[atlarge-discuss] WG - OUTREACH - 002 - Identifying Targets and Priorities

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@ntlworld.com>]

Participating Working Group Team! Greetings!
Anyone else reading this -welcome too and join us!

WG-OUTREACH (outreach@large)

Joey Borda (US)
Satyajit Gupta (INDIA)
Richard Henderson (UK)
Erick Iriarte Ahon (PERU)
Judyth Mermelstein (CANADA)
Jefsey Morfin (FRANCE)
YJ Park (KOREA)
Gabriel Pineiro (ARGENTINE)
Ron Sherwood (VIRGIN IS)
Jeff Williams (US)
Bruce Young (US)

Agenda:
1. Co-ordinator.
2. Our Mission.
3. Our Aims.
4. Establishing Initial Priority Targets.
5. Other Issues of Importance.

ITEM 1:

a. Co-ordinator. I have been happy to kick off this Working Group but I do
not feel strongly that I personally need to act as co-ordinator (I think
someone should though - but no-one is leader.) I am happy to continue as
co-ordinator for 1-3 months if you like or I am equally happy to hand over
to someone else right now. My personal thinking is that it would be good to
have a non-panelist and/or someone from an under-represented region to
spread responsibilities and involve more people in various ways. Process for
deciding this should be majority vote, I suppose. More likely, it's a
question of who actually wants to volunteer for this. But if you like, I'll
carry on co-ordinating for a few weeks or months. Just as long as you know
I'd be happier for someone else to do it (then I'll focus on uk@large !)

b. Role of the Co-ordinator: to monitor WG mail, respond to enquiries,
co-ordinate agenda, report to membership and panel, liaise with france@large
uk@large etc etc - though this can be a shared task. Is this a reasonable
definition of the role? It is not doing everything, it is not "top down" -
it is just someone who watches and acts as a bit of an interface sometimes -
then the Working Group as a whole looks at the matters and says: "So-and-so
could do this" or "I know someone who might do this" or much more often:
"That is a French matter - refer it to france@large etc". There are
limitless tasks - and they need sharing and de-centralising. We work as a
team to try to serve with the focus on being made redundant as far as
possible by the local @large. Reasonable?

ITEM 2:

a. Our Mission. I've drafted a kick-off Mission Statement for this Working
Group as follows:

DRAFT MISSION STATEMENT for outreach@large:

The mission of the Outreach Working group is to act as a Co-ordination group
to offer help to regional volunteers, as they set out to attract ordinary
internet users to participate in the way the Internet is run by joining
icannatlarge.com. This outreach will operate at global, regional, national
and local levels, and will also operate through the interface of relevant
"issues" of concern to internet users all over the world. Areas of help to
be provided by the Working Group will include: generating publicity
materials in multiple languages, initiating global publicity initiatives,
helping to disseminate the shared experiences of local groups, acting as a
hub for large numbers of local @large organisations. In addition, it will
sustain a structure of Global - Regional/Issues - National - Local outreach,
in a non-directive fashion, with bottom-up initiatives being self-organised
by users at grassroots level.

In summary: publicity materials; interface for sharing experience and
expertise; structure and websites.

b. Request for amendments and additions/deletions from this statement.
Please feel free to contribute in making our mission clear and focussed. I
just put the one above together fairly spontaneously.

ITEM 3.

a. Our Aims.

These are outcomes which extend beyond the actual mission role of the
Working Group. It's the outcomes we aspire to for the whole organisation:

We hope to encourage the establishment of a NETWORK of worldwide LOCAL
@large COMMUNITIES and other @large communities built around COMMON
INTERESTS or ISSUES.

The inter-relationship of these communities could be seen like this:

Example: Roma@large - Scotland@large - teachers@large - LA@large -

Example: Italia@large - UK@large - WestCoastUS@large -

Example: Europe@large - NorthAmerica@large - ICANNissues@large -

Example: world@large

* * * * * * * *

Note world@large is at the bottom.
But there is NO top or bottom - its a spiders web of CONNECTIONS
Our Aim should be a multiplicity of actively-engaged groups -
whatever works for the people involved.

So our role in this WG-OUTREACH (outreach@large) is:
to liaise with any of these - our questions:
what can we learn? how can we help? how can you help us?

This, my friends, is perhaps a REAL @large, rather than just a
pressure-group working towards a single issue. I think most of us are
well-focussed on the specific issue of DNS governance, but the @large will
evolve according to what its members want.

Our Aim should centre on the creation of a REAL @large : growing as a
network.

b. Comments on Aims - and dissent.
I have expressed one vision of the "Direction" we are trying to go in our
Outreach. But I admit that is my personal view. I am not to dominate, so
feel free to contribute YOUR sense of Directions and Aims.

(Admittedly, we need to be 95% an ACTION group, not a talking shop!

ITEM 4. Establishing Initial Priority Targets.

OK - this is the action stuff, the important stuff of getting actual things
done.
I suggest the following Targets are ESSENTIAL in the short-term to
kick-start Outreach:

a. The Name of our Organisation
b. Contacting Effective People who can help us De-Centralise tasks
c. Clear Website Presence and Point of Contact for new members/interested
enquirers
d. Initial Publicity materials - contact lists for media/orgs etc -
translation issues

So, in more detail:

a. The Name of our Organisation : this issue is being resolved this week. I
fully expect a membership vote to be taken on ALL proposed names. This is
essential and urgent because we need this clear identity established. I take
the view that there can be many names as de-centralisation takes place, but
it indeed helpful (and I think necessary) to have a central name. We will
work with the choice of the majority of our membership : that is my clear
expectation.

b. Contacting Effective People.
Now, I have contentious (but I think common-sense) views on this. I agree
that much can be achieved through Press Releases, Newsletters etc etc - but
the experience of this Working Group teaches me this : we need to be
PRO-ACTIVE if we want to encourage volunteers at this kick-off stage.

