How does one join a standards committee?  By "standards" I
mean formal national and international standards.  Even
though many so-called industry standards have become de
facto standards, many are produced by a single company or
consortium without the benefit (and hindrance) of public
reviews, formal standards processes, open participation,
etc.

Your first question is which committee to join.  Your
experience should be your guide.  You might also consider
where you might have the most influence with that
experience.  It is far easier to influence a standard being
developed than one which has already been formally adopted.

Increasingly, the US is participating in the development of
international standards rather than national standards.  The
global marketing phenomenon is forcing this.  ANSI (The
American National Standards Institute) is the US National
Representative to the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO).  ISO is one of many organizations
that create international standards.  Another one is ITU
(International Telecommunications Union) which is the new
name for CCITT.  ANSI accredits standards committees within
the US.  For open systems, the IEEE  has created the POSIX
standard.  For general information technology, the X3
committee is more appropriate.  The US codes and character
sets committee, X3L2 is a technical committee of X3.
Depending on your expertise, you should begin with a call to
ANSI in New York City.  ANSI will tell you the information
you need, like the name of the appropriate standards
committee, give you name of the chair, the address of the
secretariat, etc.  The phone number for ANSI is (212) 642-
4900.  The phone number for the X3 Secretariat is (202) 737-
8888.  (The X3 Secretariat is at CBEMA, Computer and
Business Equipment Manufacturer’s Association.)

I cannot speak for standards committees other than X3.  X3
has two membership classes:  [voting] member and observer.
Voting members must attend meetings and vote.  Observers get
the mailings of standards documents but cannot vote.  X3
procedures do not required technical committees to mail
every document to observers.  On X3L2, at this time the
observers receive all of the documents.

The cost to be an observer in X3L2 is $600 per year.  Of
this, $300 is for the international fee that X3 pays to ANSI
because X3L2 is the US TAG (Technical Advisory Group) for an
international committee (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2).  Since the
fees (not to mention the travel) are not small, you can see
why the members and observers come from companies.  However,
we have always welcomed users and customers of the
technology because there are so few of us on the committees.
If the fee is a hardship for an individual, he or she may
petition the director of X3, Jean-Paul Emard, for a
reduction or waiver.

Members are expected to attend every meeting and to vote on
every ballot.  However, they may maintain membership by
attending every other meeting and by voting on every other
set of ballots.  To become a member of X3L2, for example,
you would need to attend a meeting, state your intention to
become a member, and then attend one of the next two
meetings.  You become a member when you attend the second
meeting.  With the requirement to attend meetings, standards
participation becomes even more expensive and you will need
backing from your employer.

I represent SHARE Inc. to X3L2.  SHARE Inc. is a customer
organization for users of IBM computers.  I’m one of two
customer members on a committee of ten voting members.  All
of the others are from vendor or developer companies (for
example, Apple, Digital, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Taligent,
Unisys).

A person who plans to join a standards committee should:

1.   Have some technical experience
2.   Be experienced in working with people (political skills
     in the best sense of the word)
3.   Have good written and oral communication skills

At our last meeting someone made the following observation.
Joining a standards committee would likely be a very
frustrating experience for someone just out of school.  They
would likely find the administrative and consensus-building
processes extremely difficult to bear.

Best regards,
Ed Hart