RE: [bc-gnso] ICANN CEO remarks on Strawman

[Marilyn Cade <marilynscade@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Fadi made comments in meetings where there are transcripts, and the BC 
Secretariat is carefully monitoring and identifying such transcripts and 
posting them to the BC-GNSO list. 
You will all find some of his comments useful and related to this discussion.  
Stay tuned in particular for the transcript from his discussions with the CSG 
yesterday , and his session at lunch today with the full set of attendees. 
Marilyn Cade

Subject: Re: [bc-gnso] ICANN CEO remarks on Strawman
From: mmr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 21:15:27 -0800
CC: sdelbianco@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; bc-gnso@xxxxxxxxx
To: psc@xxxxxxxxxxx

By doing this, Fadi is essentially admitting that all previous operational 
commitments are toast.  (Not surprising to any of us who have had operational 
IT responsibility.)  Perhaps he has decided to eat crow now rather than having 
a cascade of missed testing and implementation dates later in the year.
Fred Brooks, one of the designers of the IBM 360 computers, made the famous 
comment, "Adding people to a late project only makes it later."
- Mike


On Jan 28, 2013, at 8:33 PM, Phil Corwin wrote:I posted the link to that 
yesterday, Steve. Along with the link to this one – which if it was testimony 
in a legal proceeding might be construed as an admission against interest --- 
http://domainincite.com/11710-chehade-honestly-if-it-was-up-to-me-i-would-delay-the-whole-release-of-new-gtlds-by-at-least-a-year
 Chehade: “Honestly, if it was up to me, I would delay the whole release of new 
gTLDs by at least a year…”Kevin Murphy, January 25, 2013, 20:04:08 (UTC), 
Domain Policy“…but I’m not going to.”CEO Fadi Chehade this afternoon delivered 
a blisteringly frank assessment of ICANN’s new gTLD program, admitting that if 
it were up to him he would delay the whole thing by a year.Speaking bluntly, 
mainly to registries and registrars, at a regional ICANN meeting in Amsterdam 
this afternoon, Chehade painted a stark picture of the challenge ICANN faces in 
meeting its deadlines.It’s worth quoting at length:Honestly, if it was up to 
me, I would delay the whole release of new gTLDs by at least a year.I’m being 
very candid with you. I know none of you want to hear this, and I’m not going 
to do this — let me repeat, I’m not going to do this — but you should know that 
a lot of the foundations that I would be comfortable with, as someone who has 
built businesses before, are just not yet there.I’m being super-candid with you 
because many of you wrote me in the last three weeks to say: ‘Be up-front with 
us, we’re business-people, tell us the truth.’ Well, the truth is that the 
people, processes and tools to enable a sector such as this are being built as 
the car is already running very fast.We’re putting enormous pressure on our 
team to not to slip by a day. I’m now managing them with Akram [Atallah, COO] 
down to days. Before I came it was by quarters, by months, and I say no — every 
day we slip we’re delaying this industry from serving the market it’s supposed 
to serve.It’s just a different mindset. And it’s a difference set of, frankly, 
talents that we’re bringing to the table. We have people who took six years to 
write the [new gTLD Applicant] Guidebook and we’re asking engineers and 
software people and third-party vendors and hundreds of people to get that 
whole program running in six months.When the number two at IBM called me, Erich 
Clementi, after we signed the deal with them to do the [Trademark 
Clearinghouse] he said “Are you nuts?”. Literally, quote. He said: “Fadi you’ve 
built these systems for us before. You know it takes three times the amount of 
time it takes to write the specs to build reliable systems.”But that’s the 
position we’re in, guys. I’m being candid with you. I know all of I know all of 
you want me to have this thing up and running yesterday. I want it running the 
day before yesterday. But this is what we’re facing. We’re facing a difficult 
situation, we’re working hard as we can, our people are at the edge. We have 
people who are working seven days a week now — it’s never happened before — on 
the new gTLD program.We’re hiring as fast as we can. We’re now taking away from 
Christine [Willett, new gTLD program manager] some of the work she had to do so 
she can communicate better with you.We’re doing a whole bunch of things so we 
can deliver this for you.I don’t mean to scare you, because I know many of your 
businesses rely on this, but the right people are now in place, we’re building 
it as fast as we can but I want you to understand that this is tough, and I 
wish it were different. I wish you would all raise your hands and say: “You 
