Email correspondence with ECOA

From: RDShatt
To: kdarcy@theecoa.org
Sent: 3/22/2008 3:34:38 P.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Continued interest in ECOA as forum

Dear Mr. Darcy,

I continue to plug away (today's blog entry) and continue to seek the ECOA as a forum.

Maybe that will never be offered to me because I don't have credentials; if so, I will just have to accept that.

In any event, I see the "call for speakers" item on the website for the Annual Conference, and I will send Mr. Hansen an email suggesting myself.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck


From: RDShatt
To: JHansen@theecoa.orgCC: kdarcy@theecoa.org
Sent: 3/22/2008 3:40:36 P.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: call for speakers

Dear Mr. Hansen,

I propose myself as a speaker at the Annual Conference.

I don't have credentials or a CV to submit, except for what you care to extract from my blog, starting with this.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck


From: RDShatt
To: rholmes@southernco.com
CC: kdarcy@theecoa.org
Sent: 4/1/2008 10:19:19 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Fwd: call for speakers; solicitation for interview

Dear Mr. Holmes,

I believe my name is known to you by now.

Per the below email, I have solicited the ECOA to be a speaker at this year's conference. Inasmuch as you are in Birmingham and I am in Birmingham, I would be desirous of an interview with you, in order to evaluate my potential as a conference speaker. If this is something that you are willing to do, please contact me. My telephone number is 967-5586.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck


From: RDShatt@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2008 12:20 PM
To: Keith T. Darcy
Subject: Request for waiver of conference fee

Dear Mr. Darcy,

I would like to attend the annual conference. I am retired and receive no compensation for anything I do in the corporate ethics field. You know of my efforts in that field, including particularly my trying to communicate with ethics officers and academics related to certain argumentation I am trying to propound. I applied to the ECOA to be a speaker at the conference and solicited an interview with Mr. Holmes regarding the same, but received no reply to either communication. I have asked the ECOA to allow for some publication of my article on its website or be allowed to avail myself in some way of its email list of its members, but I have not been able to obtain any of that. I would like to gain access to the materials in the member resource center on the ECOA website to see what is there that may have bearing on my argumentation, but, for the same reasons that I am requesting waiver of the conference fee, I cannot justify paying to be an ECOA member in order to find out that information by that means. I have extensively solicited from ethics professionals comment and evaluation about my argumentation, but have not received any substantive feedback that I would consider meritorious of reciting here. I have some understanding of the credentialistic environment in which I am trying to make headway, and also that many ethics professionals are subject to constraints either of their corporate masters or of their marketplace. The ramifications of the foregoing factors and considerations are not likely to deter me in carrying on. I would like to do so in person at the Annual Conference, but I cannot justify to myself paying the conference fee, and rather than pay the fee to attend I would continue and extend my current mode of communication to professionals in the ethics field. For the foregoing reasons, and in the foregoing circumstances, I respectfully request of the ECOA that I be allowed to attend the conference without payment of the conference fee.

Thank you very much your attention to this request.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck


From: kdarcy@theecoa.org
To: RDShatt@aol.com
Sent: 7/27/2008 1:02:13 P.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: RE: Request for waiver of conference fee

Mr. Shattuck,

Thank you for your email.

As a matter of policy, we do not waive conference fees.

Regarding access to our member resource center, it is only available to our Sponsoring Partner members.

As I have previously mentioned, we do not make available our member mailing lists.

I have previously reviewed your material and concluded that, while it is a thoughtful argument, it would not of interest to our members either at our conferences or through our newsletter. I believe that the lack of response despite having “extensively solicited from ethics professionals” supports my conclusion.

You have been writing to myself, directors and others now for an extended period of time. I would respectively ask that you cease making these repeated requests of the ECOA. We are simply not interested.

Thank you, and best wishes in your endeavors.


Keith Darcy, Executive Director


From: RDShatt
To: kdarcy@theecoa.org
Sent: 7/27/2008 4:08:08 P.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Re: Request for waiver of conference fee

Thank you very much for replying, Mr. Darcy.

If I make a thoughtful written argument going in one direction, surely I should be able to find a thoughtful written argument arguing in the other direction. Can you cite me something? In my extensive communications, I have explicitly or implicitly been soliciting anyone to say anything or cite anything that argues to the contrary of the thrust of my argumentation, but have not gotten anything to that effect.

Do you have any idea why that is?

I have some ideas.

One is what I have referred to as "credentialism." My argumentation is not rocket science. It is based on common sense and common human knowledge and experience. The last thing credentialed experts want thrown at them is something that undermines their self-image as being a specialized repository of knowledge and expertise that makes them the only qualified persons to speak intelligently related to their subject and to have worthwhile opinions, and heaven forbid that there is something brought before them that is within the competency of the lay public to have an intelligent view about.

Second, I mentioned your corporate masters. The law may egregiously undermine the objective of corporate ethics officers to nurture and inculcate ethical conduct by the employees of corporations in exactly the way I argue, but that is venturing into a much bigger domain than is occupied by corporate ethics officers, and they are not going to say or do diddly squat except as fits within the big picture strategy and tactics of corporate management in responding to and dealing with the travesties of our nation's civil liability system. (If you would like more insight into that matter, I would be pleased to engage you on it.)

So, Mr. Darcy, you may profess lack of interest, and further I suspect your lack of interest will carry the day for and within the ECOA, and I will try not to bother you or your directors any further. If, however, I choose to email corporate ethics officers and others and say the same to them as I say to you in this email, I am sure you will not hold it against me.

With all best wishes,
Robert Shattuck