Thoughts about Transparency

According to Wikipedia, "Transparency, when used in a social context, implies openness, communication, and accountability. Transparent procedures include open meetings, financial disclosure statements, the freedom of information legislation, budgetary review, audits, etc."

I think we have that now.

One of the questions I have put to those members clamoring for more transparency is “what information did you used to have access to that you no longer to?” So far, no one has answered that. The closest answer came from Pam, I think, who noted that the frequency of executive sessions during AMC meetings has increased in recent years.

What I have gleaned from conversations and elists and forums and such is that some members wish to be in the loop on our thinking and discussion processes in advance of the actual formal motion-second-discussion-vote records.

I am not overly afraid of this. If I have half-baked ideas, I’ll keep them to myself or talk quietly with a few people out of public view until I get them fully formed. What does concern me is if the membership were to see how some of our internal “discussions” end up with one AMC member making another look utterly foolish via with superior arguments. I confess I’ve done that more than once. I’m not regretting it, since I think the results were better board decisions, but I’m glad for Mensa as a whole that the other members didn’t witness it.

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More from Wikipedia: "Radical transparency is a management method where nearly all decision making is carried out publicly. All draft documents, all arguments for and against a proposal, the decisions about the decision making process itself, and all final decisions, are made publicly and remain publicly archived."

This is certainly something some members wish for.

How can we increase the members’ opportunities to know the WHYs of our decisions?

Suggestion #1: Would it be possible to consider the AMC elist non-confidential except when the poster requests it to be? That way we each have control over how public we’re willing to be with our words and half-baked ideas and yet those of us who do feel comfortable participating on the forums can have the freedom to share with members much more of what we on this list talk about?

Suggestion #2: Assign someone to write and submit short monthly articles to InterLoc (or make it a regular column in the Bulletin) about what the various committees and appointments strive for, accomplish, and need. Pull the goals from the quarterly reports and publish them for members to see. Stop assuming that burying something on the huge and complex Web site is enough.

Suggestion #3: Play with the members. Suck up the courage and participate in the Online Community. Do so in the fun areas, not just the Mensa Matters section. Go ahead and throw sheep at people on Facebook. Tweet about mundane things. Let people see you as individuals and not just TPTB.

Transparency means proactively showing our thoughts, our process, our goals, our failures, and OURSELVES… to the members via many venues and mediums.