RE: [wg-e] WG E: Part 4 Awareness

["Ben Edelman" <bedelman@fas.harvard.edu>]

> 1. is the workshop successful?
>
> 	in what area does it contribute?
> 	what would you do if you have to do it again?

I tend to think the workshop was successful.

In particular, Louie Touton's morning tutorial on the proposed Fall '99
Contracts struck me as incredibly important -- for there are precious few
opportunities for him to explain either his personal take or the official
ICANN position on the issues raised by those contracts.  I think it was
important that he had the opportunity to present the complex documents in a
forum that allowed for meaningful real-time public comment on a smaller
scale than in the subsequent Open meeting, and I'd like to think the
Workshop session was at least in part responsible for the changes requested
by registrars and ultimately negotiated by parties to the agreements.  For
that alone, the workshop was a success in my book.

I was also struck by the afternoon TLD competition panel -- in which I
recall some interesting new suggestions from, in particular and surely among
others, Mockapetris and Mueller.

I would have liked to see the workshop more effectively demonstrate the
integration of remote participants with the physical room.  We did succeed
in using videoconferencing to bring in remote participants -- Michael
Frooomkin and Tamar Frankel patched in by video this time.  But even more
important, at least to me, is verifying that the existing remote comment
system is capable of being used more effectively than is currently the
case -- or determining modifications to be made to it to make it that much
more effective.  Regrettably, we had relatively few remote participants in
the Workshop -- only about 40 all day, and they collectively submitted only
six comments.  (See
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/la/archive/index-103199.html> for
complete archives.)  As a result, we weren't able to draw any conclusions
one way or another about our remote participation system from the
Workshop -- but we continue to use it in contexts not related to ICANN, and
we hope to make improvements based on experience gained from these outside
tests in addition to that from ICANN meetings.

> 2. do we want to have similar workshops in future?
>
> 	annually if so?
> 	what else topics do we want to cover if we do again?
> 	who else could do the workshop?

I think there's a lot that can be done within the existing framework of a
single day, spent entirely in plenary sessions, combining tutorials with
Socratic dialogues.  I imagine there will always be difficult and complex
issues that benefit from detailed presentation by appropriate experts, and
there will also always be controversial (but more easily understood and more
commonly understood) issues for which the Socratic
learning-through-discussion format is appropriate and well-suited.

That said, I believe the Socratic method is very much a phenomenon of
American law schools -- would be happy to be told I'm wrong, but I haven't
heard of its general use elsewhere.  However, the idea of the Socratic
method -- talking about a problem, forcing those advocating particular
positions to explain why they feel the way they do, expecting that those
watching and listening will come to understand the problem and their
respective positions that much better as a result of the dialogue among
panelists -- seems relatively universal to me, though perhaps that's not the
case in some or even many cultures.  Most problematic in the continuation of
the Socratic method will be that Socratic moderators -- especially *good*
Socratic moderators -- are hard to come by, as I understand it, so perhaps
some other format will be chosen by necessity... presumably at the choice of
whatever entity organizes the workshop.

What do others on the list think about the model of an outside
organization -- one that's been following ICANN and related issues, but not
ICANN itself -- hosting and organizing the workshop?  To me, that seems
entirely appropriate and for the best -- it makes the workshop feel far less
formal, and it provides leeway to discuss topics that, for one reason or
another, might otherwise be off-limits in an "official" ICANN-sponsored
event.  Ideally a local "host committee" would either organize or
"co-organize" the workshop?  Ideally a non-profit of some kind, an entity
without a (financial) stake in the outcome, perhaps a university?


> 3. can we secure necessary funding?
>
> 	how important/valuable is the workshop when we consider the
> 	limited funding and other activities?

I'm not sure -- I could argue either side.  On one hand, it's critical to
educate stakeholders on the difficult documents before them, it's arguably
necessary to bring in outside experts if ICANN is to succeed in some of the
more difficult challenges ahead (i.e. membership), and I think it's also
important to encourage, facilitate, and provide a forum for intelligent and
well-reasoned discussion and debate.  Yet it won't be cheap to fly experts
of diverse geographic origins to workshops held at any point on the globe.
We didn't have the resources to do it "right," so we relied primarily on
panelists living in California or who could pay their own travel, but that's
likely not a sustainable model.

Compared to expenses like producing a "What is ICANN?" pamphlet, improving
the various web sites, etc., workshops probably don't stack up that well --
they're relatively more expensive and have relatively less benefit per
dollar.  But after you've done exhausted all the "obvious" and
"exceptionally good value" means of outreach, periodic workshops seem a
reasonable approach to me, and I tend to support their continuation.