Nice to meet you! NED Election - David Barnes

[David Barnes]

Hello, my name is David Barnes and I am very pleased to meet you!

As a complete outsider to Nominet, it will hopefully help you in the forthcoming Nominet Exec Director election by providing some info.

You may wish to know why I am standing for election, and why should you vote for me? The information below will hopefully help to answer your questions. It would be really nice if you would just like to say hello (either here or direct contact links are below), or perhaps you would be willing to introduce yourself and share what’s on your mind with respect to Nominet and the wider industry?

If you are short on time, this 2 minute video sets out my reasons for standing and why you might consider voting for me: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3k2y65v6mwfytpj/David Barnes Nominet NED Election 2020.mp4?dl=0

You can contact me via Twitter (@askdavidbarnes) linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrbarnes/) or email [email protected].

To introduce myself and explain why I am standing for election, plus why you might wish to vote for me, please read on!

Why am I standing for election as a Nominet NED?

• I have to “blame” my good friend and Nominet member Bev Clues from Clues Communications Ltd. While sitting in his garden having a nice coffee (socially distanced of course!) at the start of the summer he suddenly suggested that I should put myself forward for election, as he felt my general business experience would be really helpful for Nominet. I must say he really sold me very well the virtues of Nominet and after some research and forum reviews, plus sleeping on the idea for a few nights, I decided to give it a go.
  
  
• My passion for the internet started when I was introduced to the JANET university network in the late 80’s while studying for my Computer Science degree. At the time, JANET was amazing, there was nothing like it! It really fired my passion for the internet which still I have today.
  
  
• Meeting new people and having healthy discussions is a favorite pastime. I’d like to get more deeply involved with an organisation and so being a part of Nominet is a great excuse to attend your events to meet new and interesting people and hear ideas and opinions about the state of the industry.
  
  
• Getting out of my comfort zone! I’ve never been a NED, and I’d like to test myself to see how I can use my business skills and experience to perform the role.

Why might you wish to vote for me?

1. No conflicts of interest since I am not a member of Nominet. The NED role requires independent oversight and a constructive challenge to the executive directors, being independent enables me to carry out the role in an unbiased way.

2. Bringing experience from different industries, where I have helped businesses such as O2 and Thames Digital to improve their processes and IT systems. Businesses seem to like working with me because I ask dumb questions which sometimes turn out not to be so dumb! I also bring experience from other not for profit organisations, which has helped me appreciate the challenge to engage with members and provide a good member service.

3. Being a small business owner myself I can relate to many Nominet members who run their own businesses. It would be amazing to have the chance to engage with members / like-minded people to discuss all aspects of Nominet, both good and bad.

Ok assuming you haven’t given up the ghost, I've included the election statement below which also provides some detail about my past experience.

Election Statement and Past Experience

I am truly excited to stand as a candidate for the position of Nominet non-executive director to help to drive Nominet’s direction and success. Ideally, a non-executive director should have a background that mixes technology with business management, experience of different industries and business models, be approachable, open and objective to different ideas and points of view, plus have an attitude of rolling-up their sleeves and helping to make things happen.

I believe that my background and experience ticks these boxes. From my roots as a BSc (Hons) Computer Science graduate, the first part of my career was spent working for Boots The Chemist at their HQ in Nottingham for their Information Systems department. During this time I met one of your members, Bevan Clues. Bev and I worked together to launch the internet part of his business in the early 1990’s. The idea of the internet back then was simply amazing, and not many would have predicted the growth to this point today. My teenage kids think of me as one of the founders of the internet (and who am I to tell them otherwise!)

Since that time I’ve had the pleasure of running my own small business and working with a huge variety of businesses to help turn strategy into reality through digital transformation and improving ways of working. To summarise, the 00’s were spent with the likes of GlaxoSmithkline and Pfizer on large transformation projects plus Toyota Motor Europe on operational improvements. From 2010 to 2017 I moved with my wife and kids to Switzerland, working with Nestlé to develop and deploy a global approach to improving their business operations and technology (which is still going strong today).

In recent years, having returned to the UK, I have worked with a mixture of non-profits (the Institute of Physics), large commercial organisations (including Thames Water, Transport for London and Amey PLC) and also several SMEs ranging from nutritional supplement providers to Japanese knotweed eradication specialists!

I mentioned rolling-up-sleeves to make things happen, my skill as a facilitator is often utilised at a strategic level to help define the scope and direction of initiatives. I am also operationally focused, for example, running live workshops (on site and remotely) to define business processes and their performance such as on-boarding, product development, membership recruitment and retention to name but a few.

