[gnso-irtp-b-jun09] stepping back for a while...

["Mike O'Connor" <mike@xxxxxxxxxx>]

hi all,

this is a quick note to let people know that i'm resigning from all ICANN 
working groups effective at close of business tomorrow, Thursday.  the reason 
for the goofy timing is because i'm on deck to run a DSSA meeting tomorrow 
morning and i'm pretty sure my fellow co-chairs would kill me if i left them 
high and dry like that.  

the other nice thing about this timing is that it wraps up the "Launch" phase 
of the DSSA effort and also coincides with the end of my commitment to serve as 
the interim GNSO co-chair to that working group (i volunteered to serve through 
the first 3 meetings of the group in order to give people time to get to know 
each other better before selecting their "real" GNSO co-chair).

basically the equation kinda looks like this.  i get to spend hundreds, maybe 
thousands, of hours working on deliverables that are provided to a Council that 
can then selectively pick and choose to approve/rewrite portions of our work 
and forward the stuff they like on to the Board.  oh, and i get to spend 
thousands of dollars of family lunch-money to get to the meetings to watch this 
happen.  can you spell "self-funded volunteer professional staff?"  

but wait, there's more…  let's not forget the perfect adherence to the 
bottom-up policy process that happened during the VI working group.  in that 
case the pain ranged through the GNSO all the way up to the Board.  yum!

i know, i know.  the policy points that are causing me to boil over *today* are 
in fact incredibly minor.  ask anybody in the IRTP working group, or the BC 
about those.  that's not why i'm so grouchy.  it's the pattern in the way in 
which policy outcome are arrived at that frosts me.  either working-groups are 
the place in the bottom-up process where policy gets formulated…  or not.  
looks like "not" from here.  not being too smart, it took me three or four 
times through this to finally get the message.  kinda like having your hair on 
fire and putting it out with a hammer.

fortunately, i'm trained now.

there's an old joke that might bear repeating in this circumstance.  Descartes 
walks into a bar.  the bartender asks "the usual, sir?"  Descartes replies "i 
think not" and disappears.

so i think i'll disappear, at least for a while.  a little breather.  on the 
plus side of the ledger, i've made a boatload of ICANN friends and, through the 
miracle of Facebook, i hope you'll stay in touch.  and i hope to share a glass 
with some of you this evening at the Gala.

i'm still a huge fan of ICANN and what we do.  it's just a little too expensive 
(financially and emotionally) for me to stay in the game right now.  

thanks!

mikey

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