[NCUC-EC] Fwd: [NCUC Finance] Budget Requests for Policy Conferences
Edward Morris
edward.morris at alumni.usc.edu
Sun Jun 9 14:41:01 CEST 2013
Hi Bill,
I have no interest in getting involved in a pissing contest with each
other, and I know you don't either. I hope you can accept the fact that
Carlos and I came away from out little Beijing meeting with a certain
understanding, things changed as opportunities arose that you reacted to in
an effort to push things forward...you certainly did tell us what was
happening. it may just be a question of leadership style. You once asked me
where I came up with these people, when you mentioned the need for a
brochure and I had two pending members who might be able to help us
out.That wasn't an accident. I set Buenos Aires as a goal, asked what I
wanted to accomplish, targeted people I knew who could help me achieve my
goals and recruited them. I tend to set goals, create a strategy,
implement the strategy. You're more of a fly by the seats of the pants type
of guy. You certainly have long range vision, the committee idea was
nothing less, but you're pretty flexible and adaptable in ways I'm not.
Both ways of doing things are not absolute, have various pluses and
minuses, but create a certain tension when in concurrent operation.We see
that here. What you may see as an opportunity, I may view as a diversion.
Neither viewpoint is right or wrong, merely different perspectives of the
same set of circumstances.
You have led with great energy, great passion, great integrity. No one
should doubt that William Drake has done everything he could to make the
NCUC a viable, energetic, exciting place to be. I greatly admire what you
have tried to do and am very sad at the energy you've had to expend facing
opposition that has no real reason for being.
I can't pretend any more that I'm heading a Membership Affairs committee.
There is no such committee. We tried InReach and Outreach, had some initial
minimal interest, people made committments to do things, but not one person
did what they promised me they would do. We are all volunteers, we take
what we can get, we move on. I tried to reboot things by combining the
committees, I asked people what they would like to do and received one
response. Sensing a failure of leadership I offered to step down as
facilitator but no one seems to want to replace me.
All of this reminds me of being a remote moderator at EuroDig last year.
There was no one to moderate. "Ed, any questions from our remote
participants?". "No, Wolf, no questions yet." No questions? There was no
one remotely participating! We can pretend we have committees but we really
don't, at least ones that function. Our vaunted EP committee is actually
two guys doing their best with input from some really helpful members of
the community.
Please do not take this as a criticism.The committees were a fantastic
idea, They should have worked. They didn't, but not from any lack of effort
on your part. Now what? One approach would be to try to create a more
sustainable structure for the Constituency...Budgeting, travel, special
projects...the things I want to get on the agenda for Durban. I'll try to
get a list for you midweek. Do with it what you will. I do have another
idea, Bill, one that I hope you'll think seriously about...one that gives
your plan and vision another chance:
Reboot the EC. If Norbert decides to step down, I would like to offer to do
the same. This is a multiyear project, and I currently have no intention of
returning for year two. I'll find other places I can contribute, I'm
starting on a DT tomorrow for example, and you deserve people around you
that you can count on being with you for the duration. If Norbert and I
both step down you can reboot the entire project, take an 18 month view,
and by replacing 2/5 of the EC, bring in new blood, get people around you
more in tune with your management style, get some excitement going and
hopefully achieve everything you've set out to do. I want this to work. We
need this to work. That it hasn't already doesn't mean with new impetus it
can't. A reboot with new people in leadership roles...please consider. It
just could be the thing that could work.
Respectfully,
Ed
On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 10:09 AM, William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch> wrote:
> Hi
>
> I was just looking for something in Sent Mail and stumbled across this,
> thought I would share it with the EC list in light of the view expressed
> here last week that there'd not been enough consultation about the decision
> to not do a policy conference in Durban but instead partner with APC and do
> a smaller outreach thing. A train of messages followed this one on
> different lists and bilaterally over the next two months.
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *From: *William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch>
> *Subject: **[NCUC Finance] Budget Requests for Policy Conferences*
> *Date: *March 22, 2013 5:42:54 PM GMT+01:00
> *To: *Finance Team NCUC <finance at lists.ncuc.org>
>
> Update: we will not file a FTR for Durban
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *From: *William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch>
> *Subject: **[NCUC Beijing conference] Budget Requests for Policy
> Conferences [URGENT]*
> *Date: *March 22, 2013 12:56:48 PM GMT+01:00
> *To: *EC NCUC <ncuc-ec at lists.ncuc.org>, Program Team NCUC <
> beijing2013 at lists.ncuc.org>
>
> Hi
>
> While I hate conversations that spill across two listservs with only
> partially overlapping memberships, Fast Track Budget Requests are due
> today, and I would like input from the Program Team as well as the Exec.
> Comm. Decisions have to be made and potentially implemented and this will
> take time, so I would really appreciate any and all helpful inputs from
> anyone here.
>
> After the Toronto policy conference went well, some folks here got all
> enthused and started saying hey let's organize a conference at every ICANN
> meeting, NCUC's full of academics who organize meetings all the time and
> this will be our special market niche, ICANN staff loved the conference and
> wants us to do more, etc. First stop was to be Beijing. Mary and I
> expressed strong reservations about how easy it'd be to do this there,
> whether ICANN really would want to 'risk' its charm campaign for Chinese
> engagement by having the 'trouble makers' from NCUC organizing something
> where unpredictable types could make comments about FoE and such, etc. But
> everyone else was psyched, so we shut up and rolled with it. And so it
> turned out that ICANN in fact didn't want us to do this and would only give
> us two hours, the programming of which seems not to be progressing too
> rapidly.
