RE: [alac] Nominations for Chair

["Sebastian Ricciardi" <sricciardi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear all,

I´m sending you the answers of the questions posted in the list. If you are
expecting some kind of debate, I´m not sure than that could happen, since
Annette and I have a common view on the main things. Moreover, if she became
elected after these weeks, I would be happy to assist her in any way I
could, to ensure that we fulfil our role and accomplish our challenging
objectives. Now, to the questions:

1) Why do you want to be the ALAC Chair?

Because Vittorio is resigning and I beleive we need to get better organized
and make a better use of our resources.

I think we are now entering into a different stage of our work : In the
beggining, nobody thought we could attract cany organizations form around
the world. The challenge was to get those organizations on board. Now, we
have almost 55 applications received, most of them already certified, and
the challenge is how to assure their real involvement into the policy
development process. While it is true that some of them are active
participants, others, and mainly those coming from non-english-speaking
countries could be more engaged.

It is also true that ICANN is facing a crisis right now. With governments
claiming a stronger role in the public policy issues related to the
Internet, ICANN needs to sort out how to fulfill these needs. And as in
every crisis this represents threats and oportunitties. The same goes for
ALAC: If ICANN will be reformed, we need to be sure that the voice of users
won´t be shutted once again. We deserve a strong role in this process, and
it is really up to us to perform that role.

This will be an exciting time for ALAC, and I would like to be the Chair in
this period.

2) How much time do you think you can devote to serving as ALAC Chair?}

10 hs per week.

3) Which part of the ALAC mandate are you most interested in?

Outreach and Policy are both impotant issues. We need to be sure that the
user is well represented in the policy development proces, and, in this line
of thinking, they are both faces of the same coin. However, in this chicken
and egg situation, I beleive that it is of utmost importance to bring on as
much organizations as we can. And this is why I see outreach as a key aspect
of our work: having many organizations form all around the world, from
different cultures, with different ideas, could result in a number of
insights and new aspects of the policy issues that we were not aware of. The
richness of our analysis and opinions will be enlarged. Moreover, having as
many organizations - and individuals - as we can involved in the process
will alzo provide some aditional legitimacy for our work. This has not to be
this way, but it is a fact that members from other ICANN constituencies will
take better any advice coming from a group of sixty organizations
representing a number of user from around the world than the sole opinion of
15 individuals. I do beleive it is possible to build a structured and
infomred way of participation, although I am also convinced that the actual
frameworl is improvable.

4) What is, in your opinion, the most important part of the Chair's job?

There is not a single important thing, but rather a number of tasks that I
consider to be of utmost importance in the chair´s role:

a. Try to settle different views and make arguing parties to see the merit
of other´s opinion, looking for consensus. 
b. Being a relenteless motion force: push the items under discussion to make
sure that we can tackle most of the matters that really interest to the
individual internet user.
c. Be aware of individuals capabilities and make sure that those capacities
are well used by the cmt.
d. Interact with different consituencies to explore new avenues of work.
e. To assure mechanism of open participation in the ALAC work.
f. Assure transparency and inclusiveness of ALAC discussions. 
g. Deal with organizational issues.

5) What is the most important objective that you think the ALAC should reach
in the next year, and in the mid term?

We need to start deploying RALOs in a short period of time, and we need to
sort out a way of moving forward in those regions where RALO seems almost
impossible or inapplicable. We need to asure that individual participation
will be allowed, in the short term. We should continue providing our input
to the PDP process. The main objective in the medium term should be to
assure that ALAC opinion will be well considered and really talking into
account.

6) What is your plan to conclude the interim phase of the ALAC in a
reasonable time (ie get the RALOs established or any alternative plan)?

As I said, deploying RALOs is a priority, as well as sort out what to do in
those regions where the thing is not working. It seems that we are pretty
close with Eurpe and Asia Pacific. Africa has a good number of organizarions
accredited, and Latin America is not moving as fast as we would like, even
though some of the most active organzations in ALAC are coming from this
region (namely alfa redi). I am sure that the meeting in Lat Am this year
could set a hallmark in the RALO formation from LAC , although I am consious
that a lot of work is needed in the caribbean. Luckly, we have a caribbean
member in the cmt now.

Regarding Erik questions :

7) What kind of mechanisms for multilingual and multicultural work do you
plan to implement?

I think the committee would benefit form having discussion lists in
different languages, coordinated by rapporteurs that can moderate the list
and provide a summary of the different views to the committee. I am sure
that a list in spanish is needed and we could set it up onto the new
website. And this is not a new idea. A lot of people coming from ALSs find,
in the language, the most important barrier of participation. I would bet
the situaton is pretty much the same in africa and in AP. We need to tackle
this issue.

8) How would you develop consensus mechanisms among ALAC members?

As I said before, I beleive that one of the Chairs preeminent roles is to
get positions closer in the quest for consensus, promoting insightful
debates, and being sure that every party take in account the merits of a
different position.

9) What are your expectations from Vice Chairs?

Vice chairs need to be more active, and for that, a clear role and
responsabilities is needed. So far, we elect Vice Chairs, but without giving
them a clear assignment. I think we could use better the potemtial of the
members of the cmt that are willing to serve in this position.  Having vice
chairs for outreach and policy will help the committee to accomplish its
challenging objectives faster. They can also be helpful to assist the chair
in a number of organization related issues.

I think those were the questions proposed. I´m happy to answer any other
question you might have. I also have a remaining comment, that I think is
fair to send you at this time:

There has been a lot of e mail interchanges among us in the last weeks
regarding the need of a common discourse. Well, I am one of those who think
we need one. In fact, rather than a common discourse, I would say we need a
common vision, a common goal. Call it a "collective aspiration". I don´t
think that the end user would benefit from a huge academic discussion, but
from a practical point of view and way of work. We need to be as
professional as the biz or registrar constituencies, even without being
professional lobbists. A common goal is a must in every endevour pursued by
a group of people. And this is why I thought that to have an ALAC retrat of
haven in Wellington was a good idea: we deserve to ourselves a discussion
about how to get where. We won´t be going anywere on our own personal
capacities. On the other hand, a lot may be accomplished by working as a
real team.

Finally, a couple of words about WSIS and post WSIS ICANN. As some of you
might know, I wasn´t very happy with the WSIS process. I still remember
Izumi´s surprise when we met in Geneva for PrepCom3, where I was
participating with the Internet Society. I thought that WSIS was a threat to
the net. I thought that governments intervention had the power to break the
network. And therefore, I didn´t want to participate in such a thing.
However, over the time I´ve realized that those arguments are precisely the
reasons why I needed to participate. To assure that government intervention
is made in an informed and constructive way. So I decided to participate in
the last phase of the process. After those meetings in Geneva and Tunis, it
became very clear to me that ICANN will change. The GAC will have a
different role, and governments participation is going to be very different
from what we knew. In this change, we need to be sure that the ALAC has a
strong role. I think we need to discuss that role. It is very easy to say
that we need voting power on the board, but the whole thing is broader than
that. Let´s focus on the whole package. How we make this happen? While
trying to answer this questions, I am sure that you will came back again to
those issues in the first questions: How we assure broad participation? How
could we develop consensus mechanisms, etc...

I think this is long enough for now. 

Best,

Sebastian


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