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Jordan Carter

InternetNZ Election 2002
Candidate for Council : Jordan Carter

This bio is in two parts, a report on the past term and what I want to focus on if re-elected.

2000-2002

When I was elected to Council in 2000, I made the following commitments:

  • to bring to Council the enthusiasm of a younger Internet user
  • working on digital divide issues
  • the genuine introduction of an SRS as per the Hine WG
  • opening up Society decision making
  • using more internet technologies for meetings.

While I cannot claim as an individual member of Council to have brought about any of these outcomes on my own, I am encouraged by the progress Internet NZ has made through what has been a very turbulent two years.

My particular focus and work has been in four Committees or Working Groups - chairing the Political Liaison Working Group after the 2001 AGM, and being a member of the Constitution Review Working Group, the SRS Implementation Oversight Committee, and the Admin Committee.

The Political Liaison WG has not been as active as I would have wished. Mainly because of the time taken up by the SRS, the attention I and DPF have been able to give it has been limited. The WG will be brought into sharper activity after this year's General Election.

As part of the Constitution Review WG, I worked with Chris Streatfield and David Farrar to put together the extensive Constitutional changes that were passed at the 2001 AGM. I believe these changes have made it easier for individual members of the Society to take part in its activities, and have enhanced the use of Internet means of participation, especially in the AGM which will be tested for the first time this year.

The SRS Implementation Oversight Committee has probably been the hardest committee to be involved with. I joined it after the 2001 AGM and it is fair to say there was no meeting of minds from the word go. I played a very active role in hands-on interaction with staff and others during February and March 2002 to prevent the project going in a direction none of the members voted for. The IOC was an experience I'll never forget, but its role is now finished with the SRS moving into production in the next few months. Big congratulations to Rose and Doug of the Implementation team, for progressing the project despite sometimes obtuse responses from Council.

I have also been an observing but non-voting member of the Admin Committee since November 2001. This made some coordination with the SRS Implementation easier, and I have participated as much as possible in the working of the Committee. I would like to pay tribute to its Chair, David Farrar, who without a doubt has run a very effective and proactive committee in a very competent way.

Overall, the Council has been a fascinating experience. An ambitious organisational change is under way, and the SRS has been brought through the maelstrom of Council meetings to its current state. There is, however, still much more to do.

2002-2004

Internet NZ has moved a long way in the past two years. It finally appears that SRS issues might begin to take a back seat in how the organisation functions. With the new Domain Name Commissioner and the new Registry, and the .nz Oversight Committee in place, Internet NZ needs to look again at its structures. We should be aiming to build an organisation that better involves the membership, is ever more effective in the public arena, and can develop more strengths instead of an obsession with the .nz stewardship that has so marked the past few years.

If I am re-elected to the Council for the next term, I hope to be able to advance the following issues:

  • seeing through the SRS to completion, and working to ensure a proper relationship between the new .nz oversight committee and the Internet NZ Council. In particular, I want to make sure that Council the .nz committee to get on with its job, and improves its ability to focus on the wider situation facing the Society.
  • working to help more clearly define Internet NZ's mission, and the planning processes we use to turn that into activity. The Council has made efforts to be more rigorous about this, but has not so far been successful in implementing strategies to make sure its planning is top notch. It also has the habit of being blind to the intended governance/management split in the organisation which needs to be reinforced.
  • participating again in the Political Liaison Working Group to help educate politicians and other policy makers about the Internet, and develop policy around the net that works for users and the industry.
  • participating again in the Constitutional WG in reviewing the constitutional changes made last year, and designing any tweaks that are required to those changes or to the wider Society.

Jordan Carter
08 June 2002

© 2004 The Internet Society of New Zealand
Last updated Thursday, 17-Mar-2005 17:01:16 NZDT

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