Statement
I served as a Director 2010-15, including as Secretary 2012-15. I resigned in late 2015, for reasons relevant to this election.
From the company's formation in 1996 until late 2015, ISOC-AU Directors operated as a 'working Board', sometimes with a part-time Executive Officer, but performing much of the work themselves. During 2015, following the appointment of a CEO, the Board transitioned to a conventional corporate model. Roughly speaking, this involves the CEO being given substantial delegations and the Board becoming a 'governance Board', which gets out of the way and leaves the CEO free to operate within their delegations and subject to accountability mechanisms. However, when, as Company Secretary, I brought forward a proposal to clearly define the CEO's authorisations and responsibilities, the Board refused to act. That made my position as Secretary untenable, and my position as a Director at best uncomfortable. I accordingly resigned.
The lack of clarity about the CEO's delegations has been costly. A key element in the restoration of confidence by the membership in the Board is the re-establishment of effective governance. If elected, my intention is to again stand for the position of Secretary, in order to perform 'organisational hygiene' activities. When done well, they go largely unnoticed, but they ensure that the company fulfils its responsibilities. Tasks include the revision of the Secretary's Handbook (which I established in 2013 but which needs to reflect the new Constitution), and completion of a Directors' Handbook.
Bio-Data
I've been active in the IT industry since 1970, since 1982 through my own company, Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd. My consultancy CV is at http://www.xamax.com.au/Principal.html. I've been a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society since 1986, and a Fellow of the international Association for Information Systems since 2012. For the last 20 years, I've focussed on strategic and policy aspects of eBusiness, information infrastucture, and dataveillance and privacy.
I hold Commerce Honours and Masters degrees in Information Systems from UNSW and a PhD in Information Systems from the ANU. I spent 1984-95 as a senior information systems academic. I've continued my research and supervision activities as a Visiting Professor at ANU (in computer science) and at UNSW (in cyberspace law and policy). My resources web-site at http://www.rogerclake.com has accumulated over 50 million hits since early 1995, and is running at 4 million hits p.a.
My involvement in Internet matters dates to the early 1990s, in the form of analyses of the economics of AARNet, regulation of bulletin board systems, electronic tools to support academics, and human behaviour in cyberspace. Since the mid-1990s, I've performed consultancy, undertaken research, provided expert evidence and represented the public interest in relation to such matters as Web commerce, cookies, spam, identity, nymity, authentication, digital signatures and PKI, regulation of on-line gambling, the investigation of criminal acts and of inappropriate behaviour, defamation on the Web, open source, open content, open access, and various aspects of data and IT security. During 1998-2004, I wrote what is still one of very few histories of the Internet in Australia. I've since published a paper on the first few years of the Web in Australia, 1992-95. I've also worked on P2P, Web 2.0, carbon eTrading, deep packet inspection, mobile payments security, malware, PETs, social media, cloud computing, the net behaviours of GenYs and iGens, mobile payments, eHealth, social media, handset location and tracking, and big data. Relevant papers are indexed at http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/ and http://www.rogerclarke.com/WhatsNew.html#II.
I have long experience on Boards of companies and incorporated associations. During the late 1990s, I was a Director of an eBusiness Strategy consultancy. From 2000 to 2006, I chaired a company in the 'dot.gov' space that encouraged liberal copyright licensing, before Creative Commons emerged. I was on the Board of Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) 2001-05. I've been on the Board of the Australian Privacy Foundation (APF) since its formation in 1987, and was its Chair 2006-2014. I was a Director of ISOC-AU / Internet Australia 2010-15, and Company Secretary 2012-2015.