Re: [ga] Getting Heard by the ICANN Board

[Veni Markovski <veni@xxxxxxxx>]

Karl,
a note on your comments - you were a director until June 2003, when I 
joined. Things with staff - board relations are quite different 
today; people should reach conclusions about today's ICANN based on 
your experience. Perhaps it's good to say that, so that there's no 
misunderstanding.

veni

At 11:43 AM 13.12.2006 '?.'  -0800, Karl Auerbach wrote:
> Bret Fausett wrote:
> > We're fortunate to have at least three current or former Directors 
> > on this list. In recent days, we've seen posts from Roberto Gaetano 
> > (the new Vice-Chair of the ICANN Board) and former directors Veni 
> > Markovski and Karl Auerbach. I wonder whether we could hear from 
> > each of them about what influences(ed) their thinking when they 
> > consider(ed) an issue before the Board.
>
> I interacted directly with everyone I could reach.  I was not 
> passively waiting for interaction to occur; I would initiate 
> it.  And it often involved several rounds of questions/answers in 
> order to clarify words, ideas, concepts, and values.
>
> And it was a lot more than 5 minutes per email.  Many often took 
> hours to consider and absorb.
>
> Sometimes I had to dig down and do some investigation of my own - as 
> when the .tw ccTLD seemed to be running its own, inconsistent, root.
>
> During ICANN meetings I would make a positive effort to sit in the 
> public rooms so that I could be found and engage in discussions.
>
> I also wrote papers, talked to reporters (there are some smart 
> reporters out there who really ask good questions, the kind of 
> questions that can make one think hard about why one holds a given 
> point of view.)  And I gave testimony to Congress.  I visited the 
> folks at NTIA a couple of times.  I even went to the ICANN offices 
> where I interacted with certain members of staff who could be 
> described as extremely capable and constructive.
>
> Some members of ICANN's staff, on the other hand, actively worked 
> against me. For example, ICANN's webmaster ignorred every request to 
> publish on ICANN's website any thing that I had written even though 
> such requests from other directors, and previous directors, and 
> certain members of "staff" were routinely honored.
>
> ICANN's staff was utterly useless.  They presented, if they 
> presented at all, only very condensed summaries, that dismissed or 
> ignorred that material that went against staff position.
>
> ICANN's law firm was a downright disaster.  I learned to give 
> absolutely no credit to any advice they would give - it was often 
> incorrect or self-interested.
>
> Other members of the board could have been asleep as far as I could 
> tell, or perhaps they had super-abilities?   For example one board 
> member, acting alone and without special expertise in accounting, 
> was described (in a court document) as having absorbed about 12 feet 
> thick of accounting reports in a short morning's review.
>
> Among the board of my time the technical expertise about networking 
> was near zero.  I had to spend a lot of time giving tutorials to the 
> board on how DNS and other parts of the net worked.
>
> The email discussions among the board were rarely focused, almost 
> never drilled down onto issues.  Live meetings (by phone or in 
> person) were run as time constrained serial monologues, again 
> without the ability to drill-down onto an issue.
>
> I wrote about nearly every decision I made in an online diary.  I 
> tried to record the input to my choices, my rationale, the values 
> and criteria I used, etc.  I tried to refrain from speaking about 
> what other directors did.  I even pointed out when I had made a mistake.
>
> Apparently ICANN's staff and certain directors were privately 
> incensed that I did this, and it is my understanding that ICANN now 
> encourages current directors to interact with the public only via 
> ICANN press-managers.  Certainly from experience it is true that few 
> ICANN directors ever discuss matters with the public.
>
> I tried to read public comments and reports.  I even read the 
> contracts, although I clearly missed a few big klunkers, like the 
> 5-day grace periods.
>
> And I abstained when I did not have enough information.  (An amusing 
> thing was that other directors gave me quizzical looks when I would 
> abstain from approving minutes for meetings where I was present.  I 
> think things have improved on that teensy point.)
>
> As a director I understood that my duty was to make informed and 
> independent decisions.  That meant, to me, that I had to make an 
> active effort to learn from primary and secondary sources.  I did 
> not put great faith staff summaries or positions; I felt that to do 
> so would be an abrogation of my responsibility of independent 
> judgement and my experience had taught me that staff reports would 
> not make me "informed".
>
> And look what happened when I tried to exercise my duties to inquire 
> into ICANN's financial status, I was blocked by staff and certain 
> members of the board (who are still on the board) and ended up 
> having to spend months on end in a legal battle that I finally won 
> during a 5 minute hearing in which ICANN's actions were declared unlawful.
>
>                 --karl--


Sincerely,
Veni Markovski
http://www.veni.com

check also my blog:
http://blog.veni.com