To be clear, I am not an expert in all these industries and processes. I’m usually engaged because of my impartiality, and because I excel at working with the relevant experts to help them to overcome a particular challenge.

The role of a non-executive director requires a good fit in both directions. The candidate should have respect and an understanding of Nominet’s history and their mission. Likewise, Nominet needs someone with competence, integrity, objectivity, enthusiasm and who can work effectively with people at senior and operational levels. I believe I meet this criteria and would be honoured to have the opportunity to work with such a great organisation.

If you made it this far, well thanks a lot for taking the time.

Kind regards,
David Barnes

 

[David Barnes]

I'd like to ask a question. Coming from the outside of Nominet, I'm surprised that there is apparently such a low turn out for voting, somewhere around the 10% mark. Why do you think that is?

 

[lazarus]

They are all busy perfecting their scripts for the forthcoming drops

 

[James_]

I'd like to ask a question. Coming from the outside of Nominet, I'm surprised that there is apparently such a low turn out for voting, somewhere around the 10% mark. Why do you think that is?

Hi @David Barnes , based on my personal experience it's likely that the voting contact at a lot of the members is out of date or incorrect so they're not getting the email asking them to. Where I work for example I'm the main contact on the Nominet account but somewhere tucked away and missed was a voting contact for a chap who left the business over 10 years ago so this year will be the 1st that 'we' vote as I got the email enabling me to do so. In fairness if I wasn't so interested in the expired domains piece I'd probably not bother voting either

Cheers
James

 

[JMI]

I find it astonishing that such weak set of candidates could be in role such as this, literally incredible. I might nominate my daughter's pet guinea pig Fluffy next time... she's got more personality.

 

[David Barnes]

Hi @David Barnes , based on my personal experience it's likely that the voting contact at a lot of the members is out of date or incorrect so they're not getting the email asking them to. Where I work for example I'm the main contact on the Nominet account but somewhere tucked away and missed was a voting contact for a chap who left the business over 10 years ago so this year will be the 1st that 'we' vote as I got the email enabling me to do so. In fairness if I wasn't so interested in the expired domains piece I'd probably not bother voting either

Cheers
James

Hi James, that's interesting, I wonder if the people at Nominet realise this, likely this is also the case for other member companies. I'm guessing that doesn't explain all of the 90% that do not vote though, there may be other reasons. Shame because with any membership organisation you want your members to be engaged. I've worked with the Institute of Physics and they also have a hard time keeping track of their members, I believe it is a general issue.

Thanks for replying anyway, it's helpful to understand the challenges.

 

[David Barnes]

I find it astonishing that such weak set of candidates could be in role such as this, literally incredible. I might nominate my daughter's pet guinea pig Fluffy next time... she's got more personality.

Sorry you feel that way. I can only speak for myself, but I'd like to think I'm a bit better than "weak" as you put it! If you have already taken the the time to read the above election statement and still have this opinion of me then fair enough, I don't expect to change your mind.

I look forward to seeing Fluffy up for election in a years time

 

[Paullas]

From my experience Nominet can not even engage with its members on its own forum.nominet.uk so what chance do we have anywhere else?

 

[David Barnes]

From my experience Nominet can not even engage with its members on its own forum.nominet.uk so what chance do we have anywhere else?

What sort of engagement do you think members would like from Nominet?

Looking at the "why join Nominet" info the main engagement seems to be around events, which unfortunately in the current climate are not possible face-to-face. My friend Bev Clues tells me these events in the past have been really good, what's your experience of these events?

Why join Nominet?
As a member of Nominet you receive the following benefits:

• Access to the .UK zone file
• Free attendance at events throughout the engagement programme
• A link to your home page from the list of members on our website

If you are also a registrar

• Discounted wholesale registration and renewal fee on .UK domain names
• Register and renew domain names from between one and ten years
• Access to our subscription-based Domain Availability Checker
• Promotions and Co-marketing

 

[James_]

What sort of engagement do you think members would like from Nominet?
Access to the .UK zone file

• Free attendance at events throughout the engagement programme
• A link to your home page from the list of members on our website

• Discounted wholesale registration and renewal fee on .UK domain names
• Register and renew domain names from between one and ten years
• Access to our subscription-based Domain Availability Checker
• Promotions and Co-marketing

I was thinking about your 'why no one votes' question a bit more and asked a few people I work with, the common response was "vote for what?" our 'membership' is purely seen as a subscription to be able to buy domains for customers at wholesale pricing much the same as you join 'Tesco Delivery Saver' and get your shopping delivered for free instead of ~£5 a drop

I also took your recent post and highlighted the important bits to me in green and the bits I have absolutely no interest in red, that also matches my findings mentioned above too.