What we need are motivated individuals who will say: "OK - I will see what I
can do in France!" or "OK - I will see what I can do in South America" - or
in Peru - or in Malaysia - or in New York - or wherever...

WE NEED TO MAKE DIRECT CONTACT with possible individuals who might do this -
and excite them with our vision - and encourage them - and be personal.

So I am arguing for the release of the Membership e-mail lists (subject to
permissions) or at least the means to send out e-mails to specific
individuals we identify and want to communicate with.

Look! We have members in 75 countries already! Isn't it worth trying to make
contact with someone in each country?
Or at least, identify the Regions and take it from there.

But I suspect that mass-mailings of impersonal info will attract some
members, but what we really need is to seek individuals willing to be a bit
of a co-ordinator. We are trying to build a network.

The same applies for issues, but that is harder to target than the
geographical in this way.

If you look at http://www.theinternetchallenge.com/memberswholelist.htm and
then click on the membership for the regions or the countries. I personally
would like us (maybe in a delegated effort) to make very personal contact
with some of the people with the aim of being able to put on each country's
page the name of a contact person / co-ordinator / local e-mail address as a
start to the growing of the network.

I'm realistic enough to know we wouldn't achieve that with all countries
right away - but I actually think things can start to move very fast once
this process gets moving (and don't forget there's still another 100
countries we're going to reach - what a really exciting prospect!)

So please understand (before I get shot down) the reason I've used
www.theInternetChallenge.com is simply to try to convey a vision of where we
maybe can decide to be going. I'm trying to "demonstrate" the nature of the
network and how you just try to make it grow and grow. (If I'm honest, I
also wanted to let Denise and Esther see as quick as possible that we're
already the @ large all over the world and we're organising and serious).
Obviously I'd like my webpages or something similar to migrate to out own
website.

We need to share your ideas and input on:

*** What categories of "Effective people" should we target?
*** How should we delegate the contact-making?
*** What should be the nature of that contact?

We need your most lateral and imaginative brains!

c. Clear Website Presence and Point of Contact for new members/interested
enquirers

This is a matter being developed by WG-WEB and I only include it here
because it is vital we have links etc we can add to our mails so someone can
click on to an "About" page or a "Join" page etc. We already have a website.
We're shortly changing webmaster. So the web is important.

BUT - the Point of Contact also needs to be a human being. And for
geographical groups, this needs to be a nearby / got-something-in-common
human being. That's why I'm so keen to de-centralise, to identify local or
national or regional contact people - and make sure new members can find
their right place in the network.

Incidentally, I expect we will have more than just one central website - of
course! ... Although Jefsey's proposals of using subdomains within a central
site domain is a good one I believe, for those who want to use it. Also
Jefsey's Wiki concept works well with the whole idea of local - contacts -
networks - etc

d. Initial Publicity materials - contact lists for media/orgs etc -
translation issues

Initial Publicity materials - it doesn't have to be US who write them! But
if we're involved in Outreach we need to think:
*** what information do we want to give...
*** to whom...
*** what is needed most, early on (because that's where we are)
*** can we build up a library of varied, useful materials
*** can regional/national co-ordinators consider what
material/information/language will work for them
*** locally-generated material will hopefully take over a lot in due course

Contact-lists
*** I've mentioned access to membership e-mail addresses (subject to
individual consent)
*** Local press/media contacts
*** Organisations contacts : I'm convinced where YOU live locally there are,
wherever you are, organisations and groups to make contact with
*** Any other ideas?

Translation Issues
*** If materials are generated locally, then translation may not be a
problem
*** But central / generic info needs to be translated, as Judyth as
mentioned, into Chinese and Scandinavian Languages, etc etc - and our
resources may not yet stretch that far, but as our localised communities
grow, we will hopefully find our translators too (but sooner is even better)

Education
***A significant part of Outreach has obviously got to involve Education
about DNS issues in simple-to-understand language

Item 5.
OTHER ISSUES OF IMPORTANCE

These may be for NOW - to be added to priorities
Or they may be background issues which will become important
Or they may be things which matter but not right now when so much seems
urgent.

I would mention:
a. Voluntary Contributions would be less obstacle to membership than
Membership Fees
b. ccTLDs contacts and bridge-building - this is massive importance in the
long term : if WE are the REAL @large then WE (more than ICANN) need to
establish our links with our own, LOCAL ccTLD operators - and we need to
represent ourselves as THE group of ordinary internet users.
c. Finding interfaces with peripheral organisations - getting to them
through THEIR issues and concerns
d. Student Organisations.

But lastly - to each of you generous enough with your time to read this
far - these "Other Issues of Importance" which is also "A.O.B. - Any Other
Business"

Please! YOUR input next, while I "shut up" and listen, and I'll publish a
summary of all YOUR main points.

Address - it would be helpful if we send (for the time being - separate
mailing lists are being actively explored) to atlarge-discuss address (don't
see any point in cc-ing to each of us, we'll only get the mail twice that
way, plus I want nonWG members to be able to read and contribute - these
Working Groups have open doors!!!)

Subject (for clarity): WG - OUTREACH - 002 - Identifying Targets and
Priorities





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