[At-Large] Sorry, long message

Mon Oct 22 17:34:17 UTC 2012

Roberto, your message demands a more thorough and thoughtful reply 
than time permits today, but I for one am delighted with your offer 
and welcome your contributions. I will have a more specific reply in 
the next few days.

For those who are younger than I am in ICANN years, Roberto is a 
former ALAC member (from the days of the Interim ALAC), a past (and 
excellent) ALAC Liaison to the Board and a NomCom appointee to the ICANN Board.

Regards, Alan

At 22/10/2012 11:49 AM, Roberto Gaetano wrote:

>Hi all.
>
>I am not sure whether it is appropriate to send this email to these lists,
>but please feel free to use the delete key.
>
>I have been following the recent events, including the Toronto meeting, from
>the distance.
>
>Now that I have a little more time, I would like to become more active, and
>I am trying to figure out which is the best way.
>
>The question is basically where can I provide an added value, and what are
>the topics that are more interesting to me (there is no point in taking
>commitments to do things that I feel unimportant or uninteresting, as the
>logical consequence would be to drop the commitment eventually).
>
>My main problem with ICANN is that, as I also told the new CEO in Prague,
>the stakeholder model is not fully operational. There are stakeholder groups
>that are less influential in the policy making process for a number of
>reasons. Although I agree on the fact that ICANN should not become a
>parliament, where each component of the internet community has to be exactly
>represented according to some metrics, nevertheless we must aim at having
>all voices heard and at having the decision making process to take into
>account all those voices.
>
>My "natural" constituency is the AtLarge: I have no direct commercial
>interest nor specific contractual or technical role in the internet
>community, so ALAC fully represents my profile. My choice is therefore to
>become active in ALAC, and specifically within my local community, the
>EURALO. I have no affiliation with any ALS, but EURALO accepts individual
>members.
>
>The areas in which I would like to concentrate the always insufficient time
>and effort are described below (not necessarily in priority order).
>
>.         Outreach and participation
>
>We all know that outreach is important for every stakeholder group, but it
>is even more important for ALAC. Our community is sparse, composed of
>individuals and organizations that have a "mild" interest in ICANN, in the
>sense that their daily life is not perceived as being affected by internet
>policy decisions, because either their income does not depend from the
>internet, or because their problems related to the internet are more
>depending on issues outside the scope of ICANN (for instance, basic
>connectivity is more important than the introduction of new gTLDs). However,
>we are aware that the active part of ALAC has the consistency of a rounding
>error compared to the potential AtLarge community: people who have never
>heard of ALAC or that have no interest in joining vastly outnumber the
>volounteers that are active in ALAC. Under these circumstances, the growth
>of ALAC and the increase in active participation in policy development is of
>the paramount importance for our recognition. An incredible amount of work
>has been done on this topic, with excellent results, but I do believe we
>have to do more to further increase the number and variety of stakeholder
>represented by us.
>
>Therefore, I would like to participate in the outreach sub-committee.
>
>.         Alliances and synergies
>
>We have established, thanks to the current and previous leadership and hard
>work by the volounteers, excellent relationships with large parts of the
>internet community. I remember in the early days of ALAC the way other ICANN
>constituencies were suspiciously looking at us, and often considered us
>unable to provide added value to ICANN (and even in more recent days, when I
>was on the Board, it has been very difficult to convince some fellow
>Directors that ALAC deserved the recognition of a full Board seat).
>
>
>However, even in this case, I believe we need to do more.
>
>One of the areas where I can help is the ccTLD community. I have always said
>that there are huge similarities between the ALAC and the ccTLD community:
>for instance, we both must "think globally" when we develop policy
>positions, but must at the same time "act locally" because our membership is
>deeply rooted in the local community. Incidentally, we share this same
>structural feature with the GAC: they also have a strong "local"
>responsibility.
>
>When I was at ALAC/EURALO, I tried to liaise with CENTR: I participated to
>CENTR meetings, presenting ALAC and the potential synergies with the ccTLDs.
>I did not achieve immediate results, the close connections we have today are
>the effect of the good work of the people following me. Nevertheless, I
>think that the plant has grown also because I have participated to plant the
>seed, and that I can provide further contribution in this direction.
>
>I am not posing a candidature for the succession of Cheryl, once she will
>move to a different task, but I believe I can be of some help in liaising
>with the ccTLD community.
>
>.         Internet governance
>
>Although this item is abundantly covered by the excellent people we have,
>who are very active in the different internet governance fora, I believe
>that my past experience with international organizations could be helpful. I
>will not have the resources (time and finance) to attend meetings, but I can
>read documents and exchange opinions by email.
>
>.         ALAC recognition
>
>This is another sticky point. You have witnessed my rant on the issue of the
>collection of input on policy and its processing by the Board. This is a key
>issue: the community will have no incentive to provide volounteer work if
>the result is not affecting the Board's decisions, but on the other hand
>failure from the community to provide input on policy will give an excellent
>excuse to the "ALAC-skeptical" party on the Board for dismissing our
>contribution and role.
>
>There is no easy solution: produce input on policy issues, and follow up,
>demanding justification on Board decisions that might look as not having
>taken contributions into account.
>
>In summary, this is what I would like to contribute on. Of course, with the
>constraints of the limited time I have and the very limited budget I have
>for participation to events. And of course provided that the points I list
>are considered strategic priorities.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Roberto
>
>
>
>
>
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