[bestbits] Steering Group - who are we?

Sun Nov 3 07:47:30 EST 2013

Dear all

I have taken the liberty of revising the original thread title to 
address Parminder's request for more clarity about the BB steering 
group, at least from my perspective.

It is an interim steering group in that a number of us (self)nominated 
or were nominated to join. I have been on there in an individual 
capacity but also on behalf of the IRP Coalition, both capacities still 
on an interim basis as setting up Best Bits was done quite quickly and 
to date indeed many decisions and actions have taken place at a fast tempo.

So, as is the case with all the various networks we are all 
participating in I look forward to this interim group becoming an 
endorsed or elected one for all the reasons that Parminder and others 
have noted.

To the Statement that Best Bets has authored; this statement, drafted at 
the Best Bits pre-IGF meeting in Bali, was indeed released without all 
of the Steering Group being present. As it is now a baseline document 
for ongoing discussions it now being public can hopefully focus those 
discussions as the ICANN-Brazil Summit meeting remains as yet unclear in 
terms of participation and intent. To this end, the report that Joana 
Varon and others compiled of the Bali meetings is very helpful for us 
all to consider.

To me, thinking back over several months of intense email traffic and 
output emerging from the Best Bits initiative, perhaps the adage "more 
haste, less speed" might be one we could apply within the interim 
steering group and as a wider network that dovetails with many others. 
Ignoring or overlooking these many others is not the best way forward in 
the long run, and it is the long run that matters I think even if things 
appear to be happening at breakneck speed. Appearances can be deceiving!

Hope this clarifies things from one Best Bits Steering group member 
perspective; I am claiming here to speak for all others. In terms of my 
current responsibility towards informing the IRP Coalition of key Best 
Bits outputs, the current steering group is working on these procedures 
as indeed we must.

best
MF

On 03/11/2013 06:36, parminder wrote:
>
> On Saturday 26 October 2013 05:23 PM, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
>> On 26 Oct 2013, at 11:53 am, parminder at itforchange.net 
>> <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
>>
>>>> Yes it is the same, with those suggestions incorporated, and reviewed.
>>>
>>> Thanks for the information, Jeremy...
>>>
>>> Who reviewed and incorporated the suggestions, and 'finalised' the 
>>> statement.
>>
>> The steering committee (except Marianne who presented apologies) at a 
>> meeting the previous night.
>
> In fact, the lack of clarity of the process is so high that I no 
> longer know who are members of steering committee... Dont  those who 
> consider themselves members of the BB group kind of need to know such 
> basic stuff...
>
> One process issue that was raised repeatedly at the BB f2f meeting was 
> about clarity about steering committee members and where they 'came 
> from'..... there was a demand that their association with groups/ 
> organisation etc be very clear, along with nature of funding support 
> etc, and I would add - if not explicit on the respective websites - a 
> basic statement of organisational objectives, vision/ mission etc, and 
> list of activities and the such...
>
> parminder
>
>
>>
>>> My only suggestion was not incorporated - neither responded to... 
>>
>> That, though, was just an oversight - I really apologise for that. I 
>> actually thought that we had incorporated the only two outstanding 
>> points and evidently overlooked this one, or thought it had already 
>> been incorporated.
>>
>> Somewhat explaining this lapse, we were very pressed for time as we 
>> wanted it to go public on the last day of the IGF, and by that time 
>> the BB server was already down, though I didn't yet realise how 
>> badly. I spent a few hours that night trying to bring it back up.
>>
>>> It was
>>> regarding the main operative part of the sentence - the second 
>>> sentence -
>>> which seek multistakeholder model of holding the conference. I had
>>> proposed that we instead ask specifically for civil society to be an 
>>> equal
>>> partner in all processes of holding the conference..... 
>>
>> However I do think this is covered pretty well anyway, if you take 
>> the statement as a whole.
>>
>> -- 
>> Jeremy Malcolm PhD LLB (Hons) B Com
>> Internet and Open Source lawyer, consumer advocate, geek
>> host -t NAPTR 5.9.8.5.2.8.2.2.1.0.6.e164.org <http://e164.org>|awk 
>> -F! '{print $3}'
>>
>> *WARNING*: This email has not been encrypted. You are strongly 
>> recommended to enable PGP or S/MIME encryption at your end. For 
>> instructions, see http://jere.my/l/8m.
>>
>

-- 
Dr Marianne Franklin
Reader
Convener: Global Media & Transnational Communications Program
Co-Chair Internet Rights & Principles Coalition (UN IGF)
Goldsmiths, University of London
Dept. of Media & Communications
New Cross, London SE14 6NW
Tel: +44 20 7919 7072
<m.i.franklin at gold.ac.uk>
@GloComm
https://twitter.com/GloComm
http://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/staff/franklin/
https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-global-media-transnational-communications/
www.internetrightsandprinciples.org
@netrights

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/bestbits/attachments/20131103/51c72f14/attachment.htm>