BlueWolf's Howl

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July 25, 2002

High Society

I am now a proud member of the ISOC [Internet Society]. I went to their web site and signed up. It was free. And I�m sure I�m going to have a lot of fun with this new membership.

The ISOC is mentioned in numerous books on the Internet. It�s supposed to be the organization that oversees the IETF [Internet Engineering Task Force]. Sounds pretty official, doesn�t it?

I�ve been hearing about these two organizations since I�ve been online. They sound intimidating. They sound official. Isn�t that wonderful? Well, I hope so.

Being a member of ISOC is meaningless in itself. From what I�ve seen so far, it�s participation in the various mailing lists that�s the �meat� of the ISOC. I�m going to slowly explore this group and see what it�s really all about.

At the same time, I explored the site of the IETF. I�ve always wanted to belong to the IETF. I thought it was something big and exciting. It might be. There is no membership in the IETF. All the work is done in working groups (mailing lists). I looked at the list of working groups and I couldn�t decide which group to join. As soon as I figure that one out, I�ll be a part of that too.

They�re both going on my next resume.

I�ve been thinking about these kinds of things. There are so many meaningless things that impress management. This is probably another one of those things. It�s something they�ve vaguely heard about. It sounds official. Yet, they probably don�t have a clue as to what membership or involvement in such a society would entail.

Putting it on my resume will tell me a lot about a future employer. If they are impressed by it and don�t ask details about the extent of my involvement, I�ll know they�re non-technical managers (regardless of their title). If they ask and try to �call me on it,� I�ll know that I would be working for someone who knows at least a little about the Internet. If they don�t mention it at all, it doesn�t tell me any less than if I didn�t have it on my resume. It�s worth a shot.

Although the main reason I joined was to put something goofy on a future resume, I still had other motives. Perhaps the lists will have some intelligent discussion regarding subjects I enjoy. And maybe I can learn something from watching the discussion. My biggest and best hope is that the discussion is over my head. That will prompt me to learn more and delve deeply into the protocol being discussed. I could use a challenge. At the very least, I will find out first-hand about these organizations.

Also, I think there�s a deeper itch. It�s the same itch that prompted me to write the FAQ for a Usenet group that I once frequented. Yes, I wrote an official FAQ for a newsgroup. I�m a part of Internet history. No, you won�t read about me in some book on the history of the Internet. Not yet.

Posted by BlueWolf on July 25, 2002 11:24 PM