I imagine many of you have seen this. What do you think? Seems to me that the RALOs and ALAC should register an official opinion on this, probably in Paris. The report's also kind of an interesting read. Beau Brendler -----Original Message----- From: ICANN News Alert [mailto:communications@icann.org] Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 7:05 PM To: Brendler, Beau Subject: ICANN News Alert -- Consultation on Proposals to Reform ICANN Meetings ICANN News Alert http://icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-09jun08-en.htm ________________________________ Consultation on Proposals to Reform ICANN Meetings 9 June 2008 At its meeting on May 29, 2008 the Board agreed to the release of a paper on the reform of ICANN meetings that has been prepared by staff. The paper (http://icann.org/en/meetings/meetings-reform-discussion-paper-16may08-e n.pdf) asks the community to consider changes to the number of meetings that ICANN holds and the location. To allow for better planning and economy, the paper asks the community to consider that the number of meetings be reduced from three to two per year. It is proposed that this change would commence from 2010. The paper also proposes that one of the two meetings be held in locations that are transport hubs. The locations would need to be the subject of a separate consultation, but would be rotated through the existing ICANN predetermined regions. There has not been substantive change to meetings processes or the frequency of the meetings since the organization's inception. The purpose of this paper is to encourage debate on any matters to do with meetings that the community may wish to raise, but to especially consider issues concerning the frequency of meetings and their location. ICANN welcomes comments from the community on the matters raised in this paper and any other comments that relate to the operation of meetings. In addition to on-line forums, consultations will also be held at the Paris meeting directly with Committees and Councils and there will also be the opportunity to comment via the public forum. *View Meetings Reform Discussion Paper: http://icann.org/en/meetings/meetings-reform-discussion-paper-16may08-en .pdf *Send comments to: meeting-consultation-2008@icann.org *View comments at: http://forum.icann.org/lists/meeting-consultation-2008/ ________________________________ Sign up for ICANN's Monthly Magazine: http://www.icann.org/magazine/ This message was sent by: ICANN, 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330 , Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6601 Powered by iContact: http://freetrial.icontact.com Manage your subscription: http://app.icontact.com/icp/mmail-mprofile.pl?r=10248929&l=6333&s=96FD&m =152911&c=165637 *** Scanned
Brendler, Beau wrote:
I imagine many of you have seen this. What do you think? Seems to me that the RALOs and ALAC should register an official opinion on this, probably in Paris. The report's also kind of an interesting read.
I was on the record ages ago as being against the concept of only going where bids existed -- ICANN is not the Olympics. Wanting to use transit hubs for meetings is extremely logical, and cost saving, but may go against the political aims of wanting to be seen to be globally accessible. If ICANN goes to two meetings a year -- perhaps a hybrid system might be a good idea. One meeting each year is purely based on practicality and minimizing travel costs, the other is more attuned to political and accessibility needs.
From an At-Large POV there are repercussions related to the ability for RALOs to do face-to-face meetings. Generally a RALO can do a F2F when the meeting is in their region (ie, EURALO in Paris). But with the ICANN meetings cut to 2 a year, this could affect the frequency of RALO F2F.
One possible solution to this is to have regional mini-conferences -- precedents for this have already taken place. Indeed, maybe there is a case to be made for one global annual meeting and multiple -- maybe concurrent -- regional ones. Also, an increasing number of workshops may be delivered by electronic means. In any case, this requires some thought. I share Beau's suggestion that this should be discussed within each RALO. - Evan PS: Using data from Los Angeles, how can they be surprised that many attendees at American? There were many factors biasing that data; cost of travel, visa restrictions and (more than anything) the last-minute nature of the venue choice. The LA meeting was probably the worst possible one from which to extract valid data. Having said that, the dominance of the financial interests was indeed troublesome.
Basing attendance levels and demographics on a single meeting is ill advised. That there were a lot of Americans at the LA meeting is hardly surprising. There were a lot of Europeans at Lisbon. I suspect there will be a lot of Europeans at Paris :) -- Mr Michele Neylon Blacknight Solutions Hosting & Colocation, Brand Protection http://www.blacknight.com/ http://blog.blacknight.com/ Tel. 1850 929 929 Intl. +353 (0) 59 9183072 Direct Dial: +353 (0)59 9183090 Fax. +353 (0) 1 4811 763 ------------------------------- Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd, Unit 12A,Barrowside Business Park,Sleaty Road,Graiguecullen,Carlow,Ireland Company No.: 370845
participants (3)
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Brendler, Beau -
Evan Leibovitch -
Michele Neylon