Hello everyone I am looking forward to participating in this group. Like others, I would like very much to see the next round of expanding the Internet take place in a much more efficient and timebound way. For background, I have been involved in the previous expansions of the domain name space in 2000 & 2004 (as an evaluator, as chair of an evaluation committee and as an expert witness in the first international arbitration about a registry). I was the original ICANN staff lead on the PDP that developed the policy for this round of TLDs and have since worked with a wide variety of applicants on many different applications. Could I suggest that we start to put together a "brain dump" document in three parts. a) feedback on applicant experience and improvements we would wish to see b) feedback on broader ICANN involvement including the role of the Board, objectors and other panels c) feedback on the implementation of new registries. One suggestion I would really like to see put in place is the decoupling of the certification of technical service providers from future application rounds. To encourage competition in that market sector, I would like to see an RFP process take place for TSPs to "accredit" themselves in a similar process to that which is required for registrars. This would not be difficult for the vast array of existing providers who are already performing these functions. Applicants would then have a menu of pre-certified service providers which would make the whole process much more straightforward. This simplicity would then flow through to pre-delegation testing and implementation. In any event, that is the cart before the horse and the document idea above could then be used to come up with some recommendations for the more detailed discussion. I am happy to set that up in google docs if people think it's a good idea. Best wishes. Liz ... Liz Williams tldomainsolutions@gmail.com m: +44 7824 877757 t: +44 1392 581 214 w: www.lizwilliams.net