Charles Mok: I guess maybe we’ll get started first while Pavan comes along, because he said he’s going to be a few minutes late. We have him probably needing his help on some of these Secretariat issues. He has been doing some work checking out things in Singapore and so on. He can report about that later.
Maybe we should get started. I think I’ll just get the call started as the Vice-Chair of APRALO at the moment. I guess I would hope that we will be able to get along with the agenda and maybe select a Chair or Co-Chair because --
Pavan Budhrani: Hi, there. Pavan here. Sorry.
Charles Mok: – I may not be the right one to do that at the moment. Who’s that, again, sorry?
Pavan Budhrani: Pavan. Pavan’s here.
Charles Mok: You’re here. Okay, good. Good. Good. Maybe we can get along with the agenda. Do we need to do a role-call first?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, it’s good to do a role call. Who’s on the line? I hear Charles, myself Pavan. Anyone else?
Gisella Gruber: We have Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Charles Mok, Siva Muthuswamy, Olivier Crepin-Leblond, Hong Xue, Pavan Budhrani, and our guest this evening is Eduardo Diaz. Fouad Bajwa as well as Siranushe Vardanyan send through their apology. From staff we have Seth Greene and myself, Gisella Gruber.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay, thank you. Thank you, very much, for that. All right, Charles, do you want to get it started?
Charles Mok: Yes. I lost my Adobe.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The next thing on the agenda Charles, if I can help you, is the selection of Showcase Workgroup offices. That’s something I am far less fussed about than everyone else apparently. I think the delusions of grandeur of who has what role is ridiculous. We’ve got half a dozen people here who can work well together and we should just do it, but that’s what my opinion is. Let the Secretariat do our work.
Charles Mok: Pavan, yes, I tend to agree with that. Instead of selecting a Chair, or a Co-Chair, or a Secretariat for that, I just think we should have six people working together for the event and that would work better. Of course, I think having one Chair would be okay, and everyone else working together would be better.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If somebody isn’t available for a meeting, for example, if as (inaudible 0:02:59) Vice-Chair should Chair a meeting, which makes perfect sense as this is still an APRALO meeting, even though it’s a Workgroup call, than Pavan, or me, or Hong, or anyone else is able to Chair. We just pass the baton if we need to.
In fact, you can just decide who’s going to Chair a given meeting at any given time. We all have the skill-sets, we just need to get the work done.
Fouad Bajwa: I’m just back. Fouad. I guess we’ll just probably select a Chair for this particular meeting. Any volunteers?
Pavan Budhrani: I don’t mind doing it, Charles, it you’re okay with that.
Charles Mok: Okay. Anyone want to – if we need a Co-Chair, otherwise Pavan can take over for (inaudible 0:03:47).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It just --
Charles Mok: – that might be, because I seem to be dropping in and out of the call and Adobe.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s just logistics. We’re recording.
Charles Mok: So if there’s no objections, Pavan please take over.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Okay. For the second points that I selected, we’ll just move around the Chair for different meetings, looking at the circumstances, and then moving on from there. Not really having a group, just have six people working together for the end product, which would be the Showcase event in Singapore.
The third event on the agenda today, the Summary of the NARALO Lessons Learned from Eduardo. Eduardo, is it okay for you to share with us?
Eduardo Diaz: Yes. From Lessons Learned, I guess what I can do is I can tell you the way we did it. Olivier welcomed some of the calls (inaudible 0:04:46). You can share your points of view. I would really appreciate it.
One of the first things that I did that worked very well is I just created an Event Schedule. We have an hour for the Showcase. I said, “We’re going to have ten minutes for this, five minutes for this.” “The speaker would have x number of minutes,” and so forth. I did that. I put it in the Wiki. I did it to create this caution, because it was a dynamic document. It changed with the help of the whole Working Group.
The other thing that I put together right away was a Program Schedule. What things we need to do from now until the beginning of the event to get it going. Like a Program Schedule, I just put that together. I created that. It changed during the working time, but it helped everybody to focus on what needed to be done. We find out who wanted to do what from there. That function, that worked very well.
Very important we have a weekly meeting all the way until the week before everyone travels there. That helped to create a continuance from week to week. Also, the weekly meeting was at the same time, the same day.
It could work like today is Wednesday, here 2300. You can see then every Wednesday at 2300. You can see everybody knows in the Working Group that a meeting for the Showcase what’s going to happen.
One of the obvious speakers that we got for the Showcase was a really good one. I guess that’s why we had a very good turnout there. Getting the speakers for the Showcase is one of the first priorities we did, because – it was a discussion about two or three people, but we were able to get (inaudible 0:07:15) at the event.
The other thing that we did was once we have the plans more or less set, the staff was very helpful in getting the Showcase announced during the event. I will (inaudible 0:07:38) stop to help you have the Showcase announced during the event in Singapore. (inaudible 0:07:50) and (inaudible 0:07:50) and so forth, but I think that helped a lot.
Basically, that’s what I have to share with you. If you have any questions, I will be glad to answer them.
Pavan Budhrani: All right. Thank you, very much. Does anyone have any questions for Eduardo?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, Pavan, I do. Cheryl here. Eduardo, with us sending out the requests for information on the ALS’, you prepared a pro-forma document for that, didn’t you? What were the challenges in getting the ALS’ to complete those, or were there any challenges, and is there any suggestions or changes if you were doing it again that you might make to that pro-forma assuming that we would have access to that pro-forma as an example?
Eduardo Diaz: We have a challenge to get people to answer template. Darlene Thompson was the one that was assigned to do that. She volunteered to do that. I think she did a great job, but she had to follow-up on every ALS to get the information. At the end, there were a couple of ALS’ that we just – we got information from the information that we had before when they applied, because they never answered.
It was a challenge to get it. She had the e-mail of every ALS, and she was very diligent in contacting them. It’s something you have to follow-up with a (inaudible 0:09:42 - 0:09:46). People that didn’t answer until the end.
