cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
TrickyDicky
Contributor II

(ISC)2 Board of Directors election

So according to the timeline at https://www.isc2.org/About/Board-of-Directors/Board-Elections the current Board's list of preferred candidates in this years election (the 2019 Slate) should have been announced on 14th June. I don't see anything on the news or the blog pages on the website, and I haven't received any email notification yet. 

Does anyone have insight into when the Slate will be announced?

 

It would seem that the election won't be held on time either (12th Sept) as the bylaws state that there must be 90 days between the announcement of the Slate and the election

129 Replies
dcontesti
Community Champion


@AppDefects wrote:

@dcontesti wrote:

@wimremes wrote:

Why the membership would put forward a candidate that already served for 15 years (or more?) and simultaneously complain about board members seeking a second term is frankly beyond me.


@wimremes Yes, I served on the board for a while Not sure it was 15 years but won't argue that point.  I would like to go back and look at history:

 

Diana Contesti

Independent Candidate for the (ISC)2 Board Ballot.

 


The current Chairperson did not have kind words for @dcontesti and the all amazing work she did. Who forced her off the Board? Why was there a need to change the Bylaws? The post only hints at the internal politics in passing and I quote: I'll let you use your imagination to think of all the reasons why that may be.


To the best of my knowledge when Wim Remes came to the board (I was not a board member at that time), he stated that members were unhappy with the turn over on the board and stated the largest complaint he heard had to do with term limits, so the By-Laws committee were charged with reviewing the by-laws and coming back to the board with recommendations.  That was in 2014 whilst I was not on the board.  The new by-laws were not presented to the board (once Richard took the committee) in (I believe) 2015).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

dcontesti
Community Champion


@AppDefects wrote:

@dcontesti wrote:

 

Why did I throw my hat in. I saw diversity in terms of geography (Asia, the UK and India--- excellent) although folks from the rest of EMEA would have been good or even So. America which is very diverse in both languages and cultures, however no diversity in terms of ladies. There are currently four women on board and as of this election, it could potentially go down to two.

 


I hope that you can bring some semblance of sanity and openness to the board. We need transparency to see who was considered. It should not be a national secret. Go for it. We are here to support you!


Thank you.

wimremes
Contributor III


@denbesten wrote:

@gthompson wrote:

Many "qualified" candidates did not score sufficiently high enough to make the top 8, this does not mean that they were not qualified. 

So, what's magic about the number 8?  I might be naive but I would think the board would endorse all the candidates they believe to be qualified.


There is no "magic" behind the number 8. The committee looks at the number of open seats and aims to fill a slate with 150%. Five open seats means (rounded up) 8 slate candidates for 2019. There are 3 factors playing there:

1) Extremely FEW members vote. 

2) The bylaws allow for 2 types of non-slate candidates: petition and write-in (aka pick a name not on the ballot as YOUR candidate). Overpopulating the official slate would make it even more difficult for those candidates to make a chance.

3) HAVE I SAID THAT EXTREMELY FEW MEMBERS CARE ENOUGH TO VOTE??

 



Sic semper tyrannis.
wimremes
Contributor III

BTW, it is hilarious that the default assumption is that board members/the current board/whatever are a self-serving bunch of a-holes trying to f-ck the membership and serve some ulterior goal.

 

As a board member, for 6 years, I spent 50 days (in total time) a year on board duties. This is unpaid work on top of my professional engagements (that actually pay my bills) and having a family with 4 kids. Sure, our flights and accomodation were paid for but that doesn't compensate the lost time with family and work stress to actually get things done as the professional I claim I am by proxy of this certificate we all hold.

 

And all that for the 5% of members that.actually.vote.and.at.least.pretend.to.care.once.a.year.



Sic semper tyrannis.
wimremes
Contributor III

Have you ever run a mass mailing marketing tool at scale? With everyhing you can screw up on SPF, DKIM, and DMARC combined with the ever more greedy spam filters (for the better ... don't get me wrong) ensuring that 140.000 emails get where they need to be.

Don't attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by the nature of the internet.


Sic semper tyrannis.
MikeGlassman
Contributor II

ok,

 

There's no doubt that everyone works hard at doing what they were elected to do. I think that is a valid assumption.

 

that does not mean though that what they do or decide is in line with what the end users actually think.

 

Which obviously brings us to the point that yes, very few of the thousands of ISC2 members actually let their voice be heard, whether it's in the voting process or even on here (That's another story but we'll leave that for now).

 

People who don't vote, can't complain about the results. this is so in real elections for country governing bodies, or for bodies such as this one. But those of us who do vote, are very much able to complain when things just seem to happen and fall on us with no heads up or even a heads down.

 

When the people pay for the services, they have a right to expect communication and an ear to listen to complaints and do something about them, when they are valid complaints.

 

What is surprising to me so far, is that no one has said anything about the fact that there are discussions on LinkedIn on this issue, on which board members have commented. If LinkedIn is the medium of choice, kill the community server and let's all move over there, otherwise it is not something that should be sanctioned by answers being given by elected persons.

 

I doubt we are all going to see eye to eye on this. There are simply too many disagreements on too many issues.

 

I don't need to remind everyone that this all started from a simple issue of members not getting the ballot emails, either at the same time, or at all. When things start off on such a low level being bad, or not working, then there are for sure big things that don't work as well. As a side note, I still have not received the ballot list.

