[governance] On the process of proposing workshop themes

Tue Mar 24 06:15:33 EDT 2009

Dear Milton,

I did not have time to respond immediately to the concerns you expressed in
response to my earlier posting. And certainly did not want it to "freeze
people in place" as a result :-)

I may have mis-expressed myself or led you to read too much in what I tried
to explain. Parminder I think gave some of the elements of answer. This is
not a radically new process, just an attempt at improving things
progressively.

Ginger is doing it exactly the way it is intended and the IGC is likely to
provide a very useful contribution by discussing threads.

I'll try to clarify a bit here. Because I can assure you that the implicit
message is not the one you summarize in your mail below. And this is not an
attempt at power grab by the MAG members (should go without saying but
always better to say it :-).

The fundamental starting points were :

   - we are starting this process earlier this year than before : this is
   good and gives some time to work more progressively
   - preserving the capacity of participants to propose and organize
   workshops on their topics of interest in a relatively unconstrained manner
   is a critical element of the IGF : this bottom-up Agenda-setting is probably
   one of the most precious features of this innovative experiment (it is in my
   view anyway)
   - at the same time, there is broad consensus on the desire to have fewer
   events running in parallel, because people are torn and forced to make
   difficult choices among things that interest them given the short duration
   of the meeting
   - finally, some issues have probably reached a point of "ripeness" where
   it is useful to avoid having several workshops on the same theme, organized
   by different actors pushing only their own agenda, and to try and encourage
   more direct interaction to move the issue forward; isn't it Hamadoun Touré
   who likes to say : "from friction comes light" and I think I remember you
   are often the one advocating "real debate" to sort out positions :-)

That is the starting point. Hence the proposal to call for expressions of
interest on themes rather than full-fledged workshop proposals at that stage
(they will naturally come later). It has the benefit of sensing the level of
interest on various themes but also allows people who do not intend to
organize a workshop themselves to indicate that they think a specific topic
should be addressed. This is what I did last year by putting an early
placeholder in favor of a workshop on "dimensions of cybersecurity" while
indicating that I did not intend to organize it myself.

Furthermore, it allows a preliminary debate on the formulation of workshop
titles. The discussion on this list on the theme "role of governments in IG"
is a perfect example. Instead of having two workshops in parallel, one
organized by governments to explain whay they should have more say and the
other one by the IGC to explain why CS should have more say, wouldn't it be
better to have a single one on the "role of the different stakeholders" ?

The IGF is a unique space for dialogue (and/or debate) among people with
different viewpoints. It should not result in small groups of like-minded
people agreeing among themselves in parallel rooms. The "silo" effect is as
bad in IGF as it is in ICANN. Rather than forcing people into "MAG-defined
groups", it is just an attempt at facilitating early interaction among
people with common issues of interest or concern. And yes, they may have
"conflicting views or interests"; but isn't this what the IGF should be
about too ?

However, this should obviously not limit the possibility for a group of
like-minded people who believe a certain angle on a given issue should be
given more visibility to gather at the IGF and present their viewpoint to
the community. Flexibility and diversity is key here and the guiding
principle in chosing formats and composition of workshops should be what
kind of outcomes can be expected.

All this is about balance and quality of outcomes. The IGF is progressively
structuring and this is only a small step to help it produce better results.

In a nutshell, the role of the MAG will not be - and should not be - the one
you fear. The MAG is and should remain a facilitator. Ideally, the result of
this first call will provide a list of themes and interested actors,
allowing proponents to see who else is interested in a given issue, and
facilitating them getting together. It is also expected to provide a
diversity of formulations for the various issues and choosing the proper
formulation is often a first step towards better mutual understanding.

I hope this alleviates somewhat your concerns. But I thank you nonetheless
for expressing them : it is a good reminder that the best intentions can :
1) be mis-interpreted if they are not correctly explained and 2) present
dangers not anticipated if a new procedure is mis-used. A useful cautionary
call.

Sincere thanks to Ginger for her efforts to create thematic threads that
help structure discussion.

Hope this helps.

Best

Bertrand

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 3:25 PM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

>
> Ginger, you're doing a great job of keeping track of the workshop
> discussions and of compiling the responses. Thanks for that.
>
> My problem at this stage is that I (and, I suspect, many others) are
> basically frozen in place by Bertrand's suggestion (statement?) that the
> method of workshop planning and development will be completely different
> this year. I am surprised that there has been no response to my expressed
> concerns about this, and until there is some clarification or discussion of
> those basic parameters, I think it is unwise to invest time in developing
> workshops. Indeed, I am not even sure I would plan to attend the IGF if
> certain worst-case scenarios play out.
>
> We have been told, in effect, "don't develop a detailed, coherent program
> for a workshop and don't line up any people, because whatever idea you have
> is going to be treated as a general "theme" and then thrown into a huge
> pot and re-sorted into MAG-defined groups." And those groups may be a
> bunch of people who hardly know each other with different, sometimes
> conflicting agendas. If I am not correctly apprehending the meaning of those
> changes please correct me. In the meantime, I await an appropriate
> response.
>
> Milton Mueller
> Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
> XS4All Professor, Delft University of Technology
> ------------------------------
> Internet Governance Project:
> http://internetgovernance.org
>
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Ginger Paque [mailto:gpaque at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Sunday, March 22, 2009 2:21 PM
> *To:* governance at lists.cpsr.org
> *Subject:* [governance] Workshop on Remote Participation
>
>  Please post your interest and ideas concerning this workshop on this
> thread.
>
>
>
> Remote Participation from both the policy (inclusion) and application
> (practical) perspectives (Ginger)
>
>
>
> Ginger
>
>
>
> Ms. Virginia (Ginger) Paque
>
> DiploFoundation
>
> Coordinator IGCBP 09
>
>
>
> www.diplomacy.edu/ig
>
> VirginiaP at diplomacy.edu
>
>
>
>
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>

-- 
____________________
Bertrand de La Chapelle
Délégué Spécial pour la Société de l'Information / Special Envoy for the
Information Society
Ministère des Affaires Etrangères et Européennes/ French Ministry of Foreign
and European Affairs
Tel : +33 (0)6 11 88 33 32

"Le plus beau métier des hommes, c'est d'unir les hommes" Antoine de Saint
Exupéry
("there is no greater mission for humans than uniting humans")
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