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Re: Questions about the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP)

for

From: John Foliot
Date: May 9, 2014 6:07PM

Paul Bohman wrote:
>
> Perhaps a follow-up question to you would be: How would you prefer to
> handle these scenarios? It's entirely possible that the IAAP has not
> yet finalized all of those details (I'm sure they'll correct me if I'm
> wrong on this), and that it will look to the community to offer their
> input. What input would you offer?
>

Hi Paul,

With regard to voting:

I am expressing my concern that the Bylaws today set out conditions
when voting can happen, and makes mention of members with voting ability,
but does not define who those members are. Surely when whomever was creating
and reviewing the Bylaws and Constitution of the organization started
talking about voting, they knew who they were talking about (if they
weren't, then that opens up a whole different set of concerns). The history
of the IAAP has long suffered from an apparent lack of transparency to the
larger community, going back at least 3 years now, and at this point I would
certainly hope they heard those concerns.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt however, I think you can surmise from
my initial posting how I think voting should be addressed: each member gets
one vote. I further think that the W3C model (which Phill Jenkins noted in
passing) of each corporate member having one representative vote, to avoid
block or cluster "voting" would be a valuable position to take: it ensures
that the grass-roots has as much a say in the direction and organization of
the association as do deep-pocketed corporate sponsors. Pragmatically,
larger sponsors will have the ear and attention of the board of directors,
which will certainly help ensure that the association recognizes and
responds to "industry needs", but by keeping the organization in the hands
of the direct members, there is a checks-and-balances there of significant
value.


Regarding any implied meaning from membership, and protecting the IAAP's
logo and reputation:

Again, a careful read of my questions should give you an idea on how
*I* would proceed. I think a publicly posted "members in good standing"
page, coupled with some form of referrals or satisfaction tracking mechanism
would be beneficial. I'd bristle at a "Yelp" style ranking/rating system
(I've heard too many stories to lend any credibility to Yelp in my mind),
but like the Better Business Bureau, tracking if there have been any
complaints or issues with paid members would serve as a means of keeping the
membership "honest". Proceeding along a path like that would require a
process and perhaps even an arbitration mechanism, and/but that might be a
useful mechanism for the association to pursue - expanding the role of the
association beyond just a training and certification enterprise.

I would also have a publicly posted "terms of usage" page outlining
explicitly how and where the IAAP logo can be used, and clear and obvious
explanation to any and all that the usage of the IAAP logo is in no way an
endorsement of a company, service or tool. I don't see that on the web site
today, and a search for the term "logo" on the IAAP's site returns no
results. Taking this idea further, the same page could provide suitable
downloadable logos in multiple graphics formats and sizes (SVG, PNG, AI,
etc.) similar to (if not as sophisticated as) this:
http://www.w3.org/html/logo/

Thoughts?

JF