How to achieve more community involvement in selecting topics at ICANN meetings & speakers?

[Hakik Rahman]

I couldn't refrain from making a comment. I agree 
with you, may be I 'll also sound naive, but like 
your both ideas, though the first one would be easier to me.

Thanking you,
Hakik

At 09:24 AM 3/22/2011, tlhackque wrote:
>I've watched this list for some time.  It seems 
>that railing against the ICANN staff is a 
>favorite pastime. Call me naive, but I'm willing 
>to believe that the staff isn't evil. Seems to 
>me that there are two reasonable approaches to 
>having more influence: 1) Identify the key 
>staff members, form a positive relationship and 
>educate them on our issues and 
>perspective.  Start by setting up regular 
>meetings; eventually they'll call us. 2)Â 
>Encourage ICANN leadership to recruit staff 
>from our community - identify good prospects, 
>see if we can have a representative in the 
>hiring/interview loop - so we have people 
>inside at at the table. Join them; don't beat 
>(on) 
>them... 
>--------------------------------------------------------- 
>This communication may not represent my 
>employer's views, if any, on the matters 
>discussed. Â  We need more community involvement 
>in the planning of the discussions / meetings 
>held during the various ICANN weeks. Besides the 
>usual Board/AC/SO/ Constituency meetings held 
>during ICANN weeks, the ICANN staff unilaterally 
>plan a number of sessions that should require 
>input from the community. For example, last week 
>in SF's ICANN meeting there was a 90 minute 
>session on "DNS Abuse" in which ICANN staff 
>unilaterally organized for a series of law 
>enforcement officials to provide a "parade of 
>horribles" in order to justify less consumer 
>privacy protections at ICANN. When I asked ICANN 
>staff why there wasn't any privacy experts 
>speaking during the public session, the staff 
>member said they "assumed privacy was not an 
>issue" so did not think to invite any. Obviously 
>this is a problem. ICANN staff unilaterally 
>deciding what the discussions topics are, what 
>the important issues are, how to present them, 
>what speakers to invite, and what perspectives 
>get heard. The way these discussions are framed 
>obviously plays a key role in steering the 
>direction of the policy development process. All 
>of us Internet users are paying for ICANN, we 
>really should have more of a say in how it is 
>run and the substance of the discussions planned 
>during ICANN week is a good place to start. 
>These discussions are a place where the 
>community should frame the discussion and set 
>the topics, while staff merely facilitate the 
>wishes of the community. It feels too much like 
>the the tail is wagging the dog at ICANN. How 
>can we the community begin to wrestle some 
>control away from the staff in terms of how 
>topics are selected and how discussions are 
>organized during these meetings? Thanks, Robin 
>　 　 IP JUSTICE Robin Gross, Executive 
>Director 1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA 
>94117 USA p: +1-415-553-6261 f: +1-415-462-6451 
>w: http://www.ipjustice.orge: robin at ipjustice.org