<div>Milton,</div>
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<div>As I said in a previous response to Bill, I agree the capacity to form Working groups - or maybe initially Discussion Groups or Interest groups - is what will make the difference between the IGF as a mere annual get-together and it being a real, useful process.
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<div>I suggest this is an issue that could be discussed more thoroughly <strong>in the mmwg</strong> in the perspective of the preparation of the May meeting, to suggest preliminary rules for the formation of such groups.
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<div>Two suggestions in that context for the meeting in Athens :</div>
<div>- <strong>BoF (Birds of a Feather") meetings</strong> : each annual event, including the IGF in Athens should allow some time, as suggested by Bill, for open parallel sessions more or less formal, initiated by stakeholders according to the concept of BoF Meetings used in many professional conferences and the IETF ("Birds of a Feather" meetings are explained here :
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoF">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoF</a>). The space where the Athens meeting will take place should therefore have a number of small rooms available that could be reserved by people to hold such meetings. This could actually form an important
<strong>capacity-building component of the IGF</strong> and could be presented as such, if background information is posted online for people to understand the various dimensions of the issue.</div>
<div>- A <strong>Poster Session</strong> <strong>for issues not retained on the Agenda of the first IGF</strong> : during the February consultations, I suggested (see point 11 in my intervention at : <a href="http://www.intgovforum.org/contributions/Contribution_BPC_Feb_17_06%5B1%5D.pdf">
http://www.intgovforum.org/contributions/Contribution_BPC_Feb_17_06%5B1%5D.pdf</a>) :</div>
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<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<p align="left">11) A poster session in Athens for issues not retained at this first annual meeting<br></p></blockquote></font></b><font face="Arial">During the Athens meeting, stakeholders who submitted issues not retained for the main thematic sessions would be given the opportunity to make short 3-5 minutes interventions in a special poster session of 2 hours in order to further feed the agenda-setting process. This innovative session (in a format already implemented in the Tokyo regional conference in 2003) element is useful to introduce for two reasons:
<br></font><font face="Times New Roman">- </font><font face="Arial">to keep engaged actors who care about a theme that was not retained and would like to see it taken into account in the future<br></font><font face="Times New Roman">
- </font><font face="Arial">to facilitate the early identification of emerging themes, in accordance with the very mandate (para 72 of the Tunis Agenda) of the IGF</font>
<p align="left"><font face="Arial">This poster session concept (that can also include the reporting of parallel sessions) is very important to guarantee that even if there is a limit on the number of issues addressed in formal thematic sessions in Athens (I still support 4- 6 rather than 3), other issues are not prevented from being at least mentionned during the first event.
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<p align="left"><font face="Arial">Ideally, this Poster Session would take place the last day in the morning for instance to allow some reporting on the BoF sessions described above and the announcements related to the setting up of bottom-up Interest/Discussion Groups for the period post-Athens.
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<p align="left"><font face="Arial">Best</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="Arial">Bertrand </font></p><br><br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 3/25/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Milton Mueller</b> <<a href="mailto:mueller@syr.edu">mueller@syr.edu</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><br>>>> "William Drake" <<a href="mailto:drake@hei.unige.ch">drake@hei.unige.ch</a>> 3/24/2006 1:54:54 AM >>>
<br>>So process and substance demands are intrinsically linked.<br>>If we're going to send them multiple topical suggestions and<br>>say these are all important to us, I think we should also a) call<br>> for at least one and maybe two days in Athens being devoted
<br>>to parallel workshops, any outputs of which could then<br>>be brought into the plenary sessions; and b) an agreement that,<br>>per MMWG, topical working groups can be formed bottom-up,<br>>formally linked to the IGF, work virtually, and present any
<br>>outputs and recommendations at Rio. Where<br>>there's consensus, the Athens workshops could serve as the<br>>boot-up moment for the creation of such groups.<br><br>Drake's comments are very important and on point, I endorse them and hope that everyone here follows this path.
<br><br>Dr. Milton Mueller<br>Syracuse University School of Information Studies<br><a href="http://www.digital-convergence.org">http://www.digital-convergence.org</a><br><a href="http://www.internetgovernance.org">http://www.internetgovernance.org
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