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

[Sotiris Sotiropoulos <sotiris@hermesnetwork.com>]

Richard,

Please add my name.

Sincerely,

Sotiris Sotiropoulos

Richard Henderson wrote:

> 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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