--On Friday, April 27, 2012 10:34 -0700 Randy Bush
<randy@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>> It seems to me that a static participant base would clearly
>> be more of an issue than age, per se. There's pretty clearly
>> some churn, whether it's because of an influx of people from
>> a new (to the IETF) geographic area, or because of an influx
>> of people wanting to work on a new (to the IETF) problem
>> area, and that's a very, very, very good thing.
>
> ietf, nanog, ripe, ... meetings all generally have 1/3
> newcomers. janog less so.
In my capacity as possibly the second or third oldest character
still actively doing protocol development work in the IETF, I
defer to Randy (who is older :-)). But let me suggest that the
problem isn't numbers or ratios. It is what we do about
leadership development, including how we use whatever expertise
and perspective the geriatric contingent represents.
At the risk of repeating something about which various ADs and
others have gotten an earful, unless there are very special and
unusual circumstances [Note 1], it is unwise to, e.g., have us
chair a WG or assume many other leadership positions. It is
easy to say "So-and-so should chair this WG because, based on a
dozen before it, she knows how to do that". Instead, it is
better to find someone more junior and, if appropriate, appoint
the more senior people to advisory and support roles.
We probably don't follow that principle often enough. Perhaps
there are properties of our procedures and how we designate
roles that discourage it. If so, we should fix that.
As long as a significant number of newcomers are appearing,
signs of an aging leadership are almost certainly a leadership
development problem (which could include insufficient
advancement of people with several years, but not several
decades, or experience) and not merely an aging population
problem at the top.
Just my opinion while striking my white beard (which I'd
probably be doing loudly at the microphone if this came up in a
plenary).
john
[Note 1} I believe that my current co-chair role in EAI and Vint
Cerf's recent role in IDNABIS were, indeed, special
circumstances. And I'm looking forward to completing EAI and
dropping out of that role almost as much as I think Vint was
looking forward to completing IDNABIS.