Question about NCUC faq relating to membership

[Alain Berranger]

Thanks Andrew,

I understand and appreciate your clarifications - no surprise for me and I
generally agree with your stated views here.

Indeed, we all have multiple "personalities" and I'm no exception! I also
understand the "expert" argument. I think experts should feed the dialogue
not necessarely always lead it...

Regarding my statement of interest in this, and to be transparent, I'm in
the process of requesting NPOC membership for CECI - see
http://www.ceci.ca/fr/ - one of the oldest and largest NGOs in Canada. I
sit on the Board of CECI since early October.

The issue I guess I'm struggling with is "who speaks for whom"? I do not
think individuals like myself or academics like yourself or IP lawyers for
that matter can speak for the global NGO/NFP community... no single
federations of NGO/NFPs like the Association for Progressive Communications
or the Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation and many others can
neither....Increasing the voice of NGO/NFPs in ICANN is very important and
if experts are to lead or feed their inter-stakeholders' dialogue, it
should be to inform the larger community on the practical concerns
regarding the internet and its consequences/impact on their daily work.

In relatively stable environments like Japan or Canada, just to name a
pair, NGO/NFP work is facilitated by a powerful and very accessible
internet. In environments like Ecuador and The Gambia, NGO/NFP work is a
life sustaining but also risky and even dangerous activity... I personally
strive to get thousands of NGO/NFP members into NPOC, because there can
only be real representation if there are sufficient numbers and democratic
representation. So I do not know who speaks for the NGO/NFP in ICANN really
until we have enough such organizations involved... a critical+ mass if you
wish.... NCSG has maybe 100 to 120 institutional members right now at best,
probably much much less if we require a corporate decision to join (NPOC
does that by the way), and creating NPOC was a struggle to begin with and
the subject of much tension and mistrust, which still is a wound that has
not yet healed... Meanwhile, I think we can only be taken seriously inside
and outside ICANN and do meaningful work, if we have hundred more if not
thousands of NGO/NFP members... so arguing about this NGO or this NFP being
a "real non-commercial" seems counterproductive to me!... You will surely
agree with me that academics support evidence-based decisions and the
definition of an NGO/NFP is not rocket science neither...

Yet, self-interest is core to human nature, can lead to great achievements
and drives most - I simply postulate that self-interest must take back seat
to the institutional/organizational vision and mission we work for, inside
and outside ICANN...

Best, Alain

On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 6:27 PM, Andrew A. Adams <aaa at meiji.ac.jp> wrote:

> Alain wrote:
> [snip]
> > In fact, there is a significantly different membership culture between
> NPOC=
> >  and NCUC... because NPOC is only interested in NFP/NGO organizational
> memb=
> > ers while NCUC mixes memberships from NFP/NGOs, academia (some could be
> for=
> >  profit) and individuals (who may also have for profit motives or even
> be i=
> > nvolved in two organizations, one for profit and one not for profit).
>
> Alain,
>
> Please note that your statement here conflates individual academics and
> universities. Yes, one could be an academic working for a forprofit
> university an be a member of NCSG-NCUC. However, that would only be as an
> individual. Even academics orking for for-profit institutions generally
> have
> a non-profit interest in the domain name system. No aademic would be
> permitted to represent a for-profit university within NCSG-NCUC membership
> rules, only themselves.
>
> Yes, people have multiple identities and an academic with a non-commercial
> interest in domain names could be an NCSG-NCUC member on that basis and
> also
> perhaps represent (their own spin-off commercial company perhaps) a
> commercial entity in another SG.
>
> The role of academics is to provide expert insight and (mostly)
> non-self-interested analysis. Most academics do not claim or want to
> represent their universities. Universities (the vast majority of which are
> non-profit, whether private or public universities) would generally be
> better
> represented in NCSG by computing staff rather than academics, usually,
> although sometimes senior academics are also senior computing service
> managers/directors (I know of two so there are probably quite a few more).
> --
> Professor Andrew A Adams                      aaa at meiji.ac.jp
> Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration,  and
> Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
> Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan       http://www.a-cubed.info/
>
>
>


--
Alain Berranger, B.Eng, MBA
Member, Board of Directors, CECI,
http://www.ceci.ca<http://www.ceci.ca/en/about-ceci/team/board-of-directors/>
Executive-in-residence, Schulich School of Business, www.schulich.yorku.ca
NA representative, Chasquinet Foundation, www.chasquinet.org
interim Vice Chair, NPOC, NCSG, ICANN, http://npoc.org/
O:+1 514 484 7824; M:+1 514 704 7824
Skype: alain.berranger
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