Question: Imagine some way to vote electronically on innovative ideas presented in open forum on the web, then sorting the selected ideas by subject, and having At Large Member consensus councils (ALMcc) study the innovative ideas from each subject area and make recommendations to the Board which ones are valuable. Thoughts?

Nominee Replies

Donald Langenberg - posted on 2000-09-24 13:19:17 Sounds to me like an idea worth fleshing out. One small plea from the viewpoint of one who has served on many boards: Board members commonly lack the leisure to analyze for themselves large amounts of information. It is crucial, therefore, that board members be assisted by groups they trust (board staff or advisory groups). The proposed ALMcc groups might play this role, but to do so they would have to be trusted both by the recipients of their work and by the sources of their ideas. That's easier said than done. Emerson Tiller, J.D., Ph.D. - posted on 2000-09-20 08:25:17 I think this question gets at a couple points. First, what should be the relationship of the At-Large Directors with the At-Large Membership? If At Large Member concensus councils are making recommendations to the Board, what will be the role of the At Large Director? To deliver these ideas? Or would the At Large Director be expected to be an independent thinker and present his/her own ideas (with interaction with membership being a part of the process of forming ideas). Would the membership evaluate the director for being a good agent, or a good leader? Can a director be good at both? Does he/she need to be good at both to be good at either? Second, should there be formal or informal communication arrangements among the membership, and between the membership and board? Few could argue that less communication is better, so it seems that the more channels for communication the better. But one might wonder (1) whether the formal arrangements (ALMcc) would sustain themselves, and (2) would the self-selection of members onto these ALMcc's be representative of the At Large Membership whole? I don't have good answers. These are just thoughts. Lawrence Lessig - posted on 2000-09-19 08:55:34 I think this is a brilliant way to feed ideas into the process. I have thought long and hard about the second step -- how to set up what you call ALMcc's. The crucial and difficult question is how to structure these so they can truly (1) deliberate about the ideas, and (2) represent a cross section of interests. If the ALMcc could be structured well, then the output of the ALMcc would be a good way for us to avoid both the dangers of experts and the vacuousness of polls.