Darlene had some kind of online template. I don’t know if it’s in the Wiki, or what. It’s a challenge to get information from the ALS.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If I may just follow-up, then – Cheryl, for the record. It would appear that that should be an early action, one that we should get underway as soon as possible. It’s the one that traditionally, and I’ve seen this in other URALO, FRALO, and LACROLO Showcases. It is the one that seems to take longest. In some cases, that is because of course the ALS’ may not be meeting every month as some do and some don’t. Perhaps that’s an early action item out of this meeting.
If I might suggest that Secretariat (inaudible 0:10:51) Pavan, if you could share with the Workgroup the listing of all our ALS’ in the primary – just put it on a Wiki page that we have access to. You don’t need to e-mail it to us, the context, and we put a template up. An online template, I think, would be a good thing. (inaudible 0:11:16) e-mail APRALO space.
The key issues, shamelessly stolen from the NAROLO online template, I would suggest same as (inaudible 0:11:25). We’ll just contact Darlene on that, and get the link to hers. Make whatever changes we want to the template, additional information that’s unique to our area or whatever, and start getting people the opportunity to fill that out. Perhaps we can divvy up the ALS’ to annoy, and make sure (inaudible 0:11:48) their own ALS’ do it as an example.
The other thing is if we can, as these will be expected to be published anyway, if we can attach the results on or even put one on each ALS’ Wiki page. That’s another way of doing it, I suppose, so that they can have control over updating and changing it as it happens.
I would also suggest something that I saw work in the LACROLO and DASHROLO experiences would be that we tell the ALS’ in the absence of them filling out information, we will from publically available material, and material previously sent to us. It puts the onus on them to get it right, and preferably for them to put it in.
From the Showcase that we’ve done in Mexico for the At-Large Summit, a couple of the At-Large structures also were interested in sending material that was not just paperwork or template-based. Perhaps if we could an option if they have any existing promotional webpages, YouTube videos, mp3s, PowerPoints, or whatever that they could also let us know and upload those to the right space in their own ALS Wiki page. That gets them to populate their Wiki page, but it also allows this group to cut and paste, and pick and choose parts of that material that might go into a larger presentation.
A lot from me, but it’s something I’ve seen happen in all the other Showcases – I wasn’t involved in the NARALO one, but it seems to be that what Eduardo is reporting on is very similar to what I’ve seen happened in the others. Thank you, Pavan.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Thank you, very much, for that Cheryl. Action items have been noted down and then will be sent across to everyone in this Showcase Group later, after the call. Moving on, anyone else have any questions for Eduardo, actually? Okay.
Gisella Gruber: Siva?
Siva Muthusamy: I don’t have a question for Eduardo. I just wanted to bring up some of the points (inaudible 0:14:19) e-mail. Can I go ahead now?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, you can. You may. Yes.
Siva Muthusamy: Okay. (inaudible 0:14:28 - 0:14:34) session, with about 16 minutes of speeches. I thought it would be a better idea to make this event a little different. One would be to have an APRALO lounge or reception area which is more like the very fine (inaudible 0:14:59) that we had at ICANN. ICANN sometimes is good. If you can get ICANN to give us that (inaudible 0:15:08) or an area in the lobby, we can set up a parlor or an area like a lounge where people could drop by, and that somebody from (inaudible 0:15:22) can be there. Ultimately, people can (inaudible 0:15:28) reason to interact. That could be one part of the Showcase.
Another part of the Showcase could be (inaudible 0:15:36) where we’d have a party or something. Speeches should be minimal, more like a toast, not like a meeting (inaudible 0:15:48). That puts (inaudible 0:15:52).
One more idea that I’ve thrown for discussion is instead of looking at this as an APRALO Showcase Event, it would be a good idea to consider this as a Showcase Event for the people. Make it something like a Asia Pacific Showcase rather than an APRALO Showcase. If we can make it an Asia Pacific Showcase, there is (inaudible 0:16:22) for doing a lot more. We can make various other people understand more about this region than about the RALO alone. These are some of the ideas that I’ve raised in the e-mail. Open for discussion. Thank you.
Pavan Budhrani: Yes. I think the idea of having a little booth at the lounge would be a good idea for people to interact and find out more about what APROLO is all about, and have someone in the booth taking turns. I think that’s a good idea. Thank you for that, Siva.
Moving on to Point #4 which is about Discussion of Proposed Showcase --
Gisella Gruber: Hong Xue. Hong has her hand up.
Pavan Budhrani: Oh, sorry. Hong? What’s your question?
Hong Xue: Thank you. My line is very noisy, so it was very difficult for me to catch up with the discussion. It’s helpful to read the chatting in the Adobe Room. Indeed, as Olivier said, it’s very difficult to obtain information from each ALS. We need to be very persistent.
I think, also, one method could be thinkable to use experience of even the governor’s caucuses. They normally need to help certain survey to gauge the idea of the member. It’s a simple survey. How separately still people will participate, so they give another method. They combine the survey with a voting process, such as a voting for change of the charter, or a voting for a new coordinator.
It seems that APRALO is going to elect a few offices. Would it be useful to combine the survey along with the voting process? To my knowledge, normally the participation rate for election is very high, so that would be useful to stimulate ALS’ to go through the survey page and submit the information. Just from my rough thinking. Thank you. Back to you.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. That could be another idea which we could consider to get the ALS’ more involved. Maybe with a survey asking them to participate, and than with that we could ask them the questions about the Showcase Event.
Moving onto Point #4, it’s about the Discussion of Proposed Showcase To Do List, the timetable, and assignment of volunteers and Co-Chairs. Talk about this.
When you’re clicking into the site over there about the main workspace. For the to-do list, does anyone have any comment about that? What should be the main to-do list right now, the first ones?
