[NCUC-DISCUSS] ICANN Audited Financial Statements for FY14 are published!

[Milton L Mueller]

Hmmm. What are "payments _on behalf of_ Directors"???

--MM

From: ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org [mailto:ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org] On Behalf Of Timothe Litt
Sent: Sunday, November 2, 2014 7:36 AM
To: ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org
Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] ICANN Audited Financial Statements for FY14 are published!

On 01-Nov-14 12:39, William Drake wrote:
Hi

Also may be of interest-board compensation. https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/fy14-board-payments-31oct14-en.pdf

I'm sympathetic to the argument that hard working board members should receive some compensation for lost/deferred wages and opportunity costs more generally.  On the other hand, it's also true that the system is entirely dependent on volunteers being willing to put in significant pro bono blood, sweat and tears.  Maybe the community should track its hours of free labor for publication on both an individualized and aggregated basis?  :-)

Cheers

Bill

"Some compensation" - the amounts are more than many full-time high-tech jobs in the U.S. -- not to mention less expensive countries or other occupations.  I don't begrudge them the compensation - but it's a good reminder that this is a non-profit *business*.  Like the Red Cross, United Way, Public Broadcasting, ...  (Does ICANN belong to NPOC? :-)

I did see the :-) on tracking pro-bona time, but I do have a serious reaction.

I'm not sure that expending the energy to tracking 'free labor' hours is worthwhile.  These efforts tend to end up in a bureaucracy - do we then start trying to value it?  Corporate manager types don't understand volunteer hours unless they're turned into dollar equivalents.  Lawyer hours, engineer hours, consultant hours?  Travel costs?  Computer resources?  Valued at local billing rates, or in California dollars?  Does a 1AM local time meeting get valued at overtime rates?  Do hours count travel time, or just on-task time?  Are they audited?  I could go on...

And don't forget the involuntary 'free labor', a.k.a. donations in kind by those whose job responsibilities include, or informally require work in this area.  One can argue whether the employee, employer or both are contributing - but someone pays the bill.  Many of these people make efforts to create influence policy for the common good - beyond the narrow interest of their employers.  In any case, this is effort that ICANN doesn't pay for.

While (most) everyone appreciates recognition for their efforts, before the idea of tracking gains too much traction: what tangible benefits would accrue?  Would these data move the needle on any issue?  Or increase participation in any activity?  What could be accomplished with the same amount of effort applied to the difficult issues that we face?

Oh, and the law of unintended consequences: Would anyone look at his data and say "Wow, I'm spending THAT much time on this.  Better re-prioritize..." :-)  Before giggling too hard, note that I've done that with some activities that I really enjoyed.

It's probably sufficient to estimate the effort from easily available data: how many hours of teleconference/webmeetings * # participants * prep/follow-up factor.  All but the last should be available for the asking from the vendors.  And I'm sure we could have endless hours of discussion and employ multiple (expensive) consultants to come up with the last item, before arriving at '2' :-)

For dollar value, multiply by the average board member's compensation divided by the number of board meeting hours attended.

Seriously, it's worth remembering that the system lives on volunteer efforts - in fact, the internet was largely built on them.  And it's worth reminding everyone that the volunteer/pro-bona effort continue.  But I'd need a lot of convincing before I'd agree to setting foot on the slippery slope of tracking time.


Timothe Litt

ACM Distinguished Engineer

--------------------------

This communication may not represent the ACM or my employer's views,

if any, on the matters discussed.

This communication may not represent my employer's views,

if any, on the matters discussed.

On Nov 1, 2014, at 9:24 AM, William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch<mailto:william.drake at uzh.ch>> wrote:

Hi

It's that time of year again, ICANN's financial reports can make for interesting reading.

Best

Bill

As of June 30, 2014, 322 New gTLDs were delegated in the root zone, $36,574,000 revenues from the fees.



Begin forwarded message:

From: "Xavier J. Calvez" <xavier.calvez at icann.org<mailto:xavier.calvez at icann.org>>
To: ICANN Staff <icann-staff at icann.org<mailto:icann-staff at icann.org>>, "community-finance at icann.org<mailto:community-finance at icann.org>" <community-finance at icann.org<mailto:community-finance at icann.org>>
Date: October 31, 2014 at 8:47:18 PM GMT+1
Subject: [community-finance] ICANN Audited Financial Statements for FY14 are published!

Dear all,
The audited financial statements for FY14 are available on our website! Please feel free to share the news and let me know if you have any questions.
https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2014-10-31-en.

Thanks,

Xavier

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