As a board member, founder, and someone that used to sit at those meetings with Beau, I'd basically like to say: ASK US!
We hear over and over that the board doesn't tell people things, or that we're hiding things, etc. I assure you, this is not the case. The con ultimately is run by, frankly, nerds. Most of us are introverts, and most of us aren't big on talking for more than we have to. And ultimately, none of us really want to sit in front of everyone and spout everything that's going on, because it will cause two possible outcomes:
1. People will get bored, and start doing something else, or fall asleep. or...
2. Everything becomes noise, and no one remembers any of it because there's just too much.
So, ask us. If you want to know something, ask about it. If we can answer, we will. If we can't, we will tell you why. But if you don't show interest in a topic, then we have no incentive to talk about said topic. It's no different than people complaining about US politics, but then failing to vote during elections. Ultimately, we have no idea who is interested in what, unless it's in their specific department (and therefore logic would deduce they're interested in that area of the con).
We aren't some secret government (and I'm extremely insulted every time someone says we are), and never have been (though, objectively, I'm sure we could have been seen this way before). This con was started by IT professionals: Nerds/geeks (I don't say Otaku because it's not generally considered a "good" term in Japanese). AN until the collapse was these same people. We instilled these "bad habits" into the organization that came after the collapse. Sure, we've tried to open up more, but it really does take people asking about things, in a friendly/polite way.
Okay. *sigh* Sorry to come off defensive, but I ultimately agree with Beau's sentiment. He's basically saying in the old days, it was a very personal, social meeting structure. Everyone knew what was going on, because we all just chatted for the duration of the meeting. If you were interested, you talked to the person that was leading the "department" (there really were no departments until just before Kumoricon 2004). Unfortunately, that structure doesn't really scale so well when you have 100+ staff (it's hard to just "chat" with that many people all at once). But, there is the idea that the department breakouts are more like this, which is why we try to keep the general "meeting" part short so that breakouts can happen, and work can get done. I assure you, however, that after the main part of the meeting breaks, anyone can come talk to anyone one on one, and you'll get a more "chat" style meeting. We're all friendly, just not particularly extroverted.
Thanks for reading. =)
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