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Smaller, more intense ICANN meetings with no free cocktails?

Kevin Murphy, July 25, 2024, 13:14:38 (UTC), Domain Policy

ICANN has floated the idea of hosting smaller, more focused meetings that eschew tedious PowerPoint presentations and do away with the free cocktail receptions.

Seeking to eliminate $10 million from its annual budget, management recently reached out to community leaders to see if they can put their heads together to make ICANN’s public meetings less expensive.

Ideas include scrapping one of the thrice-yearly in-person meetings entirely and replacing it with a virtual-only event, along the lines of the seven that were held over Zoom during the recent coronavirus pandemic.

The suggestions appear in a “How We Meet” discussion paper (pdf), presented as a jumping-off point for community discussions rather than a top-down edict.

Straight to the important stuff: ICANN is proposing to “reduce or eliminate ICANN-hosted or ICANN-sponsored social and outreach events” such as receptions, group dinners and other social networking events.

ICANN could seek third-party sponsors for these kind of events or, horror of horrors, operate a “cash bar”, the document states.

No more free booze!

If cost-conscious alcoholics have a reason to be concerned, it’s arguably worse news for community time vampires who enjoy nothing more than sucking up 45 minutes of their hour plodding through a PowerPoint explaining what their group has been up to since the last meeting.

The document suggests focusing meetings on “timely topics”, such as those with upcoming deadlines, that require “interactive dialogue in a hybrid format”, and cutting some of the extraneous nonsense.

Therefore, “extensive slide presentations, updates, and meetings (including between ICANN staff and community groups) that do not clearly require in-person or hybrid interactions will not be scheduled”, the document suggests.

Speaking as a remote participant in recent years, I’ve often chose to wait for session recordings to become available, rather than listening live, precisely so I can fast-forward through that kind of thing. That’s obviously not an option for an in-person attendee, many of whom are there on ICANN’s dime.

The document also suggests getting rid of “informational and training” events, such as the “How It Works” sessions, which it says “incur significant costs” but have “limited participation”.

ICANN is also floating the idea of reducing the number of sessions overall, and grouping constituency-specific sessions into a tighter schedule over fewer days (presumably in order to slash the hotel bill).

But the biggest shake-up of them all is arguably the idea of reducing the number of full in-person community meetings from three to two, with the cut meeting replaced with a virtual one.

Given the shared experiences from seven, consecutive Virtual Public Meetings during the pandemic and the costs of a hybrid ICANN Public Meeting, it may be timely to discuss whether there is, in fact, a current need to have three in-person/hybrid ICANN Public Meetings each year, or whether the community can work just as effectively if at least one of these meetings is conducted virtually.

It does not say which meeting could be cut, but points out that reducing the number of public meetings may increase the need for smaller, intersessional events that focus on individual constituencies or topics.

The discussion document will inform a series of calls interim CEO Sally Costerton will hold with community leaders over the next month or so. Any consensus reached could be acted up as early as September.

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