What I can do as Secretariat is make a draft of the to-do list, send it around, see if anyone as any comments about that, and see how to move things forward from there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Pavan, if I may, the only change – I didn’t plan on repeating myself, but I thought the outreach to the ALS needs to be (inaudible 0:20:01) back in time.
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, it does. That’s correct.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s needs to be started now. Other than that, the rest is fine. I would just re-order some of those, that’s all.
Pavan Budhrani: Yes. I think that’s the main priority. That will be taken care of very soon, reaching out to the ALS’ soon. As mentioned by Cheryl from experiences from previous Showcase Events, that’s the one that takes the most time. Once we can get that ironed out as soon as possible, than we can move on to the other ones. It would make it a bit easier once we have the support from the ALS’.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If I may, again, while I just have that – one of the things that has concerned me greatly at the Showcases that I’ve attended is the results of the outreach to the ALS’. The bits of papers on the walls, and to a lesser extent certainly the presentations that are made either in person or by video link. I think we should encourage people to do a short video. (inaudible 21:10) can’t actually have an ALS rep on the ground in Singapore. I think that’s a good thing. We might even want to encourage everybody to do a video link as an option. Have them running somewhere in the background, and just have those of us who are there at the time to do a face-to-face presentation if that’s deemed necessary.
I do wonder how much time is spent by the people attending the ALS Showcase, the RALO Showcase, in actually looking at the material that we collect from the ALS’. I wondered if APRALO might choose to explore collecting people’s business cards if they attend, or some way of following the people who come to the Showcase to pass on the links to the material that we will have been collecting.
I just think that that aspect of the Showcases I’ve seen so far has been all too transitory in some cases. Unfortunately, I think particularly with the setup with the pieces of paper on a wall either behind speakers or somewhere in the room, they don’t get the attention that they rightly deserve.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. I think that’s a good idea. Instead of having paper materials printed out, what we could do is we could have a small screen. With that small screen over there, showing the videos, and maybe an ALS representative talking about them self. I think that would be more interactive, and probably would get more attention than just having the papers over there.
Seth, I see your hand up in the Adobe chat room. Do you have any questions?
Seth Greene: I’m sorry, Pavan. No, that was from before.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay, I’m sorry. Sorry about that. Okay, as mentioned for Point #4, the to-do list, the first main one will be reaching out to the ALS’. That will be done as soon as possible. For the rest of them, I’ll draft something and send it over to the list soon, as well.
Moving on to Point #5, which is about the Showcase Event Agenda. If you could click on the following link, that’s just something me and Seth worked on. Just a draft agenda for the Showcase Event. If you could simply take a look and see if there’s any comments or changes that you would like to see made. Anyone can speak up right now.
Edmon Chung: This is Edmon. Sorry for joining late. Also, sorry, which link?
Pavan Budhrani: The link is – I’ll put it on the Adobe Room.
Edmon Chung: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Cheryl, here. Pavan, obviously the only change at the moment is as we summararily dismissed the concept of having a Chair of the Showcase Workgroup. We’ve already gone ten minutes, so we can just use the Chair of APRALO at the time.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. I think that would be – the Chair of APRALO at that time would be the one coming on stage. Apart from that, I think we’re okay with how it is over there, right?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I think so. I guess the only other thing is, while I have the microphone, quite often depending on the time of day that this occurs, and I know that hasn’t been settled yet, you need to have some flexibility. From my point of view, for example, if the CEO is tied up in an important meeting somewhere else such as happened in the URALO Showcase, we are better off not wasting our time waiting for some individual, whether or not it’s the CEO of ICANN or a goddess themselves.
We should be still running with the program, and just have the flexibility of shuttling around. I think it’s appropriate for the majority of audience and everyone else that’s turned up. If a speaker, regardless of who they are, has another issue that they have to deal with as a matter of urgency; whoever is wrangling the events, just has the flexibility to say, “Okay, you’re up next,” or “This is happening now, instead of someone else.”
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, but I think that that --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry. I also question the need for the NomCom outreach. Why on earth do we have NomCom outreach, when NomCom at that point has closed its operations for this year and, in fact, will be deliberating in Singapore on who they’re appointing?
Pavan Budhrani: Okay, so maybe we won’t have the thing about NonCom. NonCom is something that – Seth, I think you added that thing over there, right?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, Seth (inaudible 0:26:59). Sorry. (inaudible 0:27:01).
Seth Greene: Sorry. Yes, I think that was right out of the NAROLO --
Pavan Budhrani: I think instead of the outreach, maybe we can just have an update, or the latest something like that, instead of the outreach.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, no, and no again. They won’t be in a position to say anything. NonCom will be meeting in Singapore to make its final deliberations. All they can tell us is that 77 people have applied, and six of them are women.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible 0:27:38)
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. It will be off the (inaudible 0:27:48).
Seth Greene: Sorry, Pavan.
Pavan Budhrani: Yes. We’ll remove the NonCom thing from there. As what Cheryl said, before the event starts, we’ll be sending an e-mail to everyone who will be speaking to remind them that their time may come anytime. It won’t be a really according to the agenda. Sometimes if one person is not there, the other one will come up. There will be the flexibility so we can move forward and try to complete the event in the 60 or 70 minutes that we have over there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, most important.That would be great.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Is there any other comments about the agenda? Siva, I see your hand is up in the Adobe room. Do you have any questions about that?
Siva Muthusamy: No, my hand was up from my previous request, but I still have a comment. Can you list the number of items on the agenda for the (inaudible 0:28:56)? For a short period I’m sure it’s not like we want (inaudible 0:29:03) in a row. Could we have a keynote speaker? Apart from the keynote speaker, maybe one other speaker. Make it more like a (inaudible 0:29:17) or a very short (inaudible 0:29:21). 60 minutes would be boring, that’s what I feel.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Siva, if I may, what the hell else are they there for if they’re not there to listen to the ALS’? If they’re there for the drinks, they should go to the bar. If they’re there to listen to what the ALS’ do, than they should be at the Showcase. I don’t believe --
Siva Muthusamy: (inaudible 29:44)
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I don’t think we need to bore them .I would be very happy to break it up and do other things, and have short (inaudible 29:51), but this is not a networking meeting. This is a presentation.
