[NA-Discuss] Outreach Plan

Wed Sep 19 15:24:07 EDT 2007

Hi Danny,

1.  WOW!  Thank you for forwarding this on to us - it really is helpful.
2.  Now here is me, speaking as a "newbie":  If I got a letter like
that, I would still be asking myself why I would bother and why this is
of use to me.  It wasn't until they did outreach in Toronto with a bunch
of us Canadians that I was finally able to wrap my mind around why this
stuff should matter to me.  John L gave a really good presentation as
did others.  They brought up problems/concerns/ideas that I, as a
general internet user, hadn't even thought of.  For someone like you
that is REALLY into this stuff, I can understand why you would think
that such outreach is silly but it does help those of us that aren't
knee deep in ICANN related issues like you are.
3.  In San Juan, ICANN was so concerned that the NARALO form up that we
all had to miss the meetings that would have given us a grounding in the
current ICANN issues and such.  So, great.  We've formed up and now I
see this big discussion about the RAA and I am completely unable to give
the slightest opinion on it because I am just completely uninformed
about the issues and will likely stay this way until the next meeting.

So, basically, in a lot of ways you are right.  Why aren't we talking
about the issues?  Well, I do not feel that I can because I don't think
that I understand enough about them.  So, in order to try to "help out"
in the best way that I can, I've done the Secretariat thing to try to do
what I feel I am able to do.  I don't think that I am alone out here in
feeling left behind and uninformed.  Its even worse in the other
regions.  So, part of our "Outreach" was going to be education.  That is
what I, personally, think is really needed.

Apparently, though, ICANN does not feel this way and would rather have
the "window dressing" of having a RALO, whether its effective or not.

As to people contacting ICANN - yes, registrants will do so in a
"Registerfly" type of fiasco.  But what about the end users?  They,
IMHO, don't even know that this type of thing happens (I didn't before
my involvement with ICANN).  That is why I think we need to do outreach
and education.

So, if you ever want to call me (or e-mail me privately) as to why you
don't think this effort went ahead before, feel free.  Other than that,
I look forward to seeing you in LA and look forward to hearing you speak
on a subject that you know more about than God himself!

D

Darlene A. Thompson
Community Access Program Administrator
Nunavut Department of Education/N-CAP
c/o P.O. Box 1000, Station 910
Iqaluit, NU  X0A 0H0
Phone:  (867) 975-6531
Fax:  (867) 979-8870
dthompson at gov.nu.ca

-----Original Message-----
From: Danny Younger [mailto:dannyyounger at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 1:18 PM
To: Thompson, Darlene; Nick Ashton-Hart
Cc: NA Discuss
Subject: Outreach Plan

Darlene,

With regard to an outreach plan, the text below may be
of help; it comes from the naralo.info website (now
decommissioned -- you can still view it through
archive.org) that I set up for my local ISOC chapter
many years ago:

1.  Organizations throughout North America need to be
contacted and made aware of the opportunities for
participation in this endeavor.  On the "organizations
page" you will note that a list is being compiled of
organizations that possibly may be responsive to this
initiative.  The list is being built by feeding
keywords to search engines such as COMPUTER USER
ASSOCIATIONS, PUBLIC INTEREST ORGANIZATIONS, etc.  
Deadline for this segment of the project -- February
20.  If your organization is not on this list yet,
please send us a note.

2. Upon completion of this Outreach List, chapter
members will divide the list into manageable units for
contact purposes.  Contact addresses will need to be
researched, and letters and/or e-mail will need to be
sent to these organizations so that they may be aware
of the opportunity for involvement.  A proposed
introductory letter is posted here:

Subject:  Organizational collaboration requested 

To:  the members of [ORGANIZATION],

We, the members of the New York Chapter of the
Internet Society, have launched a project to
facilitate the expression of the public interest to
the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN); if at all possible we would
appreciate your collaboration in this endeavor which
calls for the eventual launch of a North American
Regional At-Large Organization to channel such public
input to the ICANN Board (please note that ICANN is
the private sector, non-profit corporation with
technical management responsibilities for the
Internet's domain name and address system).

Project details are posted at:  [URL] 

At this time we are seeking to collect "Expressions of
Interest" from the community which will be forwarded
to the Board-appointed North American representatives
on ICANN's At-Large Advisory Committee.  We ask you to
review the nature and scope of the project, and to
decide whether your organization might be willing to
participate in this effort.

Should your organization choose to become involved, we
ask that your correspondence be sent to the following
address:  [e-mailing address]

Deadline for initial organizational outreach efforts
-- March 20.

3.  As we will be collecting "Expressions of Interest"
from organizations throughout North America and
posting information pertaining to these organizations
on the website, it is imperative that a Privacy Policy
be established and posted.  Deadline for policy
development -- March 20.

4.  In that the At-Large community consists of
individuals as well as organizations, efforts need to
be made to reach out to non-affiliated individuals;
this will require the drafting and posting of letters
to appropriate venues (examples:  Slashdot,
ICANNwatch, community discussion lists, etc.).  A list
of such distribution channels will be compiled here: 
[URL]

Deadline for the list preparation -- February 20. 

Deadline for initial outreach to individuals  -- March
20.  

If you are aware of other outlets for such
correspondence, please send us a note.

Additional project steps will be added in due course.
--------

Darlene, please note that our chapter received an
extremely limited number of positive replies to this
initiative.  I'll be happy to speculate on why this
was the case if need be...

Frankly, while I am not keen on the concept of
pursuing outreach (as I am of the view that when
people want to contact ICANN they will -- as
illustrated by the flood of correspondence during the
RegisterFly fiasco) I am offering this "plan" as a
possible guide in the spirit of mutual assistance
(even though I don't support the expenditure of such
effort that in my view could better be applied to
policy development or fact-finding initiatives).

best regards,
Danny

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