[governance] IGC

[Tracy F. Hackshaw @ Google]

*Ditto about the criticism comment. All views are to be welcomed. Surely.
:0)

I am also not sure why it was necessary to refer to my current employment in
your response. In any event and with a view to full disclosure, so as to
avoid any misunderstanding, I have been involved with the using and
promoting the use of Internet since my days as a student and Researcher at
University (1993-1997) and have been involved with my current Government job
as a civil/public servant from 2005 designing and implementing projects
relating to digital inclusion and improving the lives of the citizens of
Trinidad & Tobago through the use of ICT.

Now, first of all, I am confused about the statements that the discussions
on improving the effectiveness of the IGC should somehow be subsumed under
the IGF threads (again difficult to achieve with a limited mailing list
format unless your email platform has an extremely effective search
facility). When last I read it, para 72 of the Tunis agenda expressly states
that the IGF is multi-stakeholder - *NOT* Civil Society focused. I refer
specifically to:

*"... Facilitate discourse between bodies dealing with different
cross-cutting international public policies regarding the Internet and
discuss issues that do not fall within the scope of any existing body."*

Ginger's suggestion of starting new threads with these improvements in mind
is perhaps more useful to achieve the objective.

Secondly, at last count from
http://www.igcaucus.org/node/12/%253Cbr%2520/%253E I recognize that the IGC
has approximately 150 members on the mailing list.

As a comparative example, Diplo's recently initiated Ning community has 646
members with over 50 subject-specific sub-groups.

If Diplo were to solicit an average annual voluntary donation of US$10 (less
than US$1 per month) from its membership for 1 year they could collect
approx. US$6,460.

Imagine now if they used those funds to do effective outreach and
recruitment, open up the discussion platform even further and therefore
triple their membership for example ...

The cold, hard question that needs to be asked is the status quo a critical
mass to move forward or does the IGC want or should I say need to grow and
raise its profile in order to become a louder, more vibrant voice -
representing as one group, for example, the interests of the very
low-income, grassroots members they are mandated to AS WELL AS Digital
Natives?

I have examined the IGC Charter again and for the purposes of the discussion
nothing stated there expressly limits consideration and indeed,
implementation of suggestions designed to grow and evolve the IGC into what
it is destined to become. As a matter of fact, my own interpretation of
several clauses of the Charter seems to suggest that the IGC should be doing
more than what currently obtains.

And, on a technological note, Fouad, proper implementation of a social
networking platform can cater for all users - including those who prefer to
use a mailing list, or WAP, or SMS alerts, or even Fax - this is done via
the implementation of full alerting and posting directly via <<insert your
choice of delivery channel>> to the platform - the WWW being just one view
of the network - as a matter of fact, this is desirable. Web 2.0 and Social
Networking as we know is *BOTH* active/passive, as well as proactive &
reactive hence its beauty, popularity, and effectiveness.

Its power, when used wisely is unmistakable.

On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 7:03 PM, Fouad Bajwa <fouadbajwa at gmail.com> wrote:

