[OpenID] Several Questions for the Current & Future Board

Peter Williams pwilliams at rapattoni.com
Thu Dec 18 17:49:17 UTC 2008


Any executive even mid-way through his/her MBA training can give a 5m briefing on how cash spent achieved the mission agreed, usually over a rolling 3+ months period. Its often a rationale to introduce the topics of the meeting which need short term decisions (the overspend on  Mission A means mission B has to be delayed...can we all live with that?...). Time spent on this balances with the fun stuff - how can we get more money to spend on our vision projects. That balance is just the essence of the capitalist way, as the Board develops the market.

It also sets the governance tone, for how the market will be run. In part, this is what the election is all about.

Folks' campaigns have been very revealing, particular on IP. Scott's campaign revealed that the very structure of the Foundation was based on (corporate-originated) patent threat issues. Various folks revealed they worked for Microsoft (which a newbie would not have detected). (Official Microsoft folks themselves have been unimpeachable in their rule making and execution.) Others are as direct upon cross-examination as they are in normal discourse. Others acted like the 1920's soviet political officer, enforcing doctrine on the sheep at the farm. And, some seem to believe the hens really have no "need to know" what the cows and pigs are doing with all the eggs.

Did I mix business with political metaphors AND get the farm animal references wrong?  Tut, Tut.


Yes that was Satire - appropriate to a (short) election period.

----

I think someone needs to learn how to value (and exploit) the independence property of audit functions, and understand its relationship to brands. No point here driveling on about openid brands (= visa) if there is evident disrespect for the established practices of branding assurance.

But, folks should be proud to do this, in public. Lots of others would have scurried away from the open debating format.

> -----Original Message-----

> From: general-bounces at openid.net [mailto:general-bounces at openid.net] On
> Behalf Of Dick Hardt
> Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 9:19 AM
> To: Johannes Ernst
> Cc: OpenID List
> Subject: Re: [OpenID] Several Questions for the Current & Future Board
>
>
> On 18-Dec-08, at 9:00 AM, Johannes Ernst wrote:
>
> > Well, as a current board member I disagree. Nobody can figure out
> > whether "there is an issue" unless financials are transparent to at
> > least all members of the board.
>
> The task of checking if there is an issue was delegated to myself as
> Treasurer and the finance committee which was myself, Scott and Bill.
>
> >
> >
> > BTW, I'm not arguing at all that we need to waste any time talking
> > about financials. If they are distributed in generally accepted
> > formats (BS, P&L, cash flow, perhaps in this case membership
> > pipeline) a day or two before each board meeting, AND there is no
> > issue, nobody ever spends any time talking about them at all.
>
> No, it usually does not work that way. Someone usually has a question
> because they did not understand something in the financials, or forgot
> about something. This is a a good exercise in a small company where
> things are much more dynamic and a much smaller board. Having all
> board members involved in the details of all committees is an
> inefficent use of resources, and slows progress down substaintially as
> there are more board members. Given the size of the board, the
> overhead is high in my opinion.
>
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