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

[Kilnam Chon <chon@cosmos.kaist.ac.kr>]

ben,

thank you for your informative explanation.
i have further questions assuming we would carry a similar workshop 
regularly such as annually if the funding is secured.  we would also have
the joint tld workshop regularly, possibly every june-july.

1. do you have any recommendation what "workshop" or seminars we would 
   have next march when we have icann meeting in africa?

2. what about next july when we have icann meeting in japan?

3. are these regionally coordinated workshops appropriate?  or shall we
   have globally coordinated workshop instead?

chon

On Mon, Nov 15, 1999 at 09:53:13PM -0500, Ben Edelman wrote:
> > 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.