[governance] problem with the sessions: number of participants

[William Drake]

Hi Adam,

It's sort of ironic that the AG, which is appointed to provide high-level
expert advice on an optimal and balanced program, would as its main piece of
business ignore the one point on which seemingly everyone, including AG
members, agreed about Athens---too many panelists.  9 to 16 participants in
a two hour session is just nuts.  Either the moderators run excessively
tight ships sharply limiting and frustrating the panelists, or there will be
inadequate time for Q&A with the floor.  It seems unlikely that a majority
of attendees will come away satisfied, and in the case of CIR, on which lots
of people will have things they want to say, there will be frustration (at
least among those who wanted this on the agenda) if the conversation
doesn't focus and cumulate in any manner, which it won't with 14 speakers.
I'm hard pressed to see how this could be good for the IGF's public
perception, political support, and future development.

I also think the idea of discussants is unhelpful.  These folks will feel
like second class citizens, particularly if being in the category is
publicly understood to mean that they had "less support from the AG;" it
will be difficult to keep them satisfied with their constraints (if
"panelists" get five minutes, what do discussants get, one or two minutes to
say their piece?); and it'll waste time cycling between the two groups.

This is yet another reminder that poorly organized processes produce poor
results:  AG members tossing names into a hat without knowing what other
names have already been suggested by colleagues; and a necessarily additive
representational/interest group selection process, rather than just focusing
on who would be likely to have something interesting to say irrespective of
which group they're identified with.  Personally, I'd have taken the Noah's
ark approach, get two value-adding speakers from each of four stakeholder
species (excluding international orgs that will get to show their wares in
Open Forum sessions), and stop there.  If anyone's disappointed not to get
on because of this constraint, well, sorry, but it's taking one for the
team.

I suppose the one good piece of news is for the workshops.  If the main
sessions are as you describe, maybe more people will opt to skip them and go
attend parallel sessions that are actually well planned and focused, with
manageable line-ups of speakers.

Cheers,

Bill

On 10/16/07 5:47 PM, "Adam Peake" <ajp at glocom.ac.jp> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Not good news about the selection of speakers for the IGF.
> 
> The sessions are now 2 not 3 hours, but at the moment we have not
> found a way to reduce the number of participants, like Athens still
> around 12-16 per session.  Still draft, which I why I am writing for
> advice. There's time to cut the numbers, if only we knew how...
> 
> The process so far.  My understanding is the secretariat took all
> names received from different stakeholders (including
> self-nominations). Collated the names by session they had been
> recommended for, tried to find out if people were actually attending,
> and sent a list of all these names to the advisory group for
> comments.  Advisory group members then sent their recommendations
> from that list back to the secretariat, there was some discussion,
> but not much.  Recommendations were sent blind to the secretariat, in
> most cases members didn't know who others were recommending.
> Recommendations included moving people from sessions they had
> originally been suggested for.
> 
> Last Thursday the secretariat sent list which they had divided up as
> people who had support from among the advisory group being named as
> panelists and discussants, and people lacking support being dropped.
> Those with most support from among the advisory group were listed as
> panelists, suggested they will be able to make an initial comment of
> about 5 minutes (no powerpoint.)  Next level of support have been
> suggested as discussants.
> 
> There's not been much discussion about the distinction between
> panelists and discussants. I think discussants will be brought in
> after a round of questions and comments from the floor.  They'll be a
> kind of second wave, with shorter statements, perhaps give specific
> examples to highlight some topic, or ask questions for the panel, or
> try to move the discussion along if it becomes bogged down on one
> issue or looses track, etc. (only my guess as to what they might do.)
> I am not sure where the idea for "discussants" came from originally.
> 
> The numbers from last Thursday's list are:
> 
> Critical Internet Resources:  14 participants (8 speakers, 6 discussants)
> Access: 15 participants (6 speakers, 9 discussants)
> Diversity: 12 participants (8 speakers, 4 discussants)
> Openness: 15 participants (9 speakers, 6 discussants)
> Security: 16 participants (7 speakers, 9 discussants)
> Emerging issues: 9 participants (4 speakers, 5 discussants)
> 
> It's not clear if all of these are actually attending, but seems most
> will be (probably all.)
> 
> The list of panelists and discussants doesn't look too bad from a
> civil society perspective (some holes, but not too bad.)
> 
> Some AG members are still suggesting moving people from the discard
> list (of course there are good people in that group) back as
> panelists or discussants.  So we are tending to see names being added
> rather than cut.
> 
> What do we do?
> 
> I think there should be no more than 9 on any session, perhaps 5
> panelists and 4 discussants (5 & 3 better of course.)  But that would
> mean dropping a lot of good people.  There is no agreement among any
> stakeholder group on who to select.
> 
> Very clear message from Athens that large panels are not acceptable,
> they don't work.
> 
> Going for the smaller number means less CS on the sessions.  Some of
> us won't be happy.
> 
> So what do we do and how do we do it. (Note the lack of time, less
> than four weeks to the start of the meeting.)
> 
> We should not make the list of names public.  We've no right to do that.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Adam
 



____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance