurus told us to stop using the word "manager" and use "leader" instead.
A leader  was supposed to indicate the leader was one in the group.

About 3 decades before that we were told to stop using "boss" and use
manager instead, "manager" should indicate that the manager were one
of the group.

I can only note that the half-life of these words are decreasing, wonder
what will come after "spokesxxx" in four five years?

If the service these people provide is leadership, call them leaders.
If the service is that they speak, call them "spokesxxx".

/Loa


On 2014-02-16 16:15, l.wood@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Yes, 'leader' is too strong.

'blogger in chief' may be more appropriate...

Lloyd Wood
http://about.me/lloydwood
________________________________________
From: ietf [ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Phillip Hallam-Baker [hallam@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 15 February 2014 23:41
To: John C Klensin
Cc: IETF Discussion Mailing List
Subject: Re: Internet organisations coordination meeting

On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 4:19 PM, John C Klensin <john-ietf@xxxxxxx<mailto:john-ietf@xxxxxxx>> wrote:
;

--On Sunday, February 16, 2014 09:19 +1300 Brian E Carpenter
<brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

Thanks for the update.

I'd really like to push the idea that we stop using the word
"leaders" and start using "spokespeople".

It's something I should have realised many years ago; the
enormous scientific collaborations at CERN who used to be my
customers have used this terminology (or
spokesman/spokeswoman) for ever. It really is closer to what
we want to project about our community, isn't it?

Brian,

Yes.  The problem is that, while the RIR and ISOC CESs, and
maybe the ICANN one, have the authority and perhaps even a
mandate, to act as spokespeople.  The IAB and IETF Chairs have
no such authority: in the absence of rather specific inquiries
of the community and determination of consensus, they are not
supposed to "speak for", e.g., the IETF.

Leader is generally considered to be rather stronger than spokesperson. If they are not spokespeople they are not leaders either. And in any case leaders have to have followers.

There might be a cultural issue here. I note in the UK academic system it would be utterly unthinkable for the Vice-Chancellor of any university to wade into a public political debate and state the view of their university. It would be even more unthinkable for them to do that without any discussion with the faculty. But that happens all the time in the US system.

There is a reason all the 'top' jobs in the UK are irrelevant sinecures. The university is run by the Vice-Chancellor, not the Chancellor, the government is run by the Prime Minister, not the Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury is theoretically the number 3 in the CoE.


--
Website: http://hallambaker.com/


--


Loa Andersson                        email: loa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Senior MPLS Expert                          loa@xxxxx
Huawei Technologies (consultant)     phone: +46 739 81 21 64





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