Best Bits: Agenda Organization Options

[William Drake]

Hi Jeremy

Thanks for moving this forward.  Your message to the governance list today prompted me to have a non-cursory second look at the draft schedule, and I'm wondering if we might not want to consider others options before locking in on the present version, which is:

Day 1 - Saturday
09:00 - 10:45 - Internet governance history and review
11:00 - 12:45 - The ITU and the International Telecommunications Regulations
14:00 - 15:45 - Declarations of Internet rights and Internet governance principles
16:00 - 17:45 - Process towards enhanced cooperation on Internet public policy issues

Day 2 - Sunday
09:00 - 12:45 (stream 1) - Drafting a civil society statement to WCIT
09:00 - 12:45 (stream 2) - Drafting civil society IG principles for the IGF
14:00 - 15:00 - Streams return together, present and discuss draft texts from morning
15:15 - 17:00 - Next steps
17:00 - 17:30 - Press conference and close

Thoughts:

1.  We all have lots of experience with splitting meetings into break-out drafting groups and views on its utility.  I'm in the camp that thinks that in a setting like this, the costs would significantly outweigh the benefits.  I strongly believe it'd much better if everyone can be in on both conversations and approach all the potential outputs holistically.  

2.  I don't think it's optimal to devote day 1 to three big topic areas and then return to two of them on day 2 and try to draft texts.  I'd rather keep the flow of discussion and thinking on each piece all together than break it.  Moreover,

  a. If we're not drafting on enhanced cooperation, why spend two hours talking about it?  As we all know, there is a full-day meeting organized by APC, ISOC and ICC the day after Best Bits.  Enhanced cooperation will also be taken up in a main session, an Euro Commission Open Forum (oddly enough), etc.  So it's not clear to me what the value added of loading this into an already heavy schedule would be.  

  b.  I wonder about the efficacy of trying to write something serious, in a group context, from a full stop, on WCIT and IG principles in the time allotted.  If all we're shooting for is a page and half of high-level generalities fine, but if we're trying to actually influence governments and other stakeholders it could be more demanding.  

  c.  I wonder about the need for panels and panelists.  

  d. For a two-day meeting that comes before another day of meetings (enhanced cooperation, GigaNet symposium, ISOC, ministerial, etc etc) and then four long days of IGF, I would suggest trying not to make this feel like an endurance testing marathon.  

3.  Hence, I would like to suggest what I believe would be an easier, more focused, and ultimately more productive and enjoyable approach:

Day 1 - Saturday
09:00 - 10:45  	Group review and discussion of the state of play and our goals regarding global IG principles  
11:00 - 12:00   Organization and mapping of drafting exercise
13:30 - 17:45	Drafting civil society IG principles for the IGF

Day 2 - Sunday
09:00 - 10:45  	Group review and discussion of the state of play and our goals regarding WCIT
11:00 - 12:00   Organization and mapping of drafting exercise
13:30 - 17:45	Drafting a civil society statement to WCIT 

Just my preference…others may have others, so how about let's discuss and decide together?

BTW, perhaps in a separate thread, we might want to discuss what's supposed to be done with these statements.  How exactly do we see "principles for the IGF" and a "statement to WCIT" feeding into the respective processes, etc…

Best,

Bill

***************************************************
William J. Drake
International Fellow & Lecturer
Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
University of Zurich, Switzerland
william.drake at uzh.ch
www.williamdrake.org
****************************************************

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