> My two cents on this:
>
> * This is for the sake of discussion and should not be taken as
> criticism, please!
>
> Tracy, ummm, these ideas are a bit overwhelming though I like the
> ideas about social networking website like using ning and we do have
> an example of one of our members from the DiploFoundation using it on
> http://www.diplointernetgovernance.org and many of our members can
> help implement it if the IGC reaches consensus to it in the near
> future.
>
> But, I would like to share a small case here, last whole year, I had
> no electricity in Pakistan for about 16-20 hours everyday and had to
> use a small but very expensive Edge device to access my emails and was
> limited in my participation because of my Internet speed at 4-10kbps.
> This means I can't access websites like Facebook or Ning. Similarly,
> some things would be of key concern regarding the afore mentioned like
> whether do we all in the developing world have such speedy access to
> the Internet to open and participate in such live discussions or the
> choice of passive email medium is the best route since everyone at one
> point in time or the other can participate equally and inclusively.
> Also, the issue about access of the social network on a mobile device
> or low-spec machines might come up and the solution for IGC is
> supposed to be easily, equally, inclusively accessible by all of our
> members and even those that are yet to join or use the Internet!
>
> I know some of these ideas may be easily implemented if this was the
> same as the government agency you are serving in for smaller projects
> but we have an IGC Charter we follow with mutual and inclusive
> consensus and any change to that has to be taken forward with mutual
> consensus and through a collaborative process that the IGC Charter
> provides us with.
>
> I also know a lot of IGC people that I've seen participating in the
> various international meetings mentioned but one also has to realize
> that the members usually do so by interest or voluntarily or if they
> find resources through fellowships and grants like you and me to put
> as an example.
>
> I don't know if the charging of fees is a good way to go. Most of us
> don't have credit cards in the developing world and we won't be able
> to pay up. Say the fees was set to a one time US$50, that would be Pak
> Rupees 4200 which is a lot of money for us and so would it be for many
> other nations. Maybe I can meet up with Ginger on the various
> occasions that I have and pay her the dues but what will the rest of
> the 99% of IGC do? In my personal opinion, bad idea!!!!
>
> I have learnt one thing while participating in Civil Society that we
> have to think about others when we plan or suggest such ideas and
> invite all or atleast think about the low-income and least developed.
> All of us are not in the best case scenario nor in the worst of
> conditions but still we have our limitations and we have a gather as a
> community to carry out  a number of collective activities with regards
> to Internet Governance Forum and Internet Governance in general.
>
> My own feelings come down to the fact that since we are discussing
> restructuring of IGF in a separate discussion thread, these
> discussions about improving IGC functioning in proportion with the
> previous should also be done in the same thread so that we have a
> record of all these suggestions that can be later put together as
> suggestions for IGC. The suggestions for IGC can be moved to our
> website while the suggestions for the restructuring of the IGF can be
> collected, shared and then disseminated to the secretariat.
>
> I also like what Kati has shared as they are some wonderful ideas with
> the Civil Society aspect in mind and would be very useful in the
> future indeed that concern us all and as she mentions the meetings,
> those come from the Open Consultations and MAG meetings strategy for
> IGC!!!
>
> Lets keep the ideas flowing in!!!
>
> On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 2:56 AM, Tracy F. Hackshaw @ Google
> <tracyhackshaw at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi everyone:
> > I am not sure if this was discussed/raised/explored/shot down before,
> > because of the current IGC discussion list format, but from my own
> > experiences, here are some thoughts to move the IGC forward and attract a
> > wider and deeper cross-section of "civil society" (see the excellent and
> > concise LSE definition of this dilemma
> > at
> http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CCS/introduction/what_is_civil_society.htm
> ):
> > 1. Evolve the dialog away from the dated mailing/discussion list format
> > towards a more transparent and open Social Networking & Collaboration
> > platform - I recommend that Marc Andreessen's and Giani Bianchini's
> > brilliant Ning technology be used as opposed to the somewhat restricted
> > Facebook, Orkut, and the like. Establishment of appropriate IGC presences
> on
> > Twitter, Scribd and YouTube will also be useful. Utilization of emerging
> > solutions such as Google Wave should be explored. Enterprise solutions
> such
> > as Social Text, Lotus Connections are also available if a more robust
> > solution is desirable.
> > 2. Move the IGC into the mainstream and raise its profile through a
> physical
> > "re-launch" or "event". This event could consist of the presentation of a
> > series of Civil society position papers as alluded to by Katitza. A
> timely
> > slot for this would perhaps be immediately pre-IGF 2010, or for more
> > diffused but consistent impact, pre-ICANN, iNET and IETF 2010
> > meetings/conferences.
> > 3. Develop a regular meeting or series of meetings where the IGC
> membership
> > can interact and engage in strategic planning. The technology deployed if
> > (1) is accepted will make this extraordinarily simple - time zone
> > considerations aside.
> > 4. Develop a Strategic Plan, Operating Budget and solicit appropriate
> > financial support from its membership - membership growth beyond the
> > existing should be guaranteed by (1) and (2). The Wikipedia donation
> model
> > is instructive. I am also certain that the IGF Secretariat will provide
> > support if a Strategic Plan, Budget and Operational Plan for 2010-2011
> were
> > presented.
> > Mobilize. Grow. Prosper.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Katitza Rodriguez
> > <katitza at datos-personales.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear IGC members:
> >>
> >> I would like to see the IGC grows as a caucus. Grow not only in terms of
> >> members but grows in terms of outcomes/deliverables and capacity of
> >> organization.
> >>
> >>  It is vitally important that IGC produce their own papers to address
> the
> >> most relevant topics at the IG level. It is equally important that IGC
> can
> >> take into account also all those collective civil society papers that
> were
> >> released in other venues but are crucial also for the IGC debate. It
> should
> >> be both ways. All will depend on the issue, the time, the knowledge, the
> >> capacity, our energy, our passion and our capacity to make things done,
> >> among many other factors.
> >>
> >> We all need to learn to put in the table not only the issues that we
> care
> >> about but also the issues that others civil society participants care
> about,
> >> and defend all with the same passion.
> >>
> >> We should be able to better organize ourselves. Having meetings every
> >> morning before each meeting to debrief of what's going on in each
> workshop
> >> and be able to respond in each workshop is vitally important. Some
> >> groups/networks/coalition does this work. Can we do it as a whole group?
> >> This can happen only if we are well organized. There were more than 111
> >> workshops. If we can monitor all the workshops and have always one or
> two
> >> civil society participants able to put in the table those issues that we
> >> care about, we will a better capacity to at least educate/share
> >> knowledge/give another point ot view to all those who are on the room,
> on
> >> the issues that civil society participants cares about.
> >>
> >> Hopefully, the candidates have a vision on this regards and can move
> >> forward the process. IT is a lot of work, and its not easy but we should
> do
> >> it if we want to be effective.
> >>
> >> Warm Regards
> >>
> >> Katitza
> >> ____________________________________________________________
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> >
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Regards.
> --------------------------
> Fouad Bajwa
> Advisor & Researcher
> ICT4D & Internet Governance
> Member Multistakeholder Advisory Group (IGF)
> Member Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus (IGC)
> My Blog: Internet's Governance
> http://internetsgovernance.blogspot.com/
> Follow my Tweets:
> http://twitter.com/fouadbajwa
> MAG Interview:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATVDW1tDZzA
>
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