[Air-L] Another Question for Candidates from Joseph K.

Tue May 24 13:51:31 PDT 2011

Andrew Herman (Open Seat candidate)

My first priority upon joining the executive would be to learn how to
work with my fellow members of the executive. I have had enough
experience in administration and organizational leadership to know that
nothing can be accomplished unless one understands the circumstances one
is in and the people with whom one must work.  Nothing can be
accomplished without trust and a sharing of common goals.  Thus, having
established a good working relationship within the executive, my
priority would be to  develop specific action items on two key goals for
AOIR: 1) the expansion of the AOIR base to academic communities in the
global South and 2) the development of the AOIR web site as a cutting
resource for critical internet studies, especially in terms of
publicizing and circulating the research being conducted by AOIR
members.  

Andrew Herman, Ph. D.
Associate Professor and Chairperson
Department of Communication Studies
Graduate Program in Cultural Analysis and Social Theory
Wilfrid Laurier University
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5
CANADA
519 884-1970 x3693

>>> Alex Halavais <alex at halavais.net> 21/05/2011 8:36 pm >>>
As a note, I'm sending these out to AIR-L again, because I think it's
important that folks are involved in the election process, but I do
encourage you to go to http://aoir.org for some individual questions,
comments, links to blog posts, and personal statements.

JOSEPH K. asked the following question to almost (!) all the
candidates for AoIR Executive positions.
"""
What concrete tasks or changes to the organization would you aim to
put in place during your first 90 days in office?
"""

So, once again, a round-up...

***** TED COOPMAN (VP candidate) *****
"""
Joseph,

The VP begins by working with Alex the sitting president to help him
enact his agenda * he is the President. The Exec is also somewhat
constrained, like any elective body, by those in it. That is, what
members want to work on. Ideally*

First, what I would like to see done is to set out an agenda/policy
map for the first year. A clear set of goals with time-lines that
consists of the presidents, the exec members, and my own
plans/desires.

Second, complete the ongoing comprehensive review of bylaws and make
any required changes and put changes that must be voted on before the
membership.This will really help.

Third, I would work with Micheal the treasurer to create a plan to
expand membership and secure sponsors. We have had some discussions on
this and I think firming up the plan and then implementing it is
possible in the near term. Related to this is the ongoing discussion
on perhaps hiring someone for outreach and similar tasks.

Please keep in mind that while we are all online and interactive that
deliberation across timer zones is slow. Not as slow as institutional
time but definitely not internet time! Also, there needs to be Exec
member buy in for any changes.

-TED
"""

***** LORI KENDALL (VP candidate) *****
"""
Joseph K.: The first thing I intend to do is to implement a formal
process for transferring knowledge from one IR conference Program
Chair to the next. This will involve both collecting information from
this year*s Program Chair (convenient, since this is me! :)  and
setting up a system to continue passing on this information from year
to year. My aim is two-fold. First, I would like to make it easier for
new Program Chairs to get up to speed. For those who have never served
in such a capacity, there is a lot to learn, both technically and
procedurally. The second purpose is to improve the conference planning
process and especially to improve the reviewing process.
"""

***** MONICA MURERO (VP candidate) *****
"""
Honorific Aoir Lifetime Member for outstanding services to the Aoir
community, Prof Murero will greatly benefit Aoir on every task:
administrative, financial , executive, publishing, budget and
conference related matters.

In fact, during the first 90 days of service (Oct-Jan.) Aoir must
complete several concrete tasks. Examples include: Finalization of
Conference financial matters, management of memberships, and legal
duties.

A highly-experienced and knowledgable candidate is crucial to make
imoortant tasks concretely run from day one. Also, budgeting for the
new conference, CFP , conference theme and administrative duties need
to be addressed. Furthermore, the previous exec might leave *hot*
unresolved tasks in the hands of the new officers that need attention,
Under safe hands, important tasks can be addressed from day one.
Decisions influence Aoir mid-term activities.

Aoir values must be protected and tasks developed under experienced
hands. With well-recognized contributes to the Aoir executive
committee and a curriculum of excellence, Prof. Murero is the most
experienced candidate for the VP position.

Mantain the sense of community people find at the Aoir conference and
air-list, and work together for the health of the association is a
must. Every 2 months, the exec Report will inform members about
current activities by offering new opportunities to the Aoir
community. An informal, welcoming and high-quality attitude in
discussing crucial topics will keep Aoir the fantastic open place for
interdisciplinary discussion and collaborations we have created over
the years.
"""

***** ANTHONY HOFFMANN (Student Rep candidate) ******
"""
Joseph * thanks for the question.

As articulated in the above statement, I would like to pursue my
mentorship proposal. One of the strengths of the Association is that
there are very few distinctions drawn between established faculty and
up-and-coming students * I believe that keeping such distinctions at
a
minimum (by avoiding, say, the development of separate spaces for
faculty versus students) is important for maintaining AoIR*s
inclusivity. A mentorship program, while it creates a distinction in
terms of how and who may apply (and what role they may serve, be it
mentor or mentored), ultimately serves to bring together both
established and up-and-coming scholars and researchers, which I see as
being in the spirit of inclusivity. Plus, it has the potential to add
value and further diversity the programming of the annual conference
*
creating a new space for dialogue and the exchange of ideas.

