How to Improve ICANN Meetings

This is a page to provide feedback to the ICANN Board's Meetings Committee about how to improve the periodic public meetings ICANN holds around the world.

[edit] No Remote Locations

As much as we may enjoy meetings in places like Mar del Plata and Wellington, locations that require an in-country transfer should not be on the ICANN meetings calendar. The meetings are long enough without making the travel even harder. ICANN might consider holding all of its meetings in a handful of standard locations with international airports (Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney, etc.).

Please do not put on the list places that are difficult to get visas (if not impossible) like the US - there is no way that many ppl in the developing world can get a visa to go to the US. Germany is also difficult sometimes for African attendees to get visas. Schengen visas are generally hard to get.

Can we clarify this as Meetings should be held within a reasonable distance (Taxi/bus) of an International Airport? That would add Accra, Capetown, Sydney, Delhi, Moscow, Barcelona, Cairo, etc... Remoteness of a location is dependant on the place where you start!

How about 2 meetings a year? One in a standard location as mentioned above(Primary International Locations please) and one floating around the globe. Would foster higher participation and better planning. Too many meetings,too many disparate locations.

[edit] Fewer Presentations, No Reading

The Royal Reading of the Reports should end. If a report or powerpoint slide has been prepared, then post it to the website. If it's done in advance of the meeting, I'll read it on my way here. If it's done at the meeting, I'll read it on my way home. The point is: I know how to read. ICANN doesn't need to read to me.

((If a report has been prepared, there's really no point to the reading, save, maybe, a very, very short summary. Then again, I've seen good use made of the royal reading slot, most notably in Rome, by Bruce Tonkin -- read the captioning. For those who weren't there, yes, he was wearing a suit and tie. Anyway, the point here: I think a "no presentations at all" rule is too broad. Make it more of a "short speeches" rule. --tlr))

On a related matter the ICANN "public forum" has come to be entirely dominated by reports, with little time left for public input. The reports seem to go on and on, but public contributions are often excluded for lack of time. Reporting may be needed, and public comment on reports should always be allowed; however a reasonable timeslot should be reserved for public comment, regardless of the time allocated to reporting.

[edit] Publish the Transcription as a Live Feed

Helpful for people listening in on poor lines or who are deaf. Helpful when the sound or video drops out of the remote feed, as it often does.

At APNIC meetings, live transcripts are fed directly into Jabber. It works well!

[edit] Foster Thoughtful Dialogue

Rather than panel after panel of presentations, we should find a way to foster thoughtful dialogue among various parts of the ICANN community. Esther Dyson, for example, is really good at this. At PC Forum every year, Esther assembles panels of people with different interests or different perspectives to talk with her about a common theme. They sit on the stage, around a coffee table, and chat. Esther leads the discussion, but it's not a series of presentations, it's a dialogue. It's more interesting that presentations and just as informative. She does these in 1:30 hour blocks of time. 45 minutes for a moderated chat and 45 minutes that includes participation from the audience. It works well.

Cut the staged presentations altogether. We all know the Board doesn't make its decisions sitting up on stage, but at dinners before and after. Instead of the chair passing a mic to Board members to read pre-written and -decided resolutions, make the Board talk with its constituencies and interested onlookers. Even encourage the Board to break up and travel as individuals to other groups' meetings.

Convene more subject-oriented meetings where we could get real questions answered. The Board claims to have technical or policy questions on which they'd like public input; the non-Board has plenty of process questionsroup.

You might want to consider using a group meeting style that is different from the standard conference model. I went to a conference that used a technique called "Open Space" which allowed participants to set the agenda rather than follow one set by someone a priori. Although this sounds like it would be pointless, it was actually quite productive. More info on Open Space meetings. Chris Corrigan has a good web site with more information as well.

At first it may seem disorganzized, but in reality it is as efficient as a meeting can be, given than people discuss topics that need to be discussed and ones that are less important naturally die out as people employ the law of two feet.

[edit] More Effective Remote Participation

ICANN should insist that Board members select one meeting per year to participate remotely. ICANN would change within a year. This is especially important as the real dialogue between the community and the Board has moved out of the public forum and into the individual meetings with constituencies and Supporting Organizations. None of these are webcast, podcast, or transcribed. As a result, people participating from home get a skewed view of what is happening on the ground.

Perhaps there is a considerable number of people in the world who are willing to understand what ICANN is doing and how they might get involved. For example, ICANN's call for at-large membership in year 2000 recruited over 76,000 members. ICANN never cared to keep in touch with them. Most probably, not all of them would attend a public meeting, not even remotely. However, it is possible to define an intermediate form of paricipation by providing precise and concise reports on ICANN progress. At-large members could do some real work, if asked to. For example, a large number of technically skilled network operators and users contributed comments and hints without ever getting a feedback. Reviewing those comments should be a collective work and at-large members would be good candidates for doing it. A network of sympathizers is a capital currently being wasted.

[edit] Help the Hosts

The Hosts of the meeting spend a lot of time, effort and money hosting the meetings. If you have suggestions on how they can improve things, please put them [here[1]].

[edit] Shorten the Meetings

A day on each end of the meeting for travel, plus seven days on the ground for the meeting is ridiculous. Let's figure out a way to do half of the meeting online (e.g., dispense with the reading of the reports). Let's use the Vancouver and Wellington meetings as test cases and look back over the agenda to see what we could have done online in advance of the meeting. We need the constituency time, the working meetings of the SO councils, and the individual meetings with the Board. We also need about three hours for an open mike, with nothing on the agenda except open discussion. I'll bet we can get it down to four days.

[edit] More Staff-Community Interaction

It seems like we see ICANN Staff less and less at these meetings. Are they hiding in the Staff room or does Paul really have them working around the clock? Whichever it is, we ought to let them out from time to time.

[edit] Board members should join the queue

During the public forum, it is common for many board members to respond to each individual comment from the floor, even when (dare we say it) they have little of value to add. It would be preferable that more time be given to comments from the floor, and that board member responses are limited to those who have something specific to say or add on the given topic.

[edit] Don't Bar Anonymous Meeting Participants

It came to ALAC's attention after the meeting that participants who chose not to give a name were not permitted to enter. This should not be ICANN policy. Although more weight may naturally be given to the input of those who identify themselves (especially if their identities give context to their comments), no one should be denied entry to the venue based on the choice not to give a name.