 

[lazarus]

Why join Nominet?
As a member of Nominet you receive the following benefits:

• Access to the .UK zone file
• Free attendance at events throughout the engagement programme
• A link to your home page from the list of members on our website

If you are also a registrar

• Discounted wholesale registration and renewal fee on .UK domain names
• Register and renew domain names from between one and ten years
• Access to our subscription-based Domain Availability Checker
• Promotions and Co-marketing

Should be... "Discounted wholesale registration and renewal fee on .UK domain names" if you are a member, not a registrar.

 

[James_]

Is this... "Discounted wholesale registration and renewal fee on .UK domain names" if you are a member, not a registrar.

You have to be a registrar *and* a member for the discounted fees

I think you can be a registrar for free but pay £80 per domain (but maybe quickly move any catches to your other registrar mate who is a member to only pay the discounted price )

 

[David Barnes]

I was thinking about your 'why no one votes' question a bit more and asked a few people I work with, the common response was "vote for what?" our 'membership' is purely seen as a subscription to be able to buy domains for customers at wholesale pricing much the same as you join 'Tesco Delivery Saver' and get your shopping delivered for free instead of ~£5 a drop

I also took your recent post and highlighted the important bits to me in green and the bits I have absolutely no interest in red, that also matches my findings mentioned above too.

I've heard this sentiment from others also. Do you think there is something missing ie something that Nominet should be providing that they are not? Or is it just about the fees and renewals?

 

[James_]

Do you think there is something missing ie something that Nominet should be providing that they are not?

• A quality service for all the members based around an enforced AUP that they actively police and punish/evict members who abuse it.
• A level playing field for everyone regardless if they're a "back bedroom / one man band" member or one of the Top 10 cash rich ISPs - bank balance shouldn't grant greater access to technical systems (Pay to Play ROR last year and the upcoming changes for example, both great examples of blocking access to smaller members)

 

[David Barnes]

• A quality service for all the members based around an enforced AUP that they actively police and punish/evict members who abuse it.
• A level playing field for everyone regardless if they're a "back bedroom / one man band" member or one of the Top 10 cash rich ISPs - bank balance shouldn't grant greater access to technical systems (Pay to Play ROR last year and the upcoming changes for example, both great examples of blocking access to smaller members)

Thanks James. From the off I've tried to be transparent in that I'm not arriving here with pre-conceived ideas and a specific agenda. A lot of my work involves meeting with groups of people with different perspective to try and find common ground and influence changes in ways of working to the benefit of all.

Having said that, your two points above seem more than reasonable. I can imagine it becomes much harder for the smaller businesses trying to compete against larger companies that have an unfair advantage. As a small business owner myself I'd like to grow, and therefore any unfair practices that prevent this would defintely rattle my cage. I'd like to hear the other side of the argument also, to understand why the playing field is not level and if there is a justifiable reason.

 

[David Barnes]

Hi David,

Last year, Anne came and introduced herself and that's why I voted for her, along with her ideas. Plus, she was a local(ish) registrar to me. This year, we have our own candidate from the forum here, a member of our own community running. Whilst I appreciate you coming along and making your first post, perhaps if you had been a member already it might have counted for more. But I'm afraid you're pissing in the wind this year. Good luck anyway!

Hello Ben, that's perfectly fine, it's all about weighing up the pro's and con's and making your own decision. I'd like to think you have at least considered my input before making a choice, and if that is the case then fair play.

I've actually been contacted privately by some members to introduce themselves and give me their approval, so I wouldn't say that I am 'PITW' as you put it. However I do appreciate that as an outsider to Nominet I'm not starting in pole position, hence trying to put out the word that there is a different option this year.

 

[David Barnes]

Hi everyone, thanks for those who've made personal contact with me on Linked In. If anyone else has any question or just wants to say hi, it would be great to hear from you (contact details are in the OP).

And if you didn't see it already, you'll get to experience the 'real me' in this 2 minute video!

 

[ian]

Not recently picked up any Fasthosts domains have you David?

 

[David Barnes]

Haha Ian

Thanks @Ben Thomas, it's fairly WYSIWYG with me, and I appreciate that people may consider me an outsider. A fresh / unbiased perspective could be beneficial for Nominet.