Siva Muthusamy: Yes, but there definitely is (inaudible 30:01) other than mixed speakers. There can be visual presentations; there could be presentations by some other way. It’s not like (inaudible 30:10).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I couldn’t agree more. Yes. Shift it around, do something, that’s fine, but all of the ALS’ need the opportunity to present.
Pavan Budhrani: What we could do is we could have the ALS presenting, and then maybe a keynote speaker, and then another ALS sandwiched between to make it a bit more interesting that way.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Something.
Siva Muthusamy: (inaudible 0:30:36) one of the ones. We had a video at the next couple of meetings. That was the last (inaudible 0:30:45), the video (inaudible 0:30:46) writing during the board meeting. That was a summary video presentation, so we can come up with a presentation like that, a (inaudible 0:30:54) video six or seven minutes. That combined (inaudible 0:30:58 - 0:31:16).
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. We could look at it. We could at look at those suggestions and see how to move forward. Either have it on video or have them present it. Of course, we’re shuffle them around to make sure every ASL have the chance to speak over there because it’s their presentation time.
Any other comments about the agenda? Hong and Edmon have questions? Maybe, Hong, you can go first.
Gisella Gruber: I see Edmon has his hand up. Pavan?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes. Edmon?
Edmon Chung: Actually I wanted to bring up the same issue as Siva did, in a way, with what Charles mentioned before. I think it’s probably important to identify how many ALS’ that we expect. If there’s a lot, we really need to think about how those – I think it’s important that everyone gets the chance to speak and tell people what they’re doing. That’s what the whole thing is for.
At the same time, that’s usually where we lose most of the people’s attention so we need to think about how best to keep people’s attention and give them the setting, as well, of what we’re thinking about.
I don’t have any concrete ideas right now, but I share the sentiment that we don’t want a situation where – it’s probably unavoidable, but we should at least try to think through how we can make it more interesting. Perhaps to have a few of the ALS’ up, and have one go, and they could have some interaction. I don’t know, but that is certainly something that should be thought about.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Hong, do you have anything to add to that?
Hong Xue: I fully agree with Edmond. We should – the line is terribly acting. I fully agree with Edmond. We should make the event interesting. I think that too many presentations very seriously is not going to be interesting to the community.
I have one suggestion for your consideration that is this is an International event, and we have International participants. However, we should think about local community. Singapore has almost 70% of Chinese speakers. I’ve heard that. I can promise to provide Chinese translation and interpretation. I suggest at least one at-large structure could present in Chinese and be translated into English. I guess that would an outreach for the local community. Singapore has no at-large structures, unfortunately, at the moment.
I guess it’s also a Showcase ICANN’s English utilization policy, so it’s not only English dominant. Okay, back to you Pavan.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Could consider that, actually. Moving on to Point #6, which is about the Discussion of a Keynote Speaker and Related Matters. I’m not sure if Charles is on the call, but do you have an update on the keynote speakers outreach, or maybe Edmon could give an update on the keynote speakers? They don’t seem to be there, so look at your e-mails which have been sent. I know that they’re looking at some people to invite for the keynote speakers. Outreach has started between Charles, myself, and Edmon and we’ll be --
Edmon Chung: Sorry, I didn’t realize I’m on mute. This is about the keynote?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes.
Edmon Chung: Yes. I think we had a brief discussion on it. There was a few names suggested, Joey being one of them, also a potential of having a few of them perhaps from the region. Right now I don’t think we – Charles has been putting a little bit more thought to it. Is Charles still on the phone?
Pavan Budhrani: He said he’s on and off. I’m not sure if he’s on right now.
Edmon Chung: I think this is something we could discuss here. We talked about Joey. We talked about having perhaps some of the earlier ICANN board members from Asia together. We talked about having potentially figureheads from Japan, Korea, China, India and around Asia to act as a joint keynote. I think this is definitely something we should talk more about here. I wonder if anyone has any further thoughts or suggestions how to do this, and also to in a way attract more people to come.
Hong Xue: Pavan, I’m sorry to jump in but --
Pavan Budhrani: Go ahead. No worries.
Hong Xue: Edmon is right. I filmed, and it would be useful to let many at-large structure to join in but only speak possible one sentence in their own language. That would save time and make it really multi-lingual and event interesting I think. Okay, back to you.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Anyone else have any comment about the outreach for a keynote? I don’t think Charles is on, but Charles probably has an update. I’ll ask him to send the update over by e-mail perhaps, so we can maybe talk about it further in the next call that we’re going to have.
Moving on to the next point which is about the Discussion of Strategy to get Sponsors. Again, we can look at how NARALO did that outreach. Of course, as Cheryl mentioned before, to outreach to the ALS’ as well. Not about sponsorship and stuff.
Over there you see the link about the LACROLO sponsorship letter. We can take a look at that and I can edit it for APRALO, and we can see who to send it out to.
Anyone has any comment about the strategy on how to get sponsors?
Eduardo Diaz: This is Eduardo. May I?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes. Yes, you may.
Eduardo Diaz: What we did in the NARALO, we used basically – we all have contacts with local companies. We just went out and reached whoever we knew. That was (inaudible 0:39:25) we reached two or three companies. One of the people that worked in the Working Group had a contact with Google, which was the one that just put the money for the event, because nobody else wanted to put money. I guess we were lucky. It’s going to be a challenge to get sponsors for this. I guess that’s what I was trying to say.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Anyone else have anything else to say about the strategy to getting sponsors?
Edmon Chung: This is Edmon. I guess we should figure out what the cost is first, in a way. I apologize for joining late. I don’t know whether we’ve discussed what kind of setting, venue, and cost we’re looking at first. Then we can think about sponsors.
