Improving Institutional Confidence

[Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@xxxxxxxxx>]

Overall I find The Implementation Plan for Improving Institutional 
Confidence an impressive improvement on its predecessors. I do have a 
number of comments on the document. These comments are being made on 
my own behalf and are not to be construed as representing any formal 
ICANN body.
Capture

I find the concept of capture is not fully fleshed out. In 
particular, it focuses on open and visible capture, with insufficient 
focus on capture due to lack of attention. The document does mention 
"apathetic" capture, where participation by certain groups may 
decline, leaving more power to narrow interests, with the answer 
being "large and diverse interest groups need to be maintained within 
the Supporting Organization and Advisory Committee structures". This 
latter statement will require positive action to carry out. To date, 
the more common reaction to lack of participation seems to be a lack 
of concern and the belief that if some groups are not involved, that 
is their problem, not ICANN's.
Perhaps more important, the document treats capture by staff as 
purely an issue of "inappropriate or inadequate staff conduct", with 
the solution being a better code of conduct. This completely ignores 
the more insidious forms of capture by staff - capture by staff who 
truly believe that they are doing the right thing. The solution involves:
- Increased transparency accompanied by increased management 
oversight, so that single individuals or small groups do not have 
unreasonable and unseen power.
- Increased Board oversight of senior management to ensure that the 
Board drives management and not the other way around.
To give an easy example, and without any intention of being critical 
of the present incumbents, in many organizations, legal staff have 
the ability of moving an organization in the direction that they 
think best, simply by exercising their responsibility of giving legal 
opinions on business issues. This can move the organization in the 
safest legal direction, but not necessarily in the best business direction.
Lastly, recommendation 2.9 on establishing a mechanism for the 
community to remove and replace the Board in special circumstances is 
clearly attractive, but I would like to better understand how that 
could be accomplished without significant risk of capture by those 
put in interim power while the process was being carried out.
Transparency

Despite the continual discussion of transparency, ICANN is at times 
anything but transparent. ICANN needs to address this, even when it 
is embarrassing or awkward. Lack of openness simply leads to rumour 
and conspiracy theories, none of which serve ICANN well.
Alan Greenberg