[council] Berard comment on impact of new gTLDs - draft letter

[<john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thomas,

As much as I like stirring the pot, I wonder if we can do one or two
things to this letter than have less to do with its content, but its
character.

I know that Bertrand is a member of the Board Structural Improvements
Committee, but I don't think that is what motivated his request. Neither
is he on the New gTLD Committee.

He is likely hoping to help solve a problem, much as he tried to do in
Cartagena at the Council dinner even before he was seated on the Board. 
Because of that, could we address the letter to the Board overall (or
either of its committees?) and change the opening paragraph to note the
request from Bertrand?

I hate the thought that I am getting mired in the kind of kabuki that I
often rail about, but I am uneasy about upsetting Board comity.

My two cents.

Cheers, 

John Berard
Founder
Credible Context
58 West Portal Avenue, #291
San Francisco, CA 94127
m: 415.845.4388



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [council] Impact of new gTLDs - draft letter
From: Thomas Rickert <rickert@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, September 11, 2012 3:01 am
To: GNSO Council List <council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

All, in preparation of this week's GNSO telco, please find below the
draft letter in response to Bertrand de La Chapelle's request for input
on the impact of new gTLDs. I would like to thank Brian Winterfeldt, Joy
Liddicoat, Osvaldo Novao, Zahid Jamil, Stéphane van Gelder, Wolf-Ulrich
Knoben and Jeff Neuman for their contributions.


I am looking forward to discussing this with you.


Best regards,
Thomas


Dear Bertrand,
the GNSO Council would like to thank you for the opportunity to provide
feedback to your request for input on the impact of new gTLDs on ICANN's
structure.
 
As you know, the Council as well as individual SGs and Constituencies
have been discussing this important subject for a long time now. It has
also been a topic during face to face meetings between the GNSO Council
and the Board and GAC as well as with the ccNSO. Some groups have
already or will respond to the Board directly and our impression is that
they are confident to have taken appropriate steps to address the
upcoming challenges. 
 
As far as the Council is concerned, here will most likely be
quantitative and qualitative challenges. What these will be and their
size can hardly be predicted. 
 
In qualitative terms, there may be new requests to form constituencies
and new stakeholder groups in both houses, some of which may be
re-configurations or alignments of existing groups.




Since this is an unknown factor, the effects on the democratic and
participatory process of the Council and the response to that are yet to
be seen. However, we would like to highlight that ICANN is already
publishing information on how to participate (see
http://gnso.icann.org/en/about/participation.htm) including information
on how to form a Constituency. Thus, the information and processes are
available to be inclusive.
 
In quantitative terms, challenges are more predictable in some aspects.
For sure, there will be 
- more attention by the general pubic and Governments;
- more attendants at meetings, which has an impact on sizing the venues;

- more groups that need administrative and technical support;
- more telephone conferences with more participants and more remote
participation;
- more documents to be produced and read; 
- more decisions to be made and operationalized;
- more contractors that need to be managed;
- an increased budget to be administered;
- more compliance issues that need to be taken care of; 
to name but a few areas of growth.
 
While ICANN should have sufficient funds to meet these challenges,
growth needs to be managed carefully. More staff and other operational
resources will be needed to support the community and fulfill ICANN's
mission while preserving operational excellence. 
 
These quantitative challenges require managerial responses that ICANN
can prepare for. Such preparations should also encompass the increased
burden on volunteers to deal with even more and potentially more complex
material to work on. Processes and support schemes for volunteers should
be designed to best possibly avoid volunteer fatigue.
The unknown is what new groups will be established and what their place
and role in the ICANN eco system shall be. However, additions will only
lead to marginal changes that can be dealt with once they are known.
 






































In summary, the GNSO Council believes that the current structure is
resilient to respond to the challenges to come as long as ICANN provides
the resources required to accommodate an increasing number of
participants / stakeholders and their respective needs.  






Thank you,
Stéphane van Gelder
GNSO Chair