Veni Markovski wrote:
If there is indeed a truly good reason for the status quo of last-minute planning chaos that trumps the causes of stability and accessibility and that diminishes the value of my recommendations , I would very much love to hear it. So, I suspect, would others on this list.
I guess the best way is to contact the current Meetings Committee - they would give you today's reasons. I can give you yesterday's.
OK, then please offer yesterday's reasons. Having concrete objections to address -- even old ones -- is better than debating ghosts. Based on the few public reports available such as the one at http://www.domainesinfo.fr/english/085/inside-the-icann-meeting-venue-select... one could gather that ICANN's meeting committee and staff see themselves like the Olympics, sitting back and expecting the cities of the world to compete vigorously to be hosts. This is even though -- unlike the Olympics -- the host appears to have little chance of revenue despite significant expense. Not only does such vigorous competition not exist, but perhaps ICANN should consider that the venues that submit host applications may be most inconvenient for the world to attend. It is telling that in one of the only publicly available documents on this issue, a roadmap produced this past March (http://www.icann.org/meetings/meetings-white-paper-20mar07.html), noted an interest to consider choice of locations to "increase participation, particularly from business and government". In other words, the expense account set -- so much for the public interest or financial accessibility. _This_ is why I am raising this issue at the ALAC level. As ICANN's guardian of the public interest, I believe that it is a legitimate role to assert the needs of At-Large, given that the committee does not seem to be presently interested in meeting venue choices aimed at maximizing participation from those who must come at their own expense.
I can't give answers to all your questions; OK, can you give answers to *any* of them? Even one of them? You were there, after all. If you feel the need to challenge my suggestions, at least offer a taste of the actual objections.
The most basic question is: why is it not possible to lock down hotel bookings one year in advance? By now ICANN has had many years to discover the cultural, political and logistical obstacles that exist. With all this experience, ICANN should be better able than many to take these many factors into account while still being able to plan events sufficiently in advance. We know that no particular venue will be acceptable to everyone, and sometimes, no suitable host candidates will step forward before the deadlines. So there should be a way in place to deal with this in a consistent and well-understood manner.
I just say that since you are not the first one to raise them, they have been addressed by at least three of the last Meetings Committee chairpersons, and they have not been easy to solve. So this is the process? To forever go round in discussions, and never solve the issue, content in the knowledge that since it's been discussed, new suggestions may be ridiculed before they are even put forward?
It appears that, despite all its history and supposed experience, ICANN is no closer to solving this problem than it has been for years. This is neither an excuse against further debate nor a solution in itself; one can only wonder how long businesses would stay afloat if they used the same decision-making process. Nobody said that the solution was easy. However, the difficulty of finding a solution does not allow for its avoidance.
Without going further into details - and without involving into a discussion, I repeat again - the best way to approach this problem, is to address the Meetings Committee; or may be even go into the ICANN archives, and see why the meetings take place where they take place, and why it is not easy to have the countries assigned two years in advance. We are all agreed that the task is difficult. It is reasonable, however, to request why it has not been solved anyway. Not every challenge we have is an easy one. The committee should be held accountable for its inability to act; if it cannot be decisive it should ask direction from the Board.
While we're at it, it should also be reasonable to expect that a member of the public can deduce the rationale for the actions of the Meeting Committee without needing to dig into the bowels of "the ICANN archives". (Indeed, if one does a Google search on 'ICANN "meeting committee"' there is very little to be found, so maybe such public archives simply don't even exist.) Perhaps this is another area in which the issue of accessibility should be raised -- but that is a separate debate. - Evan