Hiroshi Ota

AB Meet the Candidates Responses

What priorities should the AB take on in the next year? How will you help accomplish them?

...Though every item here is very important, if I have to chose, I would like to chose "Vision" and "Improving W3C community". About "Vision", for any community, group or organization, vision is essential so that everyone included works together toward a common goal. Off course, it can be said for W3C. Thanks vision taskforce, we have the Vision note. To make this vision more effective, we need more feedback from members. I would like to suggest a procedure which enables members feedback with smaller load and promote more inclusion. Basically reviewer's load can be smaller if calling for feedback are made with small and simple issue divided into small pieces. We can consider applying common templates which make it easer to understand simply the current issue part and whole the issue, the context. Such templates can be used commonly for agenda or references in meetings. Those efforts can also help "Improving W3C community", making it easier catching up the context and it will promote more member inclusion. In order to move forward them, I'd like to try collecting more members' voices. And will consider to setup a reusable mechanism in W3C.

The AB positions are unpaid but require regular meetings at inconvenient times/locations, preparation for said meetings, and collaboration with people you might disagree with. Why do you personally wish to take this on?

... When I knew the new trend "Internet" or "Web", early in my career, I felt the W3C like it was run by geniuses in another planet, far away from me. Throughout my career in the Internet, I learned that the W3C exists on the Earth and that our industry and society are supported by its standards work. And it's a great opportunity for me that I'm now working with W3C and running for its AB election. When I spoke at a junior high school and told them that the Internet is supported by the consensus building efforts, I remenmer the students were surprised and interested in how it was done and who was doing it. I believe that working as an AB is a valuable contribution for the industry, for the society, for the next generation, and an opportunity for myself.

How do you think W3C should build consensus in large groups, and can you speak to your ability & experience building consensus (at W3C or elsewhere)?

...It's really tough to build consensus for large groups. I'd like to point 3 issues although those alone are not enough to accomplish.

First and foremost, thorough discussion(off course)
Secondly, Procedures. If a consensus cannot be reached even after extensive discussion, a decision making procedure is required based on certain conditions. And the procedures should be carried out by as many and diverse participants as possible.
Thirdly, transparency. Even if the procedure for consensus is reasonable, distrust remains if the procedure operation is not transparent.

Ways to ensure the transparency and to promote more diverse participants of the decision-making procedure should be considered. For example, by using email instead of relying on telephone conferences or F2F meetings, we can expect more participation and can make it easier for non-native English speakers to overcome the language barrier. Additionally, transparency will be improved by leaving email history. Throughout my career, I have been faced with needs to collaborate with new people and organizations, such as corporate mergers, reorganizations, and outside parties collaboration. And each time, I built relationships, integrated different values and backgrounds, and moved them forward. I believe that my experience will help contributing as an AB.

How can W3C improve its diversity and inclusion, and what is the role of the AB in improving those?

... The diversity of W3C member is its asset. To improve diversity and inclusion, firstly, we have to identify the barriers to diverse member participation. For this, I believe that AB's important role is to listen to the voices of its members and to develop an effective mechanism to collect their voices. It's not easy for anybody to imagine, always correctly, issues each member has. That's why we have to listen to voices. There is a word "KENKYO（謙虚）" in Japanese. I would like to introduce this word here as "an attitude of trying to understand others and to learn from others while making one's own efforts". I recognize that "listening in the KENKYO way" is one of important roles for AB.

The AB has been working on the Vision for W3C, as a member of the AB how would you put the Vision into practice? How might it impact our decision making or priorities?

... It is necessary to gain as much consent as possible from the members, and it may be considerable to build consensus step by step by minimizing the review burden on the members. For example, divide the points of discussion and solicit feedback to smaller pieces. The following steps may be considered.

As a first step, focus on "3. W3C's Vision for the World Wide Web" and "4. Vision for W3C" and seek feedback and build consensus.
The next step is to build consensus on "5. Operational Principles for W3C" to see if it is appropriate as our operational principle based on the agreed-upon Vision.

Creating a separate document for "5. Operational Principles for W3C" might be also considerable so that updates can be made more flexibly in the future.