[council] Action items from Prague / GNSO Review

[Thomas Rickert]

Stéphane, all,
first of all, thanks for the letter to Fadi!

As regards time to discuss, I would like to share some thoughts with you. 
In Prague, Mary, Bill, Chuck and Bertrand hat a good informal conversation about this very subject and were brainstorming if and what could potentially be done on Fridays. I guess that is what Bill alluded to when talking about "ICANN generally, not just GNSO". 

Bertrand asked me to write down my ideas on this, which I did and which you find below. Please bear with me if you regard this as off topic as it does not deal with the GNSO Council meeting agenda, but I thought it might be of interest.


***
Preface:
It is felt by part of the community that the ICANN agenda is usually packed and does not allow for in-depth discussions particularly when it comes to "visionary" or strategic topics. Also, there may be the need to provide a forum for discussions that may or may not be on the agenda during ICANN meetings or where another format than the public forum is needed.

With this proposal, I would like to outline a potential format to meet the above needs and encourage broader and more active participation. 

Offering the possibility to discuss face to face and in depth

- in small groups
- on particular questions and
- topics that are more of a strategic or niche character

may be useful to reach out to those members of the community that would usually not speak up or that do not have the resources to regularly engage in groups or projects. 

How to pick topics and introduce the format?

It may be worthwhile having a session on Monday to explain the format and invite the community to propose subjects to be discussed on Friday. The proposing person should write a brief summary of the topic he or she wishes to discuss including a bit of background information, if deemed useful. There should be a character limit, e.g. to 500 characters.

For the first attempt, I would suggest to keep the subjects completely open except for the fact that there needs to be relevance to ICANN's role or the broader subject of Internet Governance. For future events, a broad topic could be proposed to give the whole session one theme.

The deadline for collecting topics should be COB on Tuesday. This would allow for the individual groups to discuss potential topics on Tuesdays. Attendees should then have the opportunity to review the proposed subjects on Wednesday and Thursday and prepare for the discussion.

The proposed subjects should be published on ICANN's website.

What could a "new Friday" look like?

The format would roughly look like as follows:

1. Plenary

The day should start with a plenary session in which the format of the day is explained. 

Those who have proposed subjects will get 2 mins each to introduce the subject. 
Afterwards, a show of hands of the participants will be carried out to determine how many attendees are interested in the individual subjects.
To start with, I would plan for 5 subjects and have 5 rooms prepared with a whiteboard for breakout sessions. 
Rooms will then be allocated and announced for the breakout sessions.
It is not unlikely that there will be more than 5 topics. However, it is also not unlikely that some niche topics only find the interest of a few people. These groups might be able to continue their discussion at the venue even though there is not a reserved meeting room.

2. Breakout Sessions

The breakout sessions should be chaired by staff or other persons that have skills in moderating discussions. They need not be experts in the subject matter - in fact it may be an advantage if they are not knowledgable in the area concerned. The chair would not only moderate the discussion, but also keep some notes and act as rapporteur. 

The chair/ rapporteur should 
- make sure to ask the participants whether there are any confidentiality requirements;
- summarize the views exchanged on the subject matter;
- reach agreement in the group on a statement on what the outcome / next steps should be.

As regards the last point, the outcome of the session is completely open. It may well be that a group gathers and concludes that there should not be any further steps. Other results may be requests to a respective body inside ICANN to further consider the topic and potentially provide for a more formal forum to work on the subject.

3. Reconvening of the Plenary

In the plenary, the chairs / rapporteurs briefly report in 5-10 minutes each about the outcome of the breakout sessions. There should be a brief q&a after each report to allow other community members to provide their input. 

After the session, the chairs / rapporteurs will provide ICANN with a short written report that will be published on ICANN's website. The duty of the chair / rapporteur ends here.

The discussions should be punctual and the result of the sessions should NOT be that new groups are institutionalized there or other deliverables beyond the reports are produced. 


***

Best,
Thomas


Am 06.07.2012 um 21:18 schrieb Stéphane Van Gelder:

> This already features as a discussion item for the next meeting. If Councillors wish to pursue this discussion on the list before then, please do so.
> 
> Stéphane Van Gelder
> Directeur Général / General manager
> INDOM Group NBT France
> ----------------
> Registry Relations and Strategy Director
> Group NBT
> 
> Le 6 juil. 2012 à 19:18, Neuman, Jeff a écrit :
> 
>> 
>> I strongly believe it is way to early for a review.  Let's reserve this subject for a discussion on the next Council call before setting up the group.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Sent with Good (www.good.com)
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: 	Stéphane Van Gelder [mailto:stephane.vangelder at indom.com]
>> Sent:	Friday, July 06, 2012 12:41 PM Eastern Standard Time
>> To:	Winterfeldt, Brian
>> Cc:	Wendy Seltzer; GNSO Council List
>> Subject:	Re: [council] Action items from Prague / GNSO Review
>> 
>> 
>> Is there support from others for the creation of a group?
>> 
>> I would think that the group would need to be formalised as a DT, with a charter. Although you may wish to bring the review forward Wendy, others clearly feel we should be doing exactly the opposite. With such strong divergence of views, we must ensure that the mechanism we use to discuss this issue is unambiguous and accountable.
>> 
>> Stéphane
>> 
>> Envoyé de mon iPhone4
>> 
>> Le 6 juil. 2012 à 16:26, "Winterfeldt, Brian" <bwinterfeldt at steptoe.com> a écrit :
>> 
>>> I am happy to join Wendy as apart of the small group as well.
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> 
>>> Brian
>>> 
>>> Brian J. Winterfeldt  
>>> Partner 
>>> bwinterfeldt at steptoe.com
>>> Steptoe
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Wendy Seltzer
>>> Sent: Friday, July 06, 2012 6:34 AM
>>> To: Stéphane Van Gelder
>>> Cc: GNSO Council List
>>> Subject: Re: [council] Action items from Prague / GNSO Review
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 07/01/2012 07:00 AM, Stéphane Van Gelder wrote:
>>> 
>>>> GNSO Review
>>>> We have discussed two possible alternatives: drafting a request to the SIC to delay the review and creating a small group to look at this issue. What do we want to do?
>>> 
>>> I volunteer to be part of a small group discussing the review.  I favor
>>> *advancing* rather than delaying the review, as well as helping the SIC to frame it to address the challenges and barriers to consensus-building that stem from our current siloed structure.
>>> 
>>> --Wendy
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Wendy Seltzer -- wendy at seltzer.org +1 617.863.0613 Fellow, Yale Law School Information Society Project Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University http://wendy.seltzer.org/ https://www.chillingeffects.org/ https://www.torproject.org/ http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
> 

___________________________________________________________
Thomas Rickert, Rechtsanwalt
Schollmeyer &  Rickert Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft m.b.H. (i.e. law firm)
Geschäftsführer / CEO: Torsten Schollmeyer, Thomas Rickert
HRB 9262, AG Bonn

Büro / Office Bonn:
Kaiserplatz 7-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Phone: +49 (0)228 74 898 - 0

Büro / Office Frankfurt a.M.:
Savignystraße 43, 60325 Frankfurt, Germany
Phone: +49 (0)69 714 021 - 56

Zentralfax: +49 (0)228 74 898 - 66

mailto: rickert at anwaelte.de
skype-id: trickert
web: www.anwaelte.de

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/council/attachments/20120709/6fbb21c3/attachment.html>