[NA-Discuss] Board Public Meeting - The Update for Prague

Carlton Samuels carlton.samuels at gmail.com
Fri May 4 19:27:04 UTC 2012


Beau:
We're on board with your suggestions.  So you know, I requested the TAS
issue for the Ex-Com Agenda next week.  And the CoI matter was among those
put forward when questions for the Board from At-Large were solicited by
the Chair.

Might be useful if you keep track of the Ex-Com conversations and later,
the ALAC monthly meeting to see that your concerns are properly reflected
in whatever goes forward.

I was happy to see Brett's contribution to the thread; it added some things.

- Carlton

==============================
Carlton A Samuels
Mobile: 876-818-1799
*Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround*
=============================


Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 4 May 2012 11:12:20 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
> From: Beau Brendler <beaubrendler at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] [At-Large] Public Board Meeting - the Update
>        for     Prague
> To: Eduardo Diaz <eduardodiazrivera at gmail.com>, Bret Fausett
>        <bfausett at internet.law.pro>
> Cc: NA Discuss <na-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
> Message-ID:
>        <
> 12375111.1336144341016.JavaMail.root at mswamui-backed.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> I believe it was discussed and decided fairly quickly last week. It's
> funny, I find myself without much to say about it, because for at least
> three years now ICANN has not funded me to stay for Friday's meetings, so I
> have not attended one. I don't think they are doing away with the public
> forum, however. Though I know I am in the minority here, I find that to be
> a waste of time as well.
>
> What I have occasionally found helpful are the interactions between the
> board and the at-large group at the three annual meetings -- sometimes it's
> a breakfast, sometimes it's a lunch. On a few occasions it has provided an
> opportunity to grill board members on problematic topics.
>
> However, last time, I found the interaction to be predictably scripted. We
> spent the time talking about cross-functional teams or some sort of useless
> topic. If this public board meeting is going to go away, then what should
> happen -- since the at-large is supposed to represent the public interest
> -- is that the at-large should tell the board what it wants to discuss in
> its meeting, and it should follow up on each statement ALAC has made since
> the last meeting to determine what the board has or has not done about it.
>
> For instance, in Prague, I suggest the at-large demand a full accounting
> of the TAS disaster. I suggest the at-large demand a full accounting of the
> board conflict-of-interest problems. I suggest the at-large demand a full
> accounting of what's being done to address the IANA contract issue. Not be
> shown some pre-scripted video, but have an actual interaction that's not
> phony. And it all needs to go on the public record.
>
> The at-large needs to take on a role similar to that of a major
> shareholder in a public for-profit company. Executive behavior should be
> its business; failure to execute should be its business. ALAC needs to be
> more outside the process looking in, not submerged in process issues that
> are essentially meaningless to the general public. If we are arguing to
> hold on to a meeting so that we can parse the body language of
> participants, then the entire philosophy of public interaction with the
> board needs to be re-thought.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Eduardo Diaz <eduardodiazrivera at gmail.com>
> >Sent: May 4, 2012 8:19 AM
> >To: Bret Fausett <bfausett at internet.law.pro>
> >Cc: NA Discuss <na-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
> >Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] [At-Large] Public Board Meeting - the Update
> for     Prague
> >
> >When and how was this announced?
> >
> >-ed
> >
> >On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 1:23 AM, Bret Fausett <bfausett at internet.law.pro
> >wrote:
> >
> >> I am very troubled by the decision to remove the public meeting. As I
> see
> >> it, this presents several issues for the community:
> >>
> >> 1) The Board meeting typically closes a cycle of community discussion
> with
> >> a vote/resolution on some issue, and these end-of-meeting Board
> resolutions
> >> are important. The deadline of closing an issue at a public meeting also
> >> keeps the Board on track. Do they still intend to meet and close issues?
> >> This needs to happen.
> >>
> >> 2) The public meetings became a bit of orchestrated theater over the
> >> years, but I still believe they served the purpose of showing the
> Board's
> >> professionalism in addressing and resolving difficult issues. Last
> June's
> >> meeting on New TLDs is the most recent example of this. Take a look at
> this
> >> picture from Singapore that ICANN features on its website:
> >> http://www.icann.org/en/about That's worth a thousand words. Note the
> >> people in the foreground using their camera phones to capture the
> moment.
> >> We're losing that.
> >>
> >> 3) Closing the monthly meetings while leaving these end-of-session
> >> meetings open was something of a compromise reached between a prior
> Board
> >> and the ICANN community many years ago. I am concerned that the Board
> >> decided to change the status quo without any notice and comment.
> >>
> >> 4) As always, ICANN is under scrutiny with the IANA bid still to be
> >> resolved and issues of transparency at the forefront of some of those
> >> discussions. The way this was handled (was there a Board resolution?
> >> Chair's decision?) only makes the optics worse. I can't seem to find any
> >> background on how this decision was made, or why it was made.
>
>



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