[378] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
FARNET strategic planning process
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Laura Breeden)
Thu Mar 14 17:06:50 1991
To: com-priv@uu.psi.com
Cc: members@farnet.org, breeden@SH.CS.NET
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 16:45:58 -0500
From: Laura Breeden <breeden@SH.CS.NET>
I'd like to make some brief comments about the recent postings
re the FARNET "strategic plan" to set the record straight.
For the record, #1: I have been associated with FARNET since
its inception and have served on the Executive Committee and
the Strategic Planning Committee. I'm now the chair of the
Membership Committee. I work at Bolt Beranek and Newman as the
manager of the network services group.
2. It was a mistake on FARNET's part to put this draft,
internal document in a public location. Those who retrieved it
cannot be faulted for doing so.
3. However, it would have been courteous of those who later
posted the document to various lists to let FARNET know of
their plans, especially in view of their suspicions about
FARNET's intentions and their apparent ignorance of FARNET and
the strategic planning process of which the paper is one
result.
4. The document that is circulating is NOT a definitive
strategic plan for the organization, in spite of what the cover
says. It is a DRAFT document which was submitted to the
Strategic Planning Committee for review and comment, in a
process which was endorsed by the membership of FARNET in an
open meeting in January. The consultants were to incorporate
comments into the final version and make it available to the
membership. THAT IS STILL THE PLAN.
5. The membership, under the leadership of the duly elected FARNET
Board, will develop a strategic plan for the organization using
the consultants' report as input. I repeat: the paper as
distributed is NOT a strategic plan for FARNET.
6. The "visions of the future" referred to by Mr. Vielmetti
are actually hypothetical scenarios, developed by the
consultants, and MEANT to be provocative. The consulting firm
we used, Northeast Consulting Resources, has developed a
planning process called "Future Mapping" which uses scenarios
such as these to stimulate discussion in a group setting. No
single scenario is meant to represent reality in full, and the
conditions ("NREN passes, NREN doesn't pass") are deliberately
exaggerated in some cases. This was fully explained to the
participants (all the FARNET members) in January, when we did
the exercises.
7. FARNET has no plan to take over the world. In fact, FARNET
is an entirely voluntary association of regional and state
network providers with a small annual budget and no central
staff. It has functioned as a user group for the operators of
the networks (including PSI and ANS; Bill Schraeder and Joel
Maloff participated in the Future Mapping process). It has
served them remarkably well. The planning process was designed
to help us as an organization decide what direction to take in
order to best serve our members and constituents. Improving
user services (characterized as "customer service and
advocacy") is a critical area for most providers, as reflected
in the voting that led to this "vision" as the winner.
FARNET is full of healthy diversity and I doubt that any of its
members feel constrained by their association with it. If they
did, they would leave.
By the way, the report, according to Bob Weber of Northeast
Consulting, is "owned (and implicitly copyrighted) by FARNET.
NCRI has no claims whatsoever on the report."
I am sorry for the confusion that this has created, but Richard
Mandelbaum, past chairman of FARNET, has helped me see the
silver lining: all the noise may mean that, in the long run,
more people will understand what FARNET is and why the
regional networks are essential to the vitality of the NREN.
I believe Richard will be posting his comments to this list
shortly.
Thanks,
Laura Breeden
breeden@bbn.com
