[NA-Discuss] Regarding Monday's NARALO meeting

Evan Leibovitch evan at telly.org
Fri Oct 14 18:43:07 UTC 2011


To me the ICANN Strategic Plan is a massive waste of time and energy, not
just on the part of At-Large but of all of ICANN. In fact, at this critical
time (i.e., US Government contracts up for renewal, changes at both CEO and
Board Chair, and increasing pressure from governments to scrap the whole
experiment), such an energy consuming exercise in "navel-gazing" simply
calls public attention to the extent of which ICANN is out of touch with the
community it is supposed to serve. I truly believe that the abandonment of
this charade of creating laminated motherhood statements and diversion of
energies to matters more pressing is urgently called upon.

It doesn't help that, in all the time I have been involved with ICANN (which
is longer than some but MUCH shorter than many) ICANN has never lived up to
the aspirational plan, allowing staff rather than the community to really
determine priorities regardlss of what the nice words say. We have witnessed
this first hand, as most of last year's work within NARALO and led by Gareth
on the last Strategic Plan input was merely shunted aside -- and now we're
being asked to start all over again with no greater likelihood of success.
Compounding the farce is the charging of this same staff with evaluating its
own success.

So, while I intend to participate in the call, I will probably sit out the
part on the strategic plan, and read a book or do something else that is
actually useful.

- Evan



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