[NCUC-EC] NCUC Brochure

[Milton L Mueller]

Just weighing in

I totally support the idea of having a brochure for Durban!

I would advocate making the brochure a lot simpler and more focused on essential contact information and "branding" and far, far less text-heavy than the EuRALO brochure that we were shown. The EuRALO brochure is crisp and well done but I think it kind of misses the point in this day and age: the point is to establish a basic identity in the holder's mind and to provide them with the contact information and motivation to go to the online materials where they can get serious information.

When I saw Ed's price quote ($350 for 1,000) I wondered WhyTF we are even bothering with ICANN. That's precisely the kind of thing we can easily do with our own budget. I don't mind using ICANN's money for that at all, however, I just wonder whether the constraints (tight deadline) and risks (will they actually deliver it on time?) are worth it. Hell, I would personally pay for it myself and bring them in my suitcase if I were going to Durban, but I am not, so we need to use other options.

We don't want to print more than 1000 at a time, by the way, information gets dated really fast, so once we have established the template let's keep it in a format that is easily modifiable and print 1000 for every ICANN meeting.


From: ncuc-ec-bounces at lists.ncuc.org [mailto:ncuc-ec-bounces at lists.ncuc.org] On Behalf Of Edward Morris
Sent: Sunday, June 09, 2013 6:33 AM
To: William Drake
Cc: EC NCUC; membership-affairs at lists.ncuc.org
Subject: Re: [NCUC-EC] NCUC Brochure

Hi Bill,

Thanks for all of the hard work you've put into this. As you know I'm completely supportive of your efforts in this regard and hope we can pull it off sometime during our one year term of office.

As you know, what I've been able to come up with is an individual, Viktor Szabados, who has applied for membership and has some experience designing brochures and publicity materials. I found a printer who provides templates (the cost would be about $350 per 1,000) and thought that might be the best way to move forward in a rather rushed fashion for Durban. I asked Viktor if he could commit to trying to make this happen in a condensed time frame in the manner outlined and his response, received this morning, was "yes I think I can do it...I usually set the design, idea and concept but certainly could try to use the template."

Regardless of reason, you know I had been on a Buenos Aires timetable when asked to speed things up for Durban. I offered to try and think we could do it by the 12th with the complete commitment of all involved. Not an ideal situation time wise, lots of logistical problems...but possible.

I have absolutely no objection to having ICANN provide production of the brochure. It seems to be the logical way to do things if we want something by Durban. It's a one shot deal, it doesn't make us reliant on ICANN going forward and we're merely taking assistance they have already provided other groups so I don't believe it's a violation of Milton's equality principle. Of course, I would never pretend to speak for Milton and he may have other thoughts.

With what we have planned for Durban I think it would be a great idea to have something like this. I regret the June 24th time frame makes it something I'm unable to commit to helping out on. I just returned home from a one week conference abroad, I'm starting a WG tomorrow, I'm way behind on some research I've promised others in time for Tuesday's NCSG meeting and I have a very beautiful and understanding SO who is a bit ticked off at the amount of time I'm spending on this stuff compared to the amount of time I'm spending on her. Our lease expires at the end of the month so we're also trying to find someplace to live.  So I can't give the time needed to make this happen in the next two weeks but certainly hope others can and you are able to pull it off.

Ed

On Sun, Jun 9, 2013 at 10:46 AM, William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch<mailto:william.drake at uzh.ch>> wrote:
Hi