know what? Let’s take a break and meet in a year”.I know you can’t do that, I 
know I can’t do that, and I know that the market can’t wait for that.We’re 
going to do our best, and if in the process if we miss telling you something, 
if we move too fast on something before we share it with everybody as we 
normally should… give us a little bit of a break.I don’t want to delay this 
program, but under all circumstances my mind would tell me: stop.Chehade’s 
remarks come two weeks after new gTLD applicants gave new program manager 
Willett a good kicking during a webinar updating them on the program’s 
progress, during which it was revealed that a key deadline had been missed for 
at least the fourth or fifth time.What else can we learn from his 
comments?Well… here’s my interpretation:·         Put down the mic and back 
off, Kinderis. Yeah, that means you too, Fausett, and you, Neuman.·         It 
will be an absolute miracle if the Trademark Clearinghouse doesn’t suffer from 
teething troubles.·         Applicants are almost certainly going to see more 
delays of some form or another (always a safe prediction), and probably from 
the place they least expect it.The program wasn’t ready when it was approved in 
May 2011 (as many people, including yours truly, said at the time and have 
continued to say since).It’s probably not much fun working at ICANN right now, 
but at least the new boss knows what the hell he’s doing.     Philip S. Corwin, 
Founding PrincipalVirtualaw LLC1155 F Street, NWSuite 1050Washington, DC 
20004202-559-8597/Direct202-559-8750/Fax202-255-6172/cell Twitter: @VlawDC 
"Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey From: owner-bc-gnso@xxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:owner-bc-gnso@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Steve DelBianco
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2013 4:41 PM
To: bc - GNSO list
Subject: [bc-gnso] ICANN CEO remarks on Strawman This was reported in 
DomainIncite on 
25-Jan-2013http://domainincite.com/11732-industry-man-chehade-admits-strawman-mistake
  Industry man Chehade admits strawman “mistake”Kevin Murphy, January 25, 2013, 
Domain PolicyICANN CEO Fadi Chehade today admitted that he badly handled recent 
discussions about improving trademark protections in the new gTLD program, 
saying he made a “mistake”.The remarks came during his speech at a meeting of 
registries and registrars in Amsterdam this afternoon.The address, which along 
with a Q&A lasted an hour, was remarkable for Chehade’s passion and candor, and 
his apparently conscious decision to portray himself as an industry man.But he 
arguably risked alienating the parts of the ICANN community that would 
certainly not define themselves as part of the “industry”, such as the 
intellectual property community.This was no more evident as when he discussed 
the controversial trademark protection “strawman” proposals.“We’re moving very 
fast at ICANN now,” he said. “You almost have no idea how fast we’re moving. We 
are opening so many new things and fixing so many things, that frankly should 
have been done for a long time at ICANN, that the speed at which we’re moving 
is making me, and sometimes my team, make mistakes.”“I made one big mistake in 
the last few months,” he said. “I didn’t quite fully understand… this concept 
of ‘trying to take a second bite at the apple’, when I engaged with the 
Trademark Clearinghouse discussions.”That’s a reference to meetings in Brussels 
and Los Angeles late last year, convened by Chehade at the request of the 
Intellectual Property Constituency and Business Constituency.These meetings 
came up with the strawman proposals, which would create (arguably) new rights 
protection mechanisms and bolster others in favor of trademark 
owners.Registries, registrars and new gTLD applicants complained that the 
IPC/BC proposals had already been considered multiple times by ICANN and the 
community and discarded.Apparently Chehade has now come around to their way of 
thinking, helped in part by Non-Commercial User Constituency member Maria 
Farrell’s complaint about the strawman process.“I frankly didn’t fully 
understand until I went through the process, and appreciated what people were 
actually trying to do,” Chehade said. “So, okay, big learning experience for 
me… I take it, I move on and hopefully I won’t make that mistake again.”What 
does this mean for the strawman? Well, it’s not looking great.While the 
proposals are still open for public comment, at some point ICANN is going to 
have to decide which bits it wants to adopt as “implementation” and which are 
more suited to policy development.After today’s comments, I’d expect Chehade to 
be less inclined to push for the former.  No virus found in this message.
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