More to the point of the question, then: in my first 90 days in office
I will aim to gather feedback as to what members of the Association,
should they support such a program, would want a mentorship program to
look like. From there, I will synthesize input and put forward a
proposal as to how such a program might work.
"""

***** KELLY QUINN (Student Rep candidate) *****
"""
Hi Joseph * Thanks for the opportunity to respond. I have two
specific
ideas that can be quickly implemented by the AoIR Executive Committee.

The first is to more effectively utilize the AoIR graduate student
listserv. Currently, we have fewer than 200 subscribers on the
graduate student listserv, and little activity takes place therein. I
would like to see a campaign during and after the annual conference to
encourage grad students to subscribe to the list, and then use it to
publicize grad student conferences and cfps specifically targeting
graduate students (awards, journals, fellowships), to announce talks
and seminars, and to suggest grad student resources (monetary and
otherwise) that might be useful to our student members.

Second, to engage the entire membership a little more actively, I
would encourage the Executive Committee to work toward establishing a
regularly scheduled AoIR Twitter meetup, or short tweeting discussion
sessions (30 minutes to an hour) that would target specific topics
that are pertinent to internet researchers. Topics might include
internet research ethics on specific technologies (social network
sites, blogs), the use of specific research methods, strategies for
recruitment, and so on. The key is holding these conversations at
regularly scheduled times and announcing the topic in advance, so that
any interested members could join the discussion. Because our
membership is comprised of internet researchers, I believe that AoIR
can and should take a leadership role in utilizing various new media
formats to engage and connect its membership.
"""

***** ANDREA BAKER (Open Seat candidate) *****
"""
Joseph, hi, thanks for your question.

I would ask that the exec committee discuss adding places and times
for informal roundtable discussions to the program. If agreed, I would
then help implement steps to insure that the call for papers for IR
13.0 included solicitation of discussion leaders and their topics.
"""

***** SORAJ HONGLADAROM (Open Seat candidate) *****
"""
Hi Joseph, my first concrete tasks would be to initiate an agenda for
the committee on how to broaden the scope of the association. This can
be done in several ways, but one I am having in mind is to promote the
activities of the association in non-western countries, especially in
Asia. For example, the association could join hands with other local
groups to hold seminars on topics of our interest in the region.

Soraj
"""

***** MARK JOHNS (Open Seat candidate) *****
"""
In the first 90 days? NONE! I would spend the first 90 days learning
about the dynamics of the Executive and understanding the issues most
important to the other members. Only by listening to one another and
building trust in this new setting would anything be accomplished in
the future. While I have met all of the Exec members, and know some
quite well, every group has its own chemistry and I would spend the
first 90 days trying to to see how the chemistry of this group works.
"""

***** ULF-DIETRICH REIPS (Open Seat candidate) *****
"""
Hi Joseph,
thanks for your comment. I would begin by listening to the new
president and other incoming officers (some with much more experience
than me in AoIR office matters) as to what are the most important and
pressing issues, and help with those as much as I can.

If adequate, I would then attend to Nr. 3 above and publish a call to
submit links, materials, and descriptions to a repository with useful
software for Internet researchers. Furthermore, I*d write up and
post
information about other societies that may be of interest to AoIR
members and collect comments from AoIR members about their experiences
with and interests in those societies (plus pointers to more societies
to add to the list). I hope in this process some ideas for joint
projects will emerge, so we can contact officers from the other
societies to follow up on those ideas. Also, at some point we may be
able to draw a landscape of organizations with overlapping interest
that may serve as a visual guide for PhD students.
"""

***** CRISTIAN BERRIO ZAPATA (Open Seat candidate) *****
"""
I believe two main courses must be taken: (1) begin contacts to open
AOIR conference activities to other continents and cities. One of my
colleagues proposed Asia. That could be. What about Brazil? Maybe
Buenos Aires, Argentina? We must congregate people from various
latitudes in different places. (2) Language might be a barrier in this
moment. Although it is clear that English keeps being the general
language of the association, we must open to other languages and built
information structures to do so. (3) Both (1) and (2) required that we
plan a compatible manware * repository structure. What about using
AOIR as a base for exchange of professors from distant latitudes? In
general, I believe the first goal is to develop AOIR globally to the
side of the developing countries, as the association can bring a lot
to them, opening opportunities to people in the developed countries.
Exchange of knowledge and information in seek of better life for
everyone.
"""

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