RE: [gnso-osc] Global Outreach Program Recommendations - for adoption September 24

["Mason Cole" <masonc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve and others, let me provide at least one point of view from the contracted 
side of the house.

 

Along with Steve, I'm skeptical of a standing committee, and of the creation of 
additional bureaucracy.  Further, as a participant in ICANN for the past ten 
years, I would say it's not a completely safe assumption that there is a 
poverty in the growth of participation; the difference in size of an ICANN 
meeting now (or mailing list, or stack of policy to review) vs. one in 2001 is 
striking.  I would like to know whether or not this committee plans to be 
permanent, or would have its time limited.

 

Obviously that's not to say participation shouldn't continue to be encouraged.  
It should, in appropriate proportion, and without detracting resources from 
other priorities, as Steve pointed out.

 

I served as chair of the Communications/Coordination Team of the OSC.  One of 
the contexts in which we considered our recommendations was the likely fact 
that there, indeed, are people impacted by ICANN that aren't participating, or 
may not even be aware of ICANN.  Part of our recommendation was not just to 
communicate with them to encourage their participation, but to improve the 
clarity of ICANN's communication to make their participation easier and 
smoother.  The former without the latter would be added clutter and would 
needlessly extend the time necessary for a newcomer to learn the alphabet soup 
we all speak as longtime participants.

 

To Steve's point about outreach to registries and registrars-you may have 
guessed my point of view, but I do believe it's necessary and healthy.  Here's 
why: 

 

I currently serve as chair of the Registrar Stakeholder Group.  There are 
hundreds of accredited registrars, but only a few more than 70 are members of 
our SG.  Of that number, far fewer can be considered active ICANN participants. 
 Certainly they are aware of ICANN - ICANN is the source of our accreditations 
- but they may not be particularly educated about the extent to which their 
customers and businesses are impacted by ICANN's activity.  And they should be. 
 Our SG encourages participation to all new registrars, but not all do.  A more 
comprehensive message from ICANN itself may be more thorough and helpful.  If 
resources are a challenge, it's possible the registrar and registry liaison 
staffs could be helpful in encouraging participation from those who don't 
currently.

 

Further, I believe it would be inappropriate to advantage one section of the 
GNSO over the other.  Concentrating communications toward only non-contracted 
bodies would disrupt the balanced points of view that ICANN purports to 
encourage.

 

Finally, I would encourage whomever is eventually responsible for directing the 
outreach effort to include some type of measurement into the plan.  There is 
not enough consideration given to accurately determining whether or not 
policies are needed or effective; in this instance, measuring participation 
would be relatively easier and would help determine whether or not the program 
is reaching its objectives.

 

Thanks -

 

Mason Cole

 

 

________________________________

From: Metalitz, Steven [mailto:met@xxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 12:13 PM
To: Philip Sheppard; HughesDeb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Olga Cavalli; gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [gnso-osc] Global Outreach Program Recommendations - for adoption 
September 24

 

Philip and colleagues, 

 

I endorse much of what Ron says below.  I also offer a few general observations 
and a couple of specific questions.   

 

First, personally I am skeptical that the best way to broaden participation in 
the GNSO is to create a new and permanent standing committee, with all that 
implies in terms of start-up efforts and staff support.  My experience is that 
there are real dangers that such a committee, instead of advancing the 
objectives laid out in the first paragraph of section 2.1.1, will instead 
disperse human and financial resources, create inefficiencies, and increase 
duplication of effort.  However, I know that the Work Team members studied this 
issue in some depth and I am happy to defer to them if they believe this is the 
best approach.    

 

Second, it strikes me that that outreach goals may be quite different with 
regard to the stakeholder groups in the two GNSO houses.  In the non-contracted 
party house, it is apparent that many businesses, intellectual property owners, 
ISP and connectivity providers, and non-commercial organizations that are 
strongly affected by ICANN decisions do not participate in the organization, 
and specifically in the GNSO.   I wonder whether this is true in the contracted 
party house.  Certainly most registries seem already to be active participants 
in the registries stakeholder group, and the same is true of the major 
registrars, although I acknowledge that probably a number of registrars do not 
participate.  In any case the outreach challenges seem to be very different 
between the two groups.  I question whether such activities directed to 
registries and registrars is a wise use of ICANN resources.  If these entities 
cannot already see for themselves the value of participation in the 
organization without which they could not even be in business, then I wonder 
whether outreach efforts will change that mindset.  If, instead, the goal of 
outreach efforts is to encourage more companies to seek to become accredited 
registrars (for example), again that is qualitatively different from the 
challenge on the non-contracted party side.  ICANN has no need to encourage 
anyone to become a business, non-commercial organization, etc., affected by 
ICANN; rather the focus should be on encouraging those such entities that 
already exist to become active within GNSO.  The goal of outreach efforts among 
the contracted parties should be more clearly stated.  

