[governance] 2013 Preparations for MAG

[Milton L Mueller]

I find the discussions of main sessions to be interesting. 
I think we all realize that there is something missing with the way main sessions are done. We have 2000 people in a site who together constitute a big chunk of the most informed, most interested stakeholders from all over the world, and we really don't know what to do with them.  but as yet I have not heard any useful suggestions for how to improve them. 

I was on the panel for the main session on CIR. I think it was as well-organized and substantive as it could possibly be, given that there were 9 panelists dealing with 3 very distinct issues (new TLDs, IP address markets, and WCIT). However, as good as that session was substantively, it was in effect little more than an extended, very large panel session from a conference. In other words, it discussed the issues, sometimes in interesting ways; in some ways, the discussion was more general and less deep on most issues simply because the audience is large and nonspecialized in the topic. 

Also, every main session I have seen has completely failed to build upon or do anything substantive with the so-called feeder workshops. Is it possible to make the content of plenaries/main sessions somehow reflect and build upon what has gone on before? 

You are not going to improve main sessions by fiddling with the time they take. Cutting the time, extending the time, etc. Those kinds of changes will change nothing. We need to ask main sessions to be doing different things, and re-design them around that. 

They key step that no one wants to take, and/or that no one knows how to make work, is to make the main sessions deliberative sessions which come up with "recommendations" or "resolutions." That would make them more like a formal voting body and of course I understand why significant numbers of people don't want to do that. But if main sessions don't do that, or something like it, what is the point of a plenary session? I have no brilliant resolutions of this puzzle to offer here. 

