ISOC has appointed an administrative director for the IETF. This is an excellent step towards a better organization of the standards body. The informal structure of the IETF has been one of its strengths but also its main Achilles’ heel. It’s one thing to be flexible. This should not however lead to disorganization. Hopefully Ray will be a great help to the IETF.

The first visible effect is that the ISOC press release was sent at the same it was posted to the IETF-announce list. A while ago, the election of Brian Carpenter as the chair of the IETF was announced by both the IETF and ISOC, but with a 5 day delay on ISOC side. Apparently, the bug was fixed.

Now of course, the next question is when ISOC is going to synchronise its press releases in various languages. This is necessary if it pretends to be an international organization. Hint, a professional translation bureau can translate a half page PR in half a day in the 6 UN languages.