[governance] New ICANN participation website

[Kieren McCarthy]

Just a quick announcement about a website I have set up for ICANN to provide 
remote participation for the Sao Paulo meeting starting on Monday.

You can find it at: http://sp.icann.org/

It is broadly the same as the IGF2006.info that Jeremy Malcolm and I set up 
for the IGF, except it is official. I was approached by ICANN's 
communications head and asked if I would consider doing something similar. 
After some umming and erring on my part I decided that better me than 
someone else so I have been killing myself this week setting it up.

The way ICANN sees it, it is very much a pilot site -  although I know they 
are hoping it will prove its worth so it can become a more permanent 
fixture. As such I encourage you all to use it as much as you can. It is the 
same very simple registration process, wherein you immediately get your own 
blog and posting rights to the site.

Because ICANN already has its own systems, processes, supporting 
organisations etc etc, unlike the IGF, I have set up two levels of 
registered user so those at the head of the various bodies will have the 
ability to create new chatrooms and forums. Hopefully this will encourage 
people in charge to interact with the site (rather than ignore or fear it), 
plus get everyone else to approach those in charge (or find out who it is) - 
for example, ask a Board member to set up a chatroom during the Board 
meeting. I have yet to set up all those accounts so bear with me.

But it is an incredibly open website and covers the meeting pretty well I 
think, although of course any and all suggestions are welcome. If anyone's 
interested, I'm still not sure if I'm going to Sau Paulo or whether I'll 
stay in the UK, which might actually be more useful from an online 
participation perspective.

If people want to complain about me personally setting up this site, feel 
free to email me, although you can expect a robust response. But apart from 
that, most importantly, please do use it. It opens up a wealth of 
opportunities and my hope is that if people find it useful it will encourage 
them (and that includes ICANN staff) to interact more online which - I hope 
I am right in assuming - everyone on this list views as a good thing.

Oh, also I understand that through being tied up with this for a week, I 
have inadvertently delayed the sending of the letter to the IGF Secretariat 
about future online interaction between stakeholders. My sincerest 
apologies, I will get on the case straight away and post the letter as a 
last opportunity for people to put their names to it.

The ICANN site again is at  http://sp.icann.org/.




Kieren McCarthy 

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