[governance] Speakers for IGF - ideas?

[Dan Krimm]

Veni,

The missing link here is still that ICANN outreach probably does not make
an effort to connect the techie details to issues of general public
interest.  Can you point me to the ads themselves anywhere?  I'd like to
see what they contained.

General journalists are generally not experienced enough to make
connections between techie details and public interest, but they are there
(though many insiders at ICANN seem to want to systematically shield that
reality from non-experts).

It could simply be that all the ads were ineffective at informing a general
public of the connection to their public interest.

The "general people" should not even treat the phone company as "their
phone company" these days.  The net neutrality movement in the U.S. is
making some headway there.

It's a difficult thing to explain how these policy developments at ICANN
affect general public interests, but when they are actually explained in a
way that general public people can understand, it does increasingly make a
difference.

I have a hard time believing that the ads had any potential at being
effective in this regard.  I don't know whether those writing/designing the
ads simply didn't have the expertise to do it right, or intentionally tried
to obscure the connection, but I suspect that one or both of these things
may have compromised the potential effectiveness of the ads.

Also, ad placements have to be widespread and consistent over time.
One-shots have little effect compared to ongoing campaigns, especially if
they are general in nature (adverstising ICANN as an institution rather
than advertising specific policy-making process that the public ought to
pay attention to).

Advertising is not automatically effective if it is poorly targeted,
conceived, designed and placed.  If those were the problems, then one
cannot claim that there was effective advertising in the first place.

In the experimental sciences, we call this "systematic error" in the
experimental process.  Of course, it help to have professional experts in
the area where one is experimenting, in order to design and execute a valid
experiment.

Do the people who were designing the ad campaign have professional
expertise in advertising and marketing, as well as enough expertise
available in both the technological and policy aspects of the pitch to get
the right message together for the right audience(s)?

I have my doubts.  Not to criticize anyone personally, but institutionally
ICANN may not be getting the right people in place to do this sort of job.

Dan


At 10:04 PM -0400 9/6/07, veni markovski wrote:
>Dan,
>
>you are missing one minor, but important point, which should be in
>the foundation when we talk about public interest in the work of
>ICANN. See below.
>
>At 18:45 9/6/2007  -0700, Dan Krimm wrote:
>
>>If you don't know to type-in "icann public comment" into Google, why would
>>anyone even know or think to do so?  It takes a separate promotional
>>channel to get the word out generally, so that "general people" have even
>>the first reason to explore in the first place.
>
>Last year the NomCom circulated widely information about its work,
>and the fact there's a nomination window opened. This included, but
>was not limited, to Internet web sites, ads in the Economist, the
>International Herald Tribune (check
>http://www.icann.org/meetings/marrakech/captioning-nomcomm-29jun06.htm
>) Here's what George Sadowsky said:
>
>"In recruitment, we're trying some new things this year. What's on the screen
>is advert that appeared in "The Economist" I think it was about two weeks
>ago. It was a quarter page advertisement and we are fortunately receiving a
>few statements of interest, or at least receiving some interest as a result
>of this.
>And we are also going to place an advertisement in the "International Herald
>Tribune" probably next week.
>These things have to be tried. We are looking at ways to reach out beyond
>the ICANN community, and hopefully we are learning from new ways to do
>outreach and recruitment. "
>
>and then read this:
>http://www.icann.org/meetings/saopaulo/captioning-icannpublicforumpt2-07dec06.htm
>
>"WE USE THE ICANN FAMILY VERY HEAVILY FOR RECRUITING.
>WE TRIED ADVERTISING THIS YEAR, AND IT DIDN'T PAY OFF.
>WE ATTENDED A NUMBER OF MEETINGS, BOTH ICANN AND RELATED MEETINGS,
>AND WERE VOCAL AND PRESENT -- VISIBLE IN ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITIES
>FOR LEADERSHIP WITHIN ICANN.
>WE DISTRIBUTED WIDELY A FLIER DESCRIBING THE POSITIONS."
>
>
>Once you read this, you will understand that Kieren is right - the
>general people are not interested ICANN.  (and you can put here who is)
>The "general people" treat ICANN as their GSM phone company - they
>are neither happy nor unhappy that it works. They just use their
>phones. And if their phones are outside of the coverage area, they
>don't start calling the company and asking what's wrong (you see -
>their phones don't work; how can they do that) but find a way to deal
>with that, e.g. move a few feet away to get reception, or just ignore
>their phones.
>
>best,
>Veni
>
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