[NCUC-EC] invoice from Systopia

[Mueller, Milton L]

Dear EC members
Today I initiated the transfer of funds to the German company that is providing IT services to the NCSG.
Rob Hoggarth of ICANN has confirmed that ICANN will reimburse the expense, and presumably this includes the $45 international wire transfer fee.
In the course of making this payment, I took a closer look at the invoice. (I have attached the invoice so you can see it too.)

First of all, please note that we are being charged $130 per hour by this firm. That's a pretty high rate.

Second, Tapani has told us that this expense is the second year of a startup cost and will not recur. Looking at the invoice, I wonder whether this could be confirmed. The activities listed in the invoice include things like "Create mass mails, collect responses, generate voting lists" and "List of change requests." 
It is unclear whether these charges are ongoing services or the one-off creation of capabilities. This needs to be clarified.  As Treasurer, my advice would be to get a complete copy of the agreement that Tapani or someone has with this company so we can get a better idea of what they do and what kind of longer term commitments NCSG is getting in to. I think the EC also needs to think carefully about whether the IT systems being created by this company are things that can be easily transferred from one person to another as our officers change. 

I have copied our NCSG Executive Committee members because they can take this up at the SG level. Please take this quite seriously, as $8500-9000/year would be our single largest expense. Even if ICANN reimburses this expense, we don't want to get into a situation where we are depending on $130/hour services. 

Dr. Milton L Mueller
Professor, School of Public Policy
Georgia Institute of Technology
Internet Governance Project 
http://internetgovernance.org/ 


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