I'm standing for election in the forthcoming Chancellor by-election. My overall campaign theme is ‘Building Bridges’ and one of the ways I want to do that is to adopt a more inclusive, collaborative style as Chancellor which truly brings people together.
My Track Record
I have a strong track record in bringing people together, working with people with different perspectives, forging a consensus and getting things done. Back in the day when we needed to be in political factions to stand for election, I organised dozens of open meetings for the CSDF where all citizens could come and discuss issues and proposals for election. These are all transcripted here.
When in government as an RA member I organised ‘Town Hall’ style meetings where everyone could come and give their point of view. This helps to break down the false distinction between ‘oldbies’ and ‘newbies’. We were all ‘newbies’ once! The only real difference is that those of us who have been around longer have seen the ways in which people successfully achieve lasting change and the ways in which people don’t. As I have written previously, we can learn from each other if everyone has a little respect for the thousands of hours of work which have established and consolidated our community and we tolerate the fact that some debates may be old to some but very new for others. If elected Chancellor, I would hold regular in world meetings so that we can discuss issues that affect people’s enjoyment of their Second Lives in the CDS and get them involved in making things better.
Believe it or not, there was a time when we didn’t have a Chancellor! All the ‘executive’ functions where shared between the other branches of government. The RA met fortnightly, the SC met very irregularly and it was exceedingly slow to get things done. The point of having a Chancellor is to “get things done” and I’m very good at getting things done. In RL I work in the UK Government delivering policies using tried and trusted project management techniques not just to time, but early!
New Ways of Working
Over time, the job of the Chancellor, and of the Executive officers such as the Public Information Officer (PIO) have grown so that few people are willing to take on the commitment. I think we need to adopt a radical new model which is much more agile, fleet of foot and which acknowledges that people are here to have fun, often have big RL commitments and are volunteers - not salaried employees. If elected, I will reach out to everyone to find out what they could do to help. It could be something small like designing a poster for the Inaugural Ball (though that would be a big job for me!) or keeping the SL publications informed of any of our upcoming events. If a lot of people do a little, it reduces the need for a few people to end up doing a lot.
Communication
One other aspect of the style I want to adopt is around clear, regular communications. If I am elected as Chancellor, you’re going to get sick of hearing from me! Time zones willing, I will be at every RA meeting and be happy to report on what the Executive is doing. I will post updates on the LA rebuild, plans to celebrate our 10th birthday on the forums regularly. I will be in world as much as my RL work schedule allows and will use the in world channels - group IM, notices and meetings - to keep everyone up to speed on what’s happening.
I plan to post more on my plans for the LA rebuild and our 10th Birthday Celebrations in future forum posts later this week.
