Team,

 

First, thanks greatly to Marilyn for picking up the pen on this important work.  Really appreciate your taking the lead.  

 

We other members of the OC all owe you comments, and I hope my fellow members will get to that this week, so we can discuss and take our recommendations forward to the Excomm as soon as possible with everyone’s comments included.

 

Rather than going line by line and suggest text edits since we will need everyone’s inputs I am including some comments/recommendations in bullet point form.  For the purposes of this exercise, I’ve thought of this not just in terms of CROP but as a guide for our broader Outreach strategy, since the doc really focuses on all aspects of our outreach and in the end we also will be using BC funding and CROP exists to support our BC goals. 

 

I hope this is helpful and happy to clarify any points,

Cheers, Andrew

 

·      For Objectives, bullets 4 & 5 – I get the intent here, but am wary of two things: First, I’d like us to have the ability to measure success (and go back to our members saying we’ve accomplished something tangible with our budget).  Second, I know ICANN itself has primary responsibility for promoting itself and the multistakeholder model.  I think we should do all we can to get them to spend their significantly larger resources – ideally with our input – to help build awareness, including for business. 

 

·      In the para that starts “CROP funds will be targeted…”, I think we go into detail that may not fit all situations.  I agree with the notional sense of best practice around booths as an example, but think that we don’t need to call this out as local conditions might make something like this worthwhile and I think we want to defer to local expertise and the situation.

 

·       Generally in this same section:

o   Agree, we should prioritize events where the BC is speaking

o   Agree, focus should be on events that promote membership

o   For IGFs, I think we need to make the case based on our ability to work directly with key business audiences and in keeping with our membership goals.  (I don’t think this will be hard as in most cases we should be able to make the argument that we are working on membership).

o   In the rare instances where we decide that membership is not the primary goal, we need to find another success metric (outside of just speaking) to show progress

o   For ICANN attendance, I’m not convinced that this is the best use of limited funds and don’t see a strong rationale.  Would prefer to use our efforts to tap other sources (as with all things, with the caveat that there may be special case exceptions)

 

·      In the section titled Specific Activities: we’re really looking at two classes of activities – those that we’d recommend long term and those that are specific to a time and place.  I’d recommend we separate the two and include all specific events in a TBD plan for evaluation as the year goes on. 

 

·      The ongoing activities are:

o   Translation:  Agree.  Important.  Need a policy for when we want to go outside main community languages if BC funds are used.

o   Fact Sheet:  Agree.  Good idea.  I would encourage it be made available to all BC members for use in any of the events they attend whether or not CROP funding (or BC funding) is used.

o   Newcomers Booth:  Agree.  All OC members should be asked to take a turn at this as schedules permit (and all BC members should be encouraged to stop by).

o   Website: Agree.  Ongoing improvement is important.  Love the idea of BC in action.  This would be from BC funding I assume.

o   ICANN Breakfasts: Agree.  Good value for money, especially if we can get ICANN to pay!  An excellent initiative that we should continue.

o   Fellowship and Next Gen: Agree.  This is crucial.  ICANN is spending money on bringing in new folks and we want them to be biz (or at least know about biz).  I know MC and Jimson have been working on this and think we need to understand both what has already happen and what is possible – and how we might call on the broader BC community to help connect with potential new members.   Recommend appointing a liaison to these programs with ongoing responsibility to interface and report out to the broader OC.

o   Mentor/Mentee: Good work is being done on this and it needs to be a priority.

o   Meet the BC: Agree.  Just want to keep the updating manageable.

o   Blog: Great idea, not sure we’ll be able to pull it off time wise.

 

·      In the section “Utilize CROP funds”

o   We will have a lot of potential programs with lots of past and future partners.  If we have only 5 spots, I think we are better served to leave the specifics and individuals out of the text and focus on the principles that guide our decisionmaking, then evaluate each opportunity as it comes in – while keeping some opportunities open for later in the year as new things develop.

o   Our criteria for action are mentioned above.  Our broad priorities as discussed earlier have been:

§  LATAM: We have 2 LATAM and Barcelona coming up, so LATAM outreach will be a key

§  Consolidating progress in key markets – Nigeria comes to mind given our membership there

§  Exploring large markets where we have new BC members (e.g. India, possibly South Africa)

§  Broad gatherings where we have speaking slots and leadership roles

§  Others?

o   Recommend we put all possible events we’ve identified to date in one chart as an annex, with the understanding that these and others are under consideration

o   Most of what I see relating to ICANN 60 is valid but would not fall under CROP if I understand correctly, so want to move it to other parts of the doc

 

·      Outcomes

o   I think our primary metric needs to be new members, with a secondary metric being people we’ve talked with about membership

§  8 new members is great as a target and we’re well on our way

§  100 identified possibles is also achievable and a valid target – need an intake mechanism to capture this/facilitate follow up

o   Distribution of materials is great.  The audience does matter, so absolutely think that 50% outside of ICANN is meaningful provided they are potential members or connectors to members

o   Agree in all things quality>quantity and we want to be able to show that we had solid criteria in our choices

 

I think we’ve got an excellent start here.  Would like to see everyone else’s comments and happy to help in editing as needed.

 

Thanks to everyone, Andrew