Sincerely,

Mike Glassman, CISSP
Iguana man
wimremes
Contributor III


@dcontesti wrote:

@AppDefects wrote:

@dcontesti wrote:

@wimremes wrote:

Why the membership would put forward a candidate that already served for 15 years (or more?) and simultaneously complain about board members seeking a second term is frankly beyond me.


@wimremes Yes, I served on the board for a while Not sure it was 15 years but won't argue that point.  I would like to go back and look at history:

 

Diana Contesti

Independent Candidate for the (ISC)2 Board Ballot.

 


The current Chairperson did not have kind words for @dcontesti and the all amazing work she did. Who forced her off the Board? Why was there a need to change the Bylaws? The post only hints at the internal politics in passing and I quote: I'll let you use your imagination to think of all the reasons why that may be.


To the best of my knowledge when Wim Remes came to the board (I was not a board member at that time), he stated that members were unhappy with the turn over on the board and stated the largest complaint he heard had to do with term limits, so the By-Laws committee were charged with reviewing the by-laws and coming back to the board with recommendations.  That was in 2014 whilst I was not on the board.  The new by-laws were not presented to the board (once Richard took the committee) in (I believe) 2015).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


This is factually incorrect. I came to the board when you were on the board in 2012. At that point, term limits were not a priority. The concern when I tasked the bylaws committee to look at the term limits were that there was no natural influx of new ideas. This was also influenced with our improved ability to actually maintain a history of board activity and decisions by adoption a Board Management System. Term limits are "damned if you do, damned if you don't" but seeing the results even just 3 years after adopting them (I also wasn't on the board in 2015 when they were implemented under the leadership of Dr. Corey Schou), I am even more convinced that we made the right choice.

 

That said, I am also convinced that you are not the right candidate for the (ISC)2 Board. Unfortunately there is a lot that I am not allowed to talk about. Which you obviously know. Here is a few things that I do think matter:

1) When I joined the board in 2012, you were the primary enforcer of a strict "the board speaks with one voice" policy. This effectively blocked communications by a board member to the membership. The divide between the membership and the board was huge. Today, any board member can speak their mind even on contentious issues, as JJs posts on LinkedIN prove. Even as chair, she can voice her opinion without the board getting their panties in a twist over it (distracting from doing actual work). This is great.

2) The board had no interest in a large contingent of the membership, namely those that practiced offensive security. They were "hackers" and "bad guys", not worthy of being called professionals. I personally took Hord to his first DEF CON group meetup in London and worked below the radar to represent those that didn't matter. You nor most of the other board members at that time had any interest in those members until they could mean something for you. If the org connects with a more diverse set of members today, that is not your work.

3) When I joined, ISC2 claimed to be an international org but all decisions were driven out of Tampa with little understanding of the other regions. Since then, the regional offices got their own management teams with their own P&L so they could execute locally based on their knowledge of the region. Not before we got rid of that one contracting firm that did sales for ISC2 on a parasitic contract with almost 0 incentive to benefit the membership and largely build on their existing relationship with management and board members (again, why term limits were important).

4) The board, since 2012, has moved from a very tactical and transactional approach to a strategic approach leaning fully on governance and oversight. The organization has a PAID and skilled management team to execute on the strategic decisions. While I don't discount your contributions to the organization at all, your strength is in hands-on tactical work where the board needs individuals that can work on the strategic level.

5) I have never experienced you as someone that thrived in a diverse group seeking consensus. Your way of working is built on "divide and conquer" and filling voids of leadership.  

6) I do not feel that your current "platform" is truthful, based on my most recent experience with the ISC2 board, and my experience with you. While you know better, you feed on perceived dysfunctionality of the board very much like a recent US Presidential candidate. The ISC2 membership isn't a flyover state. The org has never been more performant or invested more in its membership ($10M just last year, not even counting the DETE investment over the past years) and the board has never been more diverse while at the same time being cohesive and engaged.

 

Maybe it is time to take a step back and look at why you really want to be a board member (again) and what the benefit is for the membership because I, for one, am pretty sure that once their votes are behind your name, you will ignore them just as much as you did before.    



Sic semper tyrannis.
wimremes
Contributor III

@dcontesti can you remind me ... didn't you use your existing relationship with ISC2 staff in 2012 to be sat at the registration desk for ISC2 congress in Philadelphia to seek petition signatures from members at the event?

 

I wonder how many other petitioners got to benefit from such an exclusive opportunity to altruistically be elected to the board. Not many, I'm guessing ... 



Sic semper tyrannis.
AppDefects
Community Champion

Was that petition successful?


@wimremes wrote:

@dcontesti can you remind me ... didn't you use your existing relationship with ISC2 staff in 2012 to be sat at the registration desk for ISC2 congress in Philadelphia to seek petition signatures from members at the event?

 

I wonder how many other petitioners got to benefit from such an exclusive opportunity to altruistically be elected to the board. Not many, I'm guessing ... 


Was that petition successful?

wimremes
Contributor III


@AppDefects wrote:

Was that petition successful?


@wimremes wrote:

@dcontesti can you remind me ... didn't you use your existing relationship with ISC2 staff in 2012 to be sat at the registration desk for ISC2 congress in Philadelphia to seek petition signatures from members at the event?

 

I wonder how many other petitioners got to benefit from such an exclusive opportunity to altruistically be elected to the board. Not many, I'm guessing ... 


Was that petition successful?


yes.



Sic semper tyrannis.