I observe in the chat that Cheryl was about to mention whether we need them. That’s essentially the question. Once we identify how much we actually need, how much I can or cannot cover, then we probably have a better idea how much we need to raise in a way.
I actually also have another point for earlier. I included it in the chat, as well. For the keynote, I guess Pavan having not pointed to any person to take the lead on it, you or maybe Charles would continue to take the lead on identifying the keynote and also keeping us all up-to-date and getting input. I just won’t want to keep it hanging. Somebody needs to take the lead and make sure that it happens.
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, sure. I’ll be working with Charles with that and than try to get an update. I think that’s something we could use as propaganda and marketing. You get more people to come to the event, as mentioned for the NARALO event in San Francisco. The keynote was one of the major reasons so many people turned up, and it was a real successful event. That’s something we can do for APRALO as well.
Edmon Chung: Yes. Somebody local, as Cheryl said, might be useful as well. Huang Wa [sp], whom we’re working with on the Regional ITF might be somebody we want to include to help identify the right person as well.
Back to the sponsorship and cost.
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, I’ll be working with Charles for the keynote thing. Anything else about the strategy of getting the sponsors? What I can do in the meantime is the letter from LACRALO, I can edit it and make it suitable for APRALO, and then we can see how are we going – than what Edmon mentioned as well, about getting the cost. We need to look at the event, the venue, and the cost and see what the roundabout cost is going to be, and see how much sponsorship we will actually need, and then probably try to send the letter out.
Olivier? Do you have anything to add?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, Chair. I was just going to agree with Edmon’s fact or idea that you needed to get a figure of how much you needed. Obviously that will depend, as Cheryl mentioned on the chat, that will depend on the time of the day. Are you going to do an afternoon event, a lunchtime event, a morning event? Will there be food? Will there be drinks? This sort of stuff.
Finally, I was just going to mention that you might also try to obtain sponsorships from some of the keynote speakers that you might get. Some of them might come from large organizations now. They might have been in ICANN before, but they might have left and worked for another organization. They might wish to provide some funding to the actual event. Thank you.
Pavan Budhrani: Thank you very much. Those ideas will be considered as well. I think we can get someone, or even myself, to look at the cost and see what the roundabout costs are going to be and discuss amongst ourselves, do we want it to be a day event, a night event, with food or with drinks and so on, and see what the cost would be for different options.
Edmon, anything to add to that?
Edmon Chung: Yes. I think I asked this question back in San Francisco, is how much ICANN can support us. We got the rough idea that it’s about $2,000. I wonder what about the venue, as well. If we are able to use the ICANN venues, how would we coordinate that? I think it’s something we need to explore as well.
Pavan Budhrani: Cheryl, anything to say?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Am I un-muted?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, you can hear (inaudible 0:45:24).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Great. Thank you. Just on that, time of day is important. How much ICANN is or isn’t able to offer a facility is equally important. I was under the impression that certainly in the African situation where AFRALO failed to get sponsorship, it was deemed quite appropriate and worked quite well to match up the activity in terms of time and day with another already sponsored activity.
You note that in the African Regional Showcase, it was done at the same time as a nibbles and drinks event that was involving the fellows. In the URALO situation, it was done in the middle of the day. The cost of an afternoon tea were matched up to some extent with the costs of the beverages provided at the event.
We really need to look at what was available. I did say in the chat space, at some ICANN meetings the cost of even morning and afternoon teas has been too prohibitive for even ICANN to consider providing as part of the meeting.
We need to know from meeting staff what the (inaudible 0:47:00) for the Singapore meeting. Is it like in Brussells? We all going to have to go and buy our own can of Coca-Cola and cup of tea up the road? Or, for example, if afternoon tea is being provided than having an event that finishes immediately before afternoon tea might be a smart thing to do, then everyone can just move into a tea and coffee situation that is available.
Depending on what we can get, we can then make it match to give the best possible Showcase outcome that we can in the circumstances. Can I ask, Pavan, if we can find out from staff exactly who we will be using as our liaison point between our Workgroups, ICANN and ICANN meetings people please?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes. Seth, any (inaudible 0:47:53)? Is Seth on the call?
Seth Greene: I’m sorry. I didn’t hear that, Pavan. What was – could you repeat that please?
Pavan Budhrani: Cheryl was asking who should be the person --
Seth Greene: Liaison?
Pavan Budhrani: – that we should, liaison, that we should work with and talk to for communication with ICANN.
Seth Greene: Sure.
Pavan Budhrani: (inaudible 48:25) for looking at which rooms to get, or are we able to get a room during the meeting time for the event. Which is the person that we need to speak to for that?
Seth Greene: Right. I don’t know traditionally whether the Showcase Workgroups have dealt directly with the, for example, someone in the meeting staff or whether they just used the at-large support that --
Gisella Gruber: At-large – sorry, Gisella here. At-large support will then liaise with the meeting team.
Seth Greene: Okay, then that would be me, Pavan. That would be me, Cheryl.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. As mentioned by Edmon and Cheryl, we need to find out what are the options rooms that we could use, maybe in the afternoon time. Cheryl mentioned a good idea about having it just before afternoon tea so we could have the event, and then guide everyone to the afternoon tea.
Maybe, Seth, you can go look at some options, see which times some venues are open, and we can use those venues for the Showcase Event at that time.
Seth Greene: Sure. Certainly. Do we want to make a guess, an estimate of the number of attendees at this point? That will probably affect the rooms that the meeting staff (inaudible 0:49:46).
Pavan Budhrani: From the experience of Eduardo, how many people were at the North American one?
Eduardo Diaz: You mean in the event? During the event?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes.
Eduardo Diaz: To tell you the truth, I’m not sure how many people were there at this moment.
Pavan Budhrani: Maybe, Edmon, because we were in Singapore in April for the Internet show. We looked at the venue. Any room, in particular, you think would be suitable for this event?
