We've spoken a lot about board pay and evolving committee duties. A new issue for us is evolving board attitudes. All the criticism about individuals overextending themselves as directors seems to have had an impact. A recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Corporate Board Member found almost half of all directors serve on just one public company board, and 78 percent sit on just one or two boards. In fact, the authors of the study worry that this may be a problem, making cross fertilization of good practices less likely. Of course, it works two ways: Options grant problems seemed to cluster around directors that served at multiple companies [1]. Somewhat surprisingly, directors seem much less concerned about hedge funds. Most say they are effective in standing up to management. The board of the future is still evolving. It would be nice to see one come up with a whole new paradigm.

For more on this:
- here's a summary [2] from CFO.com