Re: IAOC: delegating ex-officio responsibility

A couple of observations from my personal viewpoint.

I tend to agree with others that we need to think about this in a 
top-down fashion, i.e. start from what is the problem that we intend to 
solve. I do have a serious concern about the workload for the people 
involved, particularly the chairs. But I wanted to make a couple of 
additional points.
First, I would not necessarily take it for granted that we have an 
infinite supply of people for various tasks. Finding an IESG member with 
enough time on their hands to participate the IAOC is not a given. We 
could of course always choose from outside the IESG, but again, most of 
the IETF participants are not here for administrative work, so while 
many can do it, I'm guessing some arm twisting would be required.
Second, even if you do find one, its not given that it provides the kind 
of connection between the chair and the IAOC that we want. Olaf pointed 
out that its bidirectional information transfer. Only a very small part 
of the IESG work is actually talking about IAOC matters, so I'm guessing 
that even if the delegate is another AD, the chair would still have to 
arrange extra time with this other AD in order to ensure that 
information transfer happens.
Third, I forget if it was Bob who noted that if we are strained by the 
tasks that we are doing, perhaps its time to outsource a bigger part of 
it to paid employees or businesses. For instance, I'm kind of hoping 
that 99% of the meeting selection load is on the IAD and the 
secretariat, not on the IAOC members. The members should set the policy, 
adjust the policy, and monitor implementation. If you are meeting every 
two weeks and deciding details then maybe you are on the wrong track. It 
should be the board, not the work horse.
Fourth, I think we are bringing on some of the load by our own actions. 
We have increased the number of entities that need to have a board and 
increased the amount of coordination needed. For instance, the RFC 
Editor was at one time one person, and today I'm honestly not sure I 
know how many entities it consists of. Of course, we needed much of this 
restructuring as the IETF has grown and has changed its operational mode 
also in other ways. But we should also watch it and avoid creating 
unnecessary structure where none is needed. I'm a little bit scared that 
adding a layer of delegation may cause the collective us to have more 
meetings, not less.
I also had a couple of thoughts on possible alternative directions to 
reducing the problem. Outsourcing more is one approach. Another one is 
to not have more people from the IESG and IAB attend the IAOC, but have 
people from the IAOC bring more information to these bodies. For 
instance, in the IESG we always have an "IAB report" but we don't 
normally have a Trust or IAOC report. Should we? A third direction is 
separating the role of the chairs as *working* members of the IAOC from 
their ability to attend and vote where needed. Would this detach the 
chairs too much? I don't know, but I think there might actually be less 
detaching than if you delegated your role away for a year. Russ, Olaf, 
how much do you normally participate the IAOC work? Are you in the 
subcommittees, do you work on details of agreements with our service 
providers?
Jari

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