Edom Chung: Well, we looked at the additional function areas which is high up above in the hotel. That would be, obviously, nice to have. I don’t know whether I can’t have that booked up as well, which means we will be able to use it. Otherwise, I think all the rooms are on the same floor, which means as long as it’s big enough it won’t be too far off. In that case, it really depends on the availability of (inaudible 51:04).
(Beeping on call audio.)
Gisella Gruber: We’ll look into that. Siva’s line dropped. Sorry for that.
Pavan Budhrani: It’s okay. Olivier, you have your hand up?
Olivier Crepen-Leblond: Thank you, Chair. I was just going to give the statistics for the NARALO Showcase. There were a total of about 220 attendees at the Showcase, and 199 had registered online. Of course, these numbers are more than what was originally intended. In fact, the first room that was secured was a smaller room, or less well located than the one that was finally used. It was only a few days before the Showcase taking place that things were moved around.
I would imagine that you should look at between 80 to 100 attendees to start with, as a starting point. Depending on what keynote speakers you’re going to get, and whether you’re going to start drawing more crowds. You’ll probably gain a better idea. At that point, you may need to shuffle things around.
From experience at what happened in the San Francisco meeting, it looks as thought there was a lot of shuffling around of many rooms and last minute movement. As you well know, with the Board and GAC Consultation, things were thrown all over the place. I would hope that it’s not the case in Singapore, but we never know.
So far, I haven’t had any advance knowledge of how the rooms are going to be arranged. The schedules are not even drawn up yet. I’ll be working with Seth, of course, to work on that. Thank you.
Pavan Budhrani: In the meantime, Seth, could you look at some options for rooms for 80 to 100 people as mentioned by Olivier? See some options which you could suggest to the APRALO Showcase Group. Would that be okay Seth?
Seth Greene: Sorry, I was on mute again. Yes, absolutely. I was actually just wondering if anyone had any feelings about day of the week that the Workgroup might be leaning toward.
Pavan Budhrani: Edmon, you have something to say?
Edmon Chung: Not about day of the week, but in terms of room, once you figure out which ones are possible, I can probably help in terms of making suggestions. I was there to check out the venue as well. On day of the week, I don’t have a good idea. I know that Monday is going to be a big day for this ICANN.
Pavan Budhrani: Anyone else has any suggestion about the day of the week for the event? People in the chat room seem to think that we should avoid Mondays because it’s going to be really hectic that day. So it’s either Tuesday or Wednesday we’ll look at. Seth, maybe you can look at some options for Tuesday or Wednesday first, then we can take a look at the options first and then see which time is suitable for us.
Seth Greene: Certainly.
Pavan Budhrani: Edmon again?
Edmon Chung: What about Sunday? I wonder if that’s too early. It’s a big Monday this time. I’m guessing a lot of people might come in Sunday. I don’t know, but that might be a – I see Olivier say that nobody’s going to be around. Just a suggestion, I guess.
Pavan Budhrani: You can maybe put Sunday into consideration as well, Seth, and see if there are any locations or rooms available and then get back to us and we could look at the options then.
Seth Greene: Sure. Absolutely.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Moving on to Point #8. Is there any other business anyone would like to talk about or bring up? I guess that’s a no, so we just need to set up for Point #9 for the next meeting. Is everyone okay having it next week at the same time, same day? If no one says anything, I’ll take that as a yes. Maybe, Seth, we could make it a weekly or bi-weekly thing. Is everyone okay having the meeting next week? Again, I think we should have it next week.
Okay. Edmon seems to agree, so we’ll do that. We’ll have it like a weekly meeting, so same time, same day next week as well. We’ll send out the e-mails to make sure people are reminded to attend the call and have the agenda up for that one as well.
Okay. Thank you everyone. Thank you for your time. We’ll follow-up on the action items from this meeting. We’ll continue our discussion next week for the Showcase Event.
All: Thank you.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Thank you.
Siva Muthusamy: Thank you. Bye.
Pavan Budhrani: Bye-bye.
Gisella Gruber: Thank you (inaudible 0:57:07)
[End of Transcript]
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Charles Mok: I guess maybe we’ll get started first while Pavan comes along, because he said he’s going to be a few minutes late. We have him probably needing his help on some of these Secretariat issues. He has been doing some work checking out things in Singapore and so on. He can report about that later.
Maybe we should get started. I think I’ll just get the call started as the Vice-Chair of APRALO at the moment. I guess I would hope that we will be able to get along with the agenda and maybe select a Chair or Co-Chair because --
Pavan Budhrani: Hi, there. Pavan here. Sorry.
Charles Mok: – I may not be the right one to do that at the moment. Who’s that, again, sorry?
Pavan Budhrani: Pavan. Pavan’s here.
Charles Mok: You’re here. Okay, good. Good. Good. Maybe we can get along with the agenda. Do we need to do a role-call first?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, it’s good to do a role call. Who’s on the line? I hear Charles, myself Pavan. Anyone else?
Gisella Gruber: We have Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Charles Mok, Siva Muthuswamy, Olivier Crepin-Leblond, Hong Xue, Pavan Budhrani, and our guest this evening is Eduardo Diaz. Fouad Bajwa as well as Siranushe Vardanyan send through their apology. From staff we have Seth Greene and myself, Gisella Gruber.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay, thank you. Thank you, very much, for that. All right, Charles, do you want to get it started?
Charles Mok: Yes. I lost my Adobe.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The next thing on the agenda Charles, if I can help you, is the selection of Showcase Workgroup offices. That’s something I am far less fussed about than everyone else apparently. I think the delusions of grandeur of who has what role is ridiculous. We’ve got half a dozen people here who can work well together and we should just do it, but that’s what my opinion is. Let the Secretariat do our work.