Maybe one of the main sessions could be devoted to a formal debate on one of the most pressing, substantive issues we face in internet governance, where one speaker or a team of 2 or 3 take on side and another team take the opposing view. Just a thought. Anyway, until something serious changes in the design of main sessions, they will continue to be mostly cavernously empty experiences in which most people vote with their feet for a workshop. 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-
> request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Suresh Ramasubramanian
> Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2012 7:38 AM
> To: William Drake
> Cc: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Fouad Bajwa; Salanieta T.
> Tamanikaiwaimaro
> Subject: Re: [governance] 2013 Preparations for MAG
> 
> Well, lots of meat here. More inline, I will trim my and fouad's
> comments to focus on yours.
> 
> On 25-Nov-2012, at 16:05, William Drake <william.drake at uzh.ch> wrote:
> 
> > As long as IGF's linked to the UN system, you get what you get.  It's
> not like ICANN's site selection process.  If a government stands up and
> says we'd like to host (either out of commitment to the process or to
> make use of a new convention center, fill hotels, tell locals that
> 
> Even other conferences are not immune to this.  It is just that if a
> conference manual with detailed requirements is put in place
> (substantially adopt one from inet, apricot, etc) and expressions of
> interest are accepted say two years in advance, there is a much better
> chance of success.  And more time for the host country to prepare
> (though keep milestones in place and track them to avoid last minute
> rushes of activity because someone forgot something)
> 
> Bali should be an excellent venue from what I have seen before, and
> Indonesia has a tourist friendly visa regime
> 
> > I strongly agree that conditions and requirements need to be laid down
> and there has to be a means to deal in real time and afterwards with
> nonconformance, or it's just paper.  But depending on the circumstance,
> making that work might require more than sotto voce discussions with the
> secretariat, e.g. interventions from supportive governments and
> stakeholders.  Could be dicey, merits thought.
> 
> Surely .. This involves a standing committee with representatives across
> stakeholder groups for meeting planning and logistics.  On similar lines
> to the program committee that gets to vet workshop and side meeting
> proposals
> 
> > The UN can't force changes in national immigration policies but the
> above mentioned conditions and requirement could strongly urge the view
> that offering to host entails responsibilities etc.
> 
> Simply met by a line in the RFP document that says something on the
> order of "the host economy shall facilitate a smooth process for issue
> of visas to conference participants, and set up a help desk to supply
> the necessary visa paperwork and assist delegates with any individual
> visa issues, in accordance with their national immigration policy"
> 
> > I strongly disagree with cutting the time for main sessions and think
> we should instead make them more useful to more people.  I hope we can
> finally come to agreement that after seven years we don't have to be
> bound to the same old tired standardized generic session topics.  MS
> 
> My suggestion is not to cut down on the main session time, or to
> restrict what can or cannot be in  a main session.  It is to ensure that
> main sessions are held in a well defined time slot throughout the event,
> with no other session conflicting with them.  And to have a clearly
> defined "parent" main session for each "cluster" of workshops.
> 
> >  "views differed sharply" that would be ok.  And why not vary the
> formats, e.g. by having some debates on juicy topics (could even do it
> with teams and audience show of hands on motions).
> 
> Agree.
> 
> > I tend toward the seemingly unpopular view that while there was much
> satisfied feedback on numerous Baku WS, the fact remains there were
> simply too many (running 11 tracks of 44 WS parallel to the days MS was
> nuts) and some were clearly less solid, well thought out, and
> 
> A program committee should certainly exert control and discipline over
> the content of an event.
> 
> This does not mean capping the number of times someone can speak in a
> panel .. But a cap on the number or panels and workshops an individual
> organization can host is a definite option.  As for side sessions take
> them entirely off the agenda.  These by their very nature can get by
> with being publicised by the individual organizations .. And can take
> place a day before or after the IGF, at the event proposers own cost,
> 
> > properly personed (in terms of the above criteria, and others).  I
> found it very frustrating that the MAG went through this whole exercise
> of ranking WS proposals, which in the first cut resulted in 2/3rd of
> applications being below the acceptance threshold and needing more work,
> and yet a
> 
> The program committee in that case has failed in their mandate.  Such
> thresholds are useless if they are not adhered to.
> 
> > We also had the curious phenomenon of people submitting late WS
> proposals purporting to be open forums.  The OFs are supposed to be a
> specific thing, organizational show and tell, not a category to be used
> by late movers to smuggle in WS proposals.  When the divergence
> 
> Program committee slip up again.  Such side meetings with apparently no
> rules .. Take them off the agenda and let the organisers work it out its
> the conference venue.  Or alternatively have a slot every day for so
> called "lightning talks" .. Impromptu events set during lunch and coffee
> breaks (long and leisurely ones as it is the IGF)
> 
> You could deal with late proposals by queuing them up for the next IGF
> and considering them alongside the proposals received for that.  Of
> course the workshop proposers may edit their proposal to make it more
> topical for the next IGF, if the intervening months produce some drastic
> change in the situation that their workshop discusses.
> 
> > Of course, the challenge here is that some attendees need to have
> their own event in order to get funding to come and participate, and
> obviously we don't want to suppress the numbers.  On the other hand,
> many individuals and organizations habitually propose a large number of
> 
> Two or three per organization works fine.  The fact that some
> individuals only get funding if they are keynotes or workshop chairs ,,
> well, several of them can certainly also get the funding to host a side
> meeting at their organizations cost.
> 
> > appear on more than [x] WS and MS panels.  There a cohort of usual
> suspects who ritualistically speak at 7, 10, 12 events. In part, this is
> fueled by the difficulty of identifying "new blood" that has committed
> to attend and would be perfect fits, so when someone's organizing a
> 
> See, this is chicken and egg.  Several stakeholders do invest more time
> and effort to cultivate expertise and engage with other peer
> stakeholders and they might be more frequent speakers than the others.
> 
> There is also the "token speaker" who has the same stock presentation
> that he or she uses for a dozen panels.  We all know the type ..
> 
> You should certainly get new blood.  However restructuring the
> conference and capping the number of events a single organization can be
> the lead on will definitely self limit the number of token speakers.
> 
> > I think the explosion in pre-events is indicative of the need for more
> flexibility in formatting, including the main sessions.  If you want to
> have a serious in depth discussion of a topic and the
> 
> Sure. However there will definitely be pre meetings for a variety of
> reasons.  A good idea would be to have rapporteurs from these join the
> workshop rapporteurs in the main session.
> 
> More days for the IGF means more costs for the local host and for the
> mag, participants etc.
> 
> > We are having a related debate-lette in the MAG now on May.  At
> present, the IGF consultation and MAG are scheduled in the same week
> (13-17 May) as not on only the WSIS Forum, per usual, but also the ITU's
> World Telecom Policy Forum on global Internet governance.  I think it
> 
> So how many of the people at IGF will also attend the whole wtpf?  Or
> have colleagues (or in the case of civil society individual experts,
> have friends) who can attend on their behalf?
> 
> There is always a plethora of other related meetings, and a conference
> calendar is a great aid for the logistics committee to determine dates.
> However once you get a date that conflicts with a minimum of other
> events, do stick to it.
> 
> > A final point not mentioned so far—the outstanding issue of working
> groups and ongoing activities on matters of key concern.  From the
> outset the IGC has maintained that IGF should be able to convene groups
> that include good government representation that are designed to
> 
> These should b truly multistakeholder and civil society should
> definitely expand its horizons to include industry and the technical
> community.  The problem is that a lot of civil society organixations
> appear to have an us versus them sort of attitude when it comes to
> looking for colleagues outside civil society .. and this militates
> against your goal above.
> 
> --srs (iPad)
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