Hey Folks,Catching up on the emails flying around here. You all sure do love to communicate!There are a number of things that I'd like to chime in on
Regarding budget. In a just world funding should go to increase participation to those who wouldn't be able to participate otherwise. I am guessing that is the rationale for why ALSs are funded to participate. I'm not clear what the difference is between the NCUC and the ALAC membership, but I am very clear that there are a number of differences between large funded NGOs and mom and pop volunteer organizations. I have spent all of my adult life working among those groups that are largely sweat equity rich and cash equity poor. I, for one, would not have been able to attend the San Juan meeting if I wasn't funded. I always try to keep in mind that privilege is relative. I am on the "right" side of the digital divide, safe, and well fed. I am privileged that I am able to spend my time volunteering. We (north americans) are relatively capable of reaching into the air and pulling out the kind of money that it would take to get 16 of us to Los Angeles 4 months from now. Reality is, there are more burning problems in the world than IPv6 transition and truth be told there may be better places for that money to go.
There are many examples of great things being achieved with careful use of limited resources. For example, the people who got the laws changed on low power community radio in the states: a typical conference for them would be held in a church - free space, meals provided by donation and volunteers- free food, and many people sleeping in the church or as guests in local volunteers homes - free housing. We have made a dent in policy in a way that is unconventional by conventional political wisdom, but is tried and true practice for grassroots organizers.
My rationale for taking a poll on the list of who wants to go to LA and who doesn't was for the very purpose of coming up with a hard cost figure for what it would take for us to have a face to face meeting in LA. This hard cost figure is bound to be a fraction of 2000 per person- with the possible exception of our lady in Ninuvet.Why we need a face to face meeting.
They say that time is money, but they are wrong. I reiterate: reality is, there are more burning problems in the world than IPv6 transition and truth be told there may be better places for that money to go. It seems like most of the people who are currently involved in internet governance in meaningful ways are vested parties-- money is more precious to them- because their livelihood is on the line. If you want to get more people involved in internet governance who aren't vested, then by good old Aristotelian logic that means you'll be looking for folks to spend their time. And if you truly want that, then you have to meet them on their own turf. You have to do the work of translating why the stuff that you care about -- internet governance-- has a compelling and direct relationship to the stuff they care about -- their ability to communicate.
This is no small task. How many of you would go to a workshop on engineering standards for municipal water systems or public land management? Most people have *other things on their minds.* They don't have time to take up every single conceivable good cause that might be lurking behind a mountain of technobabble bureaucratisms.
To my mind, the ICANN policy of not facilitating participation from ALSs in all ICANN meetings that are within that ALSs region is, as my grandmother would say, "penny wise and pound foolish." There is a huge educational opportunity for people to learn about internet governance when 600 people pop into their town who all happen to know more about the internet than god. ALSs have signed an agreement to get greater participation from the public in the ICANN process. Disinclining ALSs from attending ICANN meetings is cutting them off 1) from their ability to learn what they need to know to do fulfill their mandate, 2) cutting them off from their best opportunity to create timely public events, timely press, and so forth that take advantage of the greater ICANN community being in a given locale and 3) the ability to move things forward that can only be moved forward in person.However, even if ICANN doesn't see the value of picking up the tab on a cheap date, I see a bigger common interest among the NA RALO folks. Our common thread is that we are all interested in more communication for more people AND we all believe that the structure of a communication platform affects what is conveyed. (Is that bland and generic to cover all 16 of our interests?) In addition, we are working under similar constraints and similar opportunities in terms of broader policy and economics. (US and Canadian telecomm policy, BB policy, etc.) We built trust when we met face to face. But we only began to pose the questions of what we might do together. To my mind the next step down that road is to do that work of translating what the value is- and where the value is- in people getting involved in internet governance. I believe that the people who are currently involved in NA RALO are as good a cross section as we're likely to get involved in internet governance issues in North America at this stage. And I believe we have the potential to make some valuable contributions to public understanding and participation in internet governance. Implementation can happen online, but strategy happens face to face. And we need the prelude to strategy which is education on specific issues of internet governance _as well as_ specific concerns of internet usage -- or lack thereof!!- that internet users-- or potential users!!!-- actually care about. The second part is what the ALSs are supposed to be bringing to the table. We aren't going to get that from an issue brief written by a technology journalist. To do our work we need to understand both.Doubling up:What I had in mind was that we would all "work our way" to the next ICANN meeting by all taking on a public outreach role. "Public forums" held in the middle of the day at hotels are not so public. Public= library, school, street corner... Public= times when people are free. Public= using language familiar to the public to explain what you have to say. Public= doing your homework to find out what questions people want addressed and people who can answer those questions. I think a fair compromise for LA would be for ICANN to accept NA RALOs free labor in organzing public events concurrent with the LA ICANN meeting and creating documentation on the work that we do as a group on ICANN related issues concurrent with the conference by supplying us with no frills travel to LA and admittance to the conference. In exchange for fulfilling these MOU items, we would get the privilege of meeting together to plan more strategic ways of working together. In addition, we would be able to take advantage of the collective intelligence of the greater ICANN community to inform our actions.Paraphrasing Pascal: I would have made this letter shorter, but I didn't have the time.
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Draft MoU with ICANN:
http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_MOU
Draft Operating Principles:
http://www.icannwiki.org/NA_RALO_OP
Draft Code of Conduct:
http://www.icannwiki.org/NARALO_Code_of_Conduct