Charles Mok: Pavan, yes, I tend to agree with that. Instead of selecting a Chair, or a Co-Chair, or a Secretariat for that, I just think we should have six people working together for the event and that would work better. Of course, I think having one Chair would be okay, and everyone else working together would be better.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If somebody isn’t available for a meeting, for example, if as (inaudible 0:02:59) Vice-Chair should Chair a meeting, which makes perfect sense as this is still an APRALO meeting, even though it’s a Workgroup call, than Pavan, or me, or Hong, or anyone else is able to Chair. We just pass the baton if we need to.
In fact, you can just decide who’s going to Chair a given meeting at any given time. We all have the skill-sets, we just need to get the work done.
Fouad Bajwa: I’m just back. Fouad. I guess we’ll just probably select a Chair for this particular meeting. Any volunteers?
Pavan Budhrani: I don’t mind doing it, Charles, it you’re okay with that.
Charles Mok: Okay. Anyone want to – if we need a Co-Chair, otherwise Pavan can take over for (inaudible 0:03:47).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It just --
Charles Mok: – that might be, because I seem to be dropping in and out of the call and Adobe.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s just logistics. We’re recording.
Charles Mok: So if there’s no objections, Pavan please take over.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Okay. For the second points that I selected, we’ll just move around the Chair for different meetings, looking at the circumstances, and then moving on from there. Not really having a group, just have six people working together for the end product, which would be the Showcase event in Singapore.
The third event on the agenda today, the Summary of the NARALO Lessons Learned from Eduardo. Eduardo, is it okay for you to share with us?
Eduardo Diaz: Yes. From Lessons Learned, I guess what I can do is I can tell you the way we did it. Olivier welcomed some of the calls (inaudible 0:04:46). You can share your points of view. I would really appreciate it.
One of the first things that I did that worked very well is I just created an Event Schedule. We have an hour for the Showcase. I said, “We’re going to have ten minutes for this, five minutes for this.” “The speaker would have x number of minutes,” and so forth. I did that. I put it in the Wiki. I did it to create this caution, because it was a dynamic document. It changed with the help of the whole Working Group.
The other thing that I put together right away was a Program Schedule. What things we need to do from now until the beginning of the event to get it going. Like a Program Schedule, I just put that together. I created that. It changed during the working time, but it helped everybody to focus on what needed to be done. We find out who wanted to do what from there. That function, that worked very well.
Very important we have a weekly meeting all the way until the week before everyone travels there. That helped to create a continuance from week to week. Also, the weekly meeting was at the same time, the same day.
It could work like today is Wednesday, here 2300. You can see then every Wednesday at 2300. You can see everybody knows in the Working Group that a meeting for the Showcase what’s going to happen.
One of the obvious speakers that we got for the Showcase was a really good one. I guess that’s why we had a very good turnout there. Getting the speakers for the Showcase is one of the first priorities we did, because – it was a discussion about two or three people, but we were able to get (inaudible 0:07:15) at the event.
The other thing that we did was once we have the plans more or less set, the staff was very helpful in getting the Showcase announced during the event. I will (inaudible 0:07:38) stop to help you have the Showcase announced during the event in Singapore. (inaudible 0:07:50) and (inaudible 0:07:50) and so forth, but I think that helped a lot.
Basically, that’s what I have to share with you. If you have any questions, I will be glad to answer them.
Pavan Budhrani: All right. Thank you, very much. Does anyone have any questions for Eduardo?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, Pavan, I do. Cheryl here. Eduardo, with us sending out the requests for information on the ALS’, you prepared a pro-forma document for that, didn’t you? What were the challenges in getting the ALS’ to complete those, or were there any challenges, and is there any suggestions or changes if you were doing it again that you might make to that pro-forma assuming that we would have access to that pro-forma as an example?
Eduardo Diaz: We have a challenge to get people to answer template. Darlene Thompson was the one that was assigned to do that. She volunteered to do that. I think she did a great job, but she had to follow-up on every ALS to get the information. At the end, there were a couple of ALS’ that we just – we got information from the information that we had before when they applied, because they never answered.
It was a challenge to get it. She had the e-mail of every ALS, and she was very diligent in contacting them. It’s something you have to follow-up with a (inaudible 0:09:42 - 0:09:46). People that didn’t answer until the end.
Darlene had some kind of online template. I don’t know if it’s in the Wiki, or what. It’s a challenge to get information from the ALS.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If I may just follow-up, then – Cheryl, for the record. It would appear that that should be an early action, one that we should get underway as soon as possible. It’s the one that traditionally, and I’ve seen this in other URALO, FRALO, and LACROLO Showcases. It is the one that seems to take longest. In some cases, that is because of course the ALS’ may not be meeting every month as some do and some don’t. Perhaps that’s an early action item out of this meeting.
If I might suggest that Secretariat (inaudible 0:10:51) Pavan, if you could share with the Workgroup the listing of all our ALS’ in the primary – just put it on a Wiki page that we have access to. You don’t need to e-mail it to us, the context, and we put a template up. An online template, I think, would be a good thing. (inaudible 0:11:16) e-mail APRALO space.
The key issues, shamelessly stolen from the NAROLO online template, I would suggest same as (inaudible 0:11:25). We’ll just contact Darlene on that, and get the link to hers. Make whatever changes we want to the template, additional information that’s unique to our area or whatever, and start getting people the opportunity to fill that out. Perhaps we can divvy up the ALS’ to annoy, and make sure (inaudible 0:11:48) their own ALS’ do it as an example.
The other thing is if we can, as these will be expected to be published anyway, if we can attach the results on or even put one on each ALS’ Wiki page. That’s another way of doing it, I suppose, so that they can have control over updating and changing it as it happens.
I would also suggest something that I saw work in the LACROLO and DASHROLO experiences would be that we tell the ALS’ in the absence of them filling out information, we will from publically available material, and material previously sent to us. It puts the onus on them to get it right, and preferably for them to put it in.
