No offence, Alberto, but this mantra of "of only we could get greater participation from ALSs" has become a tiresome and self-defeating mantra of At-Large leadership. After decades of failure of such strategy the standard answer appears to be to keep trying the same thing, but nastier this time (ALS metrics leading to disenfranchisement, for instance).
This strategy needs a thorough and total binning.
The original plan that ALSs would be the two-way conduit -- to ALAC of policy and volunteers, and to the ALSs of information from which to provide useful input -- is, with a very few exceptions, an utter failure. Most ALS reps who are now involved (present company included) would be involved with or without an ALS. We need an approach that maximizes or effectiveness and addresses real shortcomings with (IMO) very different approaches:
- 1) More use of At-Large support staff for policy research and development: There are just too few person hours for the volunteers to keep track of everything going on. It amazed me to know how many of ALAC staff have really useful skills here, some of whom even have PhDs in policy (hi Heidi!) yet spend their time in bureaucracy, politics and meetings logistics. Of course drawing ALAC staff to policy means ...
- 2) More virtual meetings and less F2F. Yes there is some sacrifice, but I've been to enough ICANN meetings to see how poor a use of resources it is. The money spent so that ALAC can feel like the United Nations three times a year is just staggering. Virtual meeting technology is now good enough to suit many needs including multilingual issues, and timing doesn't have to sync with ICANN's schedule. I've just spent too much time at U-shaped tables listening to people who are there because of politics and like the sound of their own voices, It's unproductive and we can't afford to be unproductive with the few resources available. Speaking of resources -- less money spent sending people to meetings should lead to ...
- 3) More money spent on independent public education, polling and research on global interests and needs from ICANN. Fifteen people in ALAC, most of whom are self-selected and well into ICANN culture, can easily lose track of what "the billions" need. We waste our time getting involved in the muck of traditional ICANN constituency politics when we need to be spending nearly all of our effort on just three things: (a) creating a better educated public (b) knowing what that public needs, and (c) advancing those needs at ICANN. That is the only way for ALAC to really fulfill its mandate of speaking for global end users, by knowing what they need rather than making ivory-tower guesses.
I may have said this before but not quite so specifically. For ALAC to be relevant we have to overcome the "who the hell are you?" factor, and good research obliterates that objection. Spending allocated funds in ways that are not self-serving (such as travel) eliminates the perception as charity case, with which the vested interests keep hitting us with year after year.