Folks,
We spoke about outreach opportunities.
Would it be worth compiling a calendar of the events that we could attend
(somebody mentioned the national IGFs, for instance)?
Also, it would be good to discuss ideas on how and where to address our
outreach efforts. Which communities, organizations, media, are we targeting?
Years ago I have proposed to ALAC a tight collaboration with ccTLD
operators, in particular in the countries where the ccTLDs are tightly
connected with the users. This did work out to some extent (for instance, we
had a ccTLD operator joining ALAC) but did not turn out in a permanent
collaboration, except for the good work of our liaisons. I wonder whether
there is more we can do in this direction.
Actually, collaboration should not be limited to ccTLDs. Do we have (or can
we establish) relationships with geographic TLD applicants or other
community-related TLDs to bring the voice of the user community also through
ALAC? I am sure that in many cases we do, maybe it could be good to have a
map of these relationships to see where there is still work to do.
As I mentioned during the call, ALAC had the objective of having (at least)
one ALS in every country. If this is still an objective, can we draw a map
of what are the areas of the world where we lack presence? I am not
neglecting the efforts of improving our presence where we are already there,
by involving different parts of the (potential) At-Large community, but just
wondering where our strategic priorities are. I am under the impression
that, once we have a foot in some place (i.e. an ALS in one country), this
ALS should be tasked with outreach within the country. At Large Structures,
the way we define them, have probably a good sense of the reality of the
country where they operate, and can suggest and even execute outreach
activities. In simple words, while we are for the time being the focal point
on outreach, a clear message we need ot give to the whole organization is
that outreach cannot be delegated to few individuals, but that it has to be
the task of the whole community. We can discuss methodologies and
techniques, but then all ALSes have to take active part in recruiting new
members.
Last but not least, media. Back to the famous At Large elections of 2000, at
least in Europe a huge role has been played by the media. Germany has been
the most active country, with Der Spiegel (if I remember correctly)
publishing articles that resulted in a participation in the election that
was by far the highest in the region. Can we think of a way of involving
media in support of the growth of ALAC? For instance, there is a lot of
discussion right now about the multistakeholder model, in particular in
relation to the WCIT discussions and results. Can we push the idea that a
real multistakeholder model needs wide participation from the users to be
successful?
Cheers,
Roberto