In March I submitted a Fast Track Budget Request to ICANN for some money for print materials (FYI I submitted six budget requests in total, visible at https://community.icann.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=38045777 if anyone's interested).  I noted that  NCUC does not have any printed materials to use in outlining our activities, explaining our positions, and soliciting new members. I asked for support for two products: 1) a Brochure with information on our organization, members, and roles; and 2) Issue Briefs to be released prior to each of the 3 annual ICANN meetings that provide concise summaries (1-4 pages) of our stances on key current issues, as well as an About NCUC section with basic information and pointers to recent activities of note.  The Brochure would be geared in particular toward prospective new members in the constituency, e.g. civil society organizations and individuals in developing countries. As needed, the Issue Briefs would be calibrated to reach different types of audiences, e.g. the tech press, the wider mass media, ICANN insiders, Internet governance generalists, etc.  ICANN replied that the request was not eligible for Fast Track consideration for FY 13 but said I should resubmit it as a Regular Budget Request for FY 14, which I subsequently did.  But I also pressed them for clarification on why we needed to wait to do anything with print materials when other groups' requests for the same were approved, the amount involved was small, and we had Durban coming up, and got back this accountant-speak reply,

On Apr 18, 2013, at 7:28 AM, Xavier J. Calvez <xavier.calvez at icann.org<mailto:xavier.calvez at icann.org>> wrote:Printing materials funding was approved up to $30,000 as part of the FY13
additional budget requests and funds remain available for printing
materials for the Durban meeting, which would be used in June (prior to
the end of FY13) for use in the July.
As a result, Durban materials can be covered, and the FY14 request
submitted will be deferred to the Regular Track review period and a
decision will be made by end of June.

Meaning, in short, we could get funding to do something for Durban.  The Issue Brief idea we can put on hold, we don't have the bandwidth and time to do one now anyway, but a little brochure should be possible, which would be particularly useful since we're doing this outreach event with the African Internet governance school.  I asked Ed if he'd be willing to take the lead on making it happen in the context of the Membership Affairs Team, and asked ICANN for confirmation that the funding would be disbursed and for clarification of how this would work logistically.  I have now received the following reply:

On Jun 7, 2013, at 11:47 PM, Lynn Lipinski <lynn.lipinski at icann.org<mailto:lynn.lipinski at icann.org>> wrote:


Hello, Mr. Drake. I reviewed your message about the design and printing of the flyer for NCUC to use at the ICANN 47 Durban meeting.

Our preference would be that ICANN does the printing for you, rather than that we reimburse you. We can combine your printing job with other printing jobs we are doing for Durban, including the printing of a newsletter for the ISPCP.

This would mean that we also need your final artwork no later than 24 June 2013. Is that deadline doable?

We could also enlist the services of a graphic designer to do the layout. If you are interested I can get an estimate, and the cost could be covered by the Outreach Materials funding.

This is not quite what I initially had in mind.  Since some members of NCUC have been reluctant to accept ICANN's assistance with certain organizational functions out of concern that staff might seek to control/shape/slow up/impede processes based on perceptions of our content etc.,  I would have preferred to sidestep such concerns by doing everything ourselves and just getting ICANN to reimburse.  But if it's administratively easier for them to do it this way, and assuming we don't intend to produce a brochure containing language sharply critical of ICANN, I at least am willing to roll with their approach rather than spend cycles pushing back and trying to get a different deal.  I would rather spend the bandwidth available for this project just getting good content together.  I hope that's ok with everyone.  If not, and someone wants to take the lead on hassling with staff over this, I'd be happy to defer to your efforts.

Here's what I have in mind.  As I've noted in prior messages on this (our conversations have a way of forum shifting so I have to rewrite a lot), I've also been on the board of directors for Euralo, the European At Large org, for the past five years, and Euralo did an outreach brochure a few years back which I attach to this message for your consideration as a rough starting point model.  With a little tri-fold like this, we have six panels to work with.  Presumably we should have a top page that's visually grabby and uncluttered; a couple panels about who is NCUC and what do we stand for, how and why to get engaged and participate; a couple panels on the issues we work with and positions we take; and a panel on what is GNSO and what is ICANN (the text for which ICANN could provide with addresses etc., per the Euralo example...or we can write it but they might insist on editing).


So, they are asking for the content by 24 June-two weeks.  Can we make this happen?

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Bill




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