>
> But, I understood, staff were ok with us doing something in Durban, lights
> were green. However, since I'm working on FT requests I thought hmm better
> be sure lights really are green and we don't need to do anything, so..
>
> On Mar 22, 2013, at 8:07 AM, William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch> wrote:
>
> On another note, I sent a message to Xavier yesterday just to check and be
> sure that ICANN support for a policy conf. In Durban is locked in (I'd
> understood the traffic to mean that when they shot us down in Beijing it
> was sweetened with 'but Durban is ok'). Uh, no. He says no commitment of
> support was made and of course we have to submit a Fast Track request.
> Glad I asked...Ay yi yi...
>
>
> I'm now wondering about the wisdom of rushing out a request for a meeting
> in Durban. I would like to suggest a different path, which is to hold off
> and try to do one serious policy conference per year at the Annual Meeting.
> Buenos Aires is in November, so we'd be asking for support via the regular
> budget cycle (requests are due 19 April). Some reasons:
>
> - I don't believe the staff really thinks NCUC has some special market
> niche with conferences and panels, as lots of (preferred) parts of the
> 'community' are doing this now and will be in the future. To me, it
> actually seems like they're in a rather different place, as evidenced by
> this terse reply from Xavier, "I am not aware that any approval for funding
> has been given by anyone for Durban or Buenos Aires. The requests for such
> have not yet reached us and I don't know any other channel that could have
> appropriately been used to obtain such approval." So right after there's
> been some testy back and forth about what they did or didn't commit to do
> for us in Beijing, it's not obvious that it'd be good timing to immediately
> turn around and ask for money for the same thing in Durban. We might not
> get the desired response if we're viewed as just pushing pushing all the
> time on this. And if we start making multiple regular budget requests for
> conferences, I suspect things could get more difficult. To me, it'd make
> more sense to make one patently 'reasonable' request per year, which is to
> do a conference as part of the annual meeting.
>
>
> - I worry that we might overplay our hand with Fast Track Requests if
> we ask for Durban money and lose out elsewhere. Robin already has Fast
> Track Requests she's planning on submitting today for NCSG EC travel to
> meetings, NCSG brochures and communiques per meeting, and NCSG travel to
> the IGF. In parallel, I'm submitting for NCUC brochures and travel to the
> IGF. Plus we are submitting SG and UC replies to the GNSO Tool Kit
> Services survey asking for new money for webcasts, wiki support, record
> keeping and member data base…So we're hitting them with a lot of requests,
> and while the amounts aren't large perceptions may be, plus they'll be
> getting many other requests from across the community at the same time to
> divide up a fixed Fast Track pie. I would be pissed if we got turned down
> on expenses that might really raise our profile among new audiences and get
> new members, like the IGF workshops I mentioned and the brochure, because
> we also asked for $ for Durban.
>
>
> - I am somewhat skeptical that we actually have the capacity to be
> constantly organized policy conferences. SF and Toronto took a good deal
> of time, Beijing planning is just inching forward with just two weeks to
> go, and there are other drains on our respective ICANN bandwidth
> allocations, such as the constituency building effort. Once a year I think
> we can do and do well, the other meetings we can ask for a workshop in the
> main program like we have now. Seems like enough to me.
>
>
> - *In the particular case of Durban, if we're really pumped to do
> something outreach oriented, we probably can do it without an all day
> conference with ICANN support. If we work with the APC folks we could try
> to organize a meeting with African civil society off site, it'd not be hard
> as they have a big presence there. Maybe something in the afternoon with a
> work component and then an evening social component...*
>
>
> - And even if you all disagree with me and really want to ask for
> Durban money, here's the thing: I just found out we'd have to request it
> today, and I have absolutely no idea what I'd be asking for, which
> conference logistic components funded at what levels etc. I've had zero
> interaction with staff on these matters previous, and being eight hours
> ahead of California am not going to be able to get trained up by Robin
> (who's probably in bed at the moment) before going out for the evening in a
> few hours (other commitments, life). I can get out the FT Requests I'd
> planned on, but realistically cannot pump out a credible Durban request
> today. So the only way it could be done is if Robin submitted it on behalf
> of NCUC. Personally, I'm not persuaded that'd be a good idea, and would
> rather hold for Buenos Aires and a regular budget request in April.
>
> Thoughts, please?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bill
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Beijing2013 mailing list
> Beijing2013 at lists.ncuc.org
> http://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/beijing2013
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Finance mailing list
> Finance at lists.ncuc.org
> http://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/finance
>
>
> **********************************************************
> William J. Drake
> International Fellow & Lecturer
> Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
> University of Zurich, Switzerland
> Chair, Noncommercial Users Constituency,
> ICANN, www.ncuc.org
> william.drake at uzh.ch
> www.williamdrake.org
> ***********************************************************
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ncuc-ec mailing list
> Ncuc-ec at lists.ncuc.org
> http://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncuc-ec
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-ec/attachments/20130609/6d0347fd/attachment.html>
More information about the NCUC-EC
mailing list