 

Third, I note that the thrust of the BGC WG report (as quoted in section 1.1) 
was on what the staff should do to improve outreach.  It would be helpful if 
the report could be clearer on which activities should be undertaken by staff 
and which should rely on volunteers.  To give one example, when it is stated 
that "the Committee should coordinate the development of robust Workshop 
materials," (section 2.2.2.1), who is expected to do the developing of these 
materials?     

 

A few specific comments: 

 

Section 2.1.2.1:  it is hard to imagine that a person "new to ICANN" could make 
an effective contribution to the work of a small outreach committee. Of course 
the input of such people should be solicited and taken very seriously.  

 

Same:  The presence of  committee members from the Registry or Registrar SG 
should depend on clarification of the outreach mission with regard to these 
groups, as noted above.  

 

Section 2.1.3:  Has there been an independent evaluation of the ICANN 
Fellowship program that supports the statement "the Fellowship program proved 
that investing in young participants and developing young experts is 
worthwhile"?  

 

Section 2.1.5:  The following sentence under "maximizing use of events" should 
be clarified:  "the Committee's global outreach strategy should include 
efficient use of ICANN events
to ensure that multiple local trade and industry associations, non-governmental
organizations, academic institutions and civil society organizations are 
represented at
these events, even if they are not GNSO stakeholders."   All the entities 
listed are eligible for membership in either the commercial or non-commercial 
stakeholder group.  Perhaps it would be clearer to state "even if they are not 
currently active in GNSO stakeholder groups."   

 

I would certainly welcome any responses from the Work Team members or from 
others on the OSC regarding the above points.  

 

Steve Metalitz

 

 

 

________________________________

From: owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
Philip Sheppard
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 4:29 AM
To: HughesDeb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: 'Olga Cavalli'; gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: FW: [gnso-osc] Global Outreach Program Recommendations - for adoption 
September 24

Debbie,

Ron raises some valid questions for clarification here.

Please let us know.

Philip

Chair OSC

 

________________________________

From: Ron Andruff [mailto:randruff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 6:14 PM
To: 'Philip Sheppard'; gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [gnso-osc] Global Outreach Program Recommendations - for adoption 
September 24

Chair,

 

I read the CSG Work Team's recommendations with interest and find it on the 
whole to be a good work product.  I am particularly encouraged by the 
considerations given to 'translations' as this is one of the pillars that will 
support ICANN as it matures into a truly global institution.  Clearly, outreach 
is a very important and heretofore underserved component of ICANN and the 
initiatives noted in the recommendations are solid steps in the right 
direction.  A lot of good ideas but, as we all know, the devil is in the 
details and thus there is considerable work still ahead of us in this area.

 

I have a couple of things that I wondered if the OSC might get some 
clarification on, as follows: 

 

2.1.2 Membership of the Committee, 2nd paragraph notes: "The Committee 
membership should be long enough to allow the participation of host country and 
neighboring nations, and to leverage the outreach events and alert as many 
relevant parties to effectuate goals and activities."  I don't understand this 
sentence.  Can we get some clarification, as well as the Work Team's thinking 
behind the length of Committee member terms, how to manage 'institutional 
memory' with members rotating off the committee, and so forth?

 

2.1.2.1 Representation on the Committee, 4th para notes: "Committee members 
should cooperate with the ICANN Fellowship selection team to be able to invite 
up to ten key people to each ICANN event, who may include people who represent 
numerous groups, such as leaders of academia, business associations, and 
non-governmental organizations."  Again, I do not understand what the sentence 
means, particularly who is being invited where?  Some background would 
hopefully bring some clarity to the intent.

 

My comment in regard to the first paragraph in this section (re: 
representation) is that with such a small committee, notwithstanding ICANN's 
principles of diversity, the committee's first priority (vis-à-vis selection 
criteria) should be based on an individual's qualifications in the realm of 
outreach rather than their gender or sector of the GNSO community from which 
they come.  The second priority (which some may argue should be the first) is 
geo location for all of the obvious reasons.

 

Thank you.

 

Kind regards,

 

RA

 

Ronald N. Andruff

President

 

RNA Partners, Inc.

220 Fifth Avenue

New York, New York 10001

+ 1 212 481 2820 ext. 11

 

________________________________

From: owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
Philip Sheppard
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2010 4:23 AM
To: gnso-osc@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gnso-osc] Global Outreach Program Recommendations - for adoption 
September 24

 

Fellow OSC members, 

please find attached the final piece of work from the various teams within the 
OSC.

It is a recommendation on outreach from the CSG team, chaired by Olga Cavalli, 
in an effort led by Debbie Hughes.

Let me have your comments with a view to OSC adoption by September 24.

 

After which, assuming a positive reception, we will send it to the GNSO Council.

 

Philip

OSC Chair