Updated as of 26 August 2013:
Thanks to all of the volunteers who have signed up, we no longer need volunteers for the Advisory Group.
ICANN is engaged in a strategic development and incubation process for new digital engagement tools and services, which will result in a reconceptualization of ICANN.org. The goal of the strategy is to drive community engagement across a continuum of potential involvement: from the general interest public-facing communication that happens on ICANN.org; to deeper engagement experiences that enable new and existing community members to discuss and educate themselves on a wide variety of governance topics; to experiences in which community members learn more about working group activity.
After a number of community discussions in Durban, it seemed that in addition to the online participation which is occurring on ICANNLabs that the project could benefit from more regular community input from a core group of interested people. It was suggested that Staff consider creating a community Advisory Group that would provide additional guidance and support on a regular basis.
Here's more detail on this potential committee:
Name: Digital Engagement Advisory Group
Type: Ad-hoc advisory group to advise the development team working on the Digital Engagement Project
Timeframe Commitment: Approximately 6 months (or the duration of the Digital Engagement Project).
Start Date: The first meeting is tentatively scheduled for August 28th.
Administrative Info:
- The group will meet via conference call and Adobe Connect and will have a mailing list.
- There may be a face to face meeting in Buenos Aires, schedules permitting (no funded travel).
- The calls will not be recorded.
- The group will decide on the best means of tracking discussions (wiki page or other).
Objective: To advise and guide the highly strategic digital engagement project; to help ensure that the project achieves the desired goals.
Roles and Responsibilities: The group would meet every other week (2x per month) for the duration of the project. Meetings are expected to last 1 hour. However, this may change depending on the group and the project. Members will be encouraged to participate in prototype testing and provide feedback, as well as offer input and guidance on project documents, such as metrics for success, problem statement and others.
Group Membership: For management and efficiency purposes we would like to limit membership to 20 people (or less) but otherwise there are no restrictions on who can participate. People are free to join at any time during the project. Given the goals of the project an interest in promoting general engagement with ICANN and broadening the breadth and diversity of participants is desirable. We encourage participants from developing regions to join as it's my belief that they will profit most from this project. We also need representation and voices from constituencies as we need to ensure that engagement leads to meaningful participation within a structure or constituency.