From the Showcase that we’ve done in Mexico for the At-Large Summit, a couple of the At-Large structures also were interested in sending material that was not just paperwork or template-based. Perhaps if we could an option if they have any existing promotional webpages, YouTube videos, mp3s, PowerPoints, or whatever that they could also let us know and upload those to the right space in their own ALS Wiki page. That gets them to populate their Wiki page, but it also allows this group to cut and paste, and pick and choose parts of that material that might go into a larger presentation.
A lot from me, but it’s something I’ve seen happen in all the other Showcases – I wasn’t involved in the NARALO one, but it seems to be that what Eduardo is reporting on is very similar to what I’ve seen happened in the others. Thank you, Pavan.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Thank you, very much, for that Cheryl. Action items have been noted down and then will be sent across to everyone in this Showcase Group later, after the call. Moving on, anyone else have any questions for Eduardo, actually? Okay.
Gisella Gruber: Siva?
Siva Muthusamy: I don’t have a question for Eduardo. I just wanted to bring up some of the points (inaudible 0:14:19) e-mail. Can I go ahead now?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, you can. You may. Yes.
Siva Muthusamy: Okay. (inaudible 0:14:28 - 0:14:34) session, with about 16 minutes of speeches. I thought it would be a better idea to make this event a little different. One would be to have an APRALO lounge or reception area which is more like the very fine (inaudible 0:14:59) that we had at ICANN. ICANN sometimes is good. If you can get ICANN to give us that (inaudible 0:15:08) or an area in the lobby, we can set up a parlor or an area like a lounge where people could drop by, and that somebody from (inaudible 0:15:22) can be there. Ultimately, people can (inaudible 0:15:28) reason to interact. That could be one part of the Showcase.
Another part of the Showcase could be (inaudible 0:15:36) where we’d have a party or something. Speeches should be minimal, more like a toast, not like a meeting (inaudible 0:15:48). That puts (inaudible 0:15:52).
One more idea that I’ve thrown for discussion is instead of looking at this as an APRALO Showcase Event, it would be a good idea to consider this as a Showcase Event for the people. Make it something like a Asia Pacific Showcase rather than an APRALO Showcase. If we can make it an Asia Pacific Showcase, there is (inaudible 0:16:22) for doing a lot more. We can make various other people understand more about this region than about the RALO alone. These are some of the ideas that I’ve raised in the e-mail. Open for discussion. Thank you.
Pavan Budhrani: Yes. I think the idea of having a little booth at the lounge would be a good idea for people to interact and find out more about what APROLO is all about, and have someone in the booth taking turns. I think that’s a good idea. Thank you for that, Siva.
Moving on to Point #4 which is about Discussion of Proposed Showcase --
Gisella Gruber: Hong Xue. Hong has her hand up.
Pavan Budhrani: Oh, sorry. Hong? What’s your question?
Hong Xue: Thank you. My line is very noisy, so it was very difficult for me to catch up with the discussion. It’s helpful to read the chatting in the Adobe Room. Indeed, as Olivier said, it’s very difficult to obtain information from each ALS. We need to be very persistent.
I think, also, one method could be thinkable to use experience of even the governor’s caucuses. They normally need to help certain survey to gauge the idea of the member. It’s a simple survey. How separately still people will participate, so they give another method. They combine the survey with a voting process, such as a voting for change of the charter, or a voting for a new coordinator.
It seems that APRALO is going to elect a few offices. Would it be useful to combine the survey along with the voting process? To my knowledge, normally the participation rate for election is very high, so that would be useful to stimulate ALS’ to go through the survey page and submit the information. Just from my rough thinking. Thank you. Back to you.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. That could be another idea which we could consider to get the ALS’ more involved. Maybe with a survey asking them to participate, and than with that we could ask them the questions about the Showcase Event.
Moving onto Point #4, it’s about the Discussion of Proposed Showcase To Do List, the timetable, and assignment of volunteers and Co-Chairs. Talk about this.
When you’re clicking into the site over there about the main workspace. For the to-do list, does anyone have any comment about that? What should be the main to-do list right now, the first ones?
What I can do as Secretariat is make a draft of the to-do list, send it around, see if anyone as any comments about that, and see how to move things forward from there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Pavan, if I may, the only change – I didn’t plan on repeating myself, but I thought the outreach to the ALS needs to be (inaudible 0:20:01) back in time.
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, it does. That’s correct.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s needs to be started now. Other than that, the rest is fine. I would just re-order some of those, that’s all.
Pavan Budhrani: Yes. I think that’s the main priority. That will be taken care of very soon, reaching out to the ALS’ soon. As mentioned by Cheryl from experiences from previous Showcase Events, that’s the one that takes the most time. Once we can get that ironed out as soon as possible, than we can move on to the other ones. It would make it a bit easier once we have the support from the ALS’.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If I may, again, while I just have that – one of the things that has concerned me greatly at the Showcases that I’ve attended is the results of the outreach to the ALS’. The bits of papers on the walls, and to a lesser extent certainly the presentations that are made either in person or by video link. I think we should encourage people to do a short video. (inaudible 21:10) can’t actually have an ALS rep on the ground in Singapore. I think that’s a good thing. We might even want to encourage everybody to do a video link as an option. Have them running somewhere in the background, and just have those of us who are there at the time to do a face-to-face presentation if that’s deemed necessary.
I do wonder how much time is spent by the people attending the ALS Showcase, the RALO Showcase, in actually looking at the material that we collect from the ALS’. I wondered if APRALO might choose to explore collecting people’s business cards if they attend, or some way of following the people who come to the Showcase to pass on the links to the material that we will have been collecting.
I just think that that aspect of the Showcases I’ve seen so far has been all too transitory in some cases. Unfortunately, I think particularly with the setup with the pieces of paper on a wall either behind speakers or somewhere in the room, they don’t get the attention that they rightly deserve.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. I think that’s a good idea. Instead of having paper materials printed out, what we could do is we could have a small screen. With that small screen over there, showing the videos, and maybe an ALS representative talking about them self. I think that would be more interactive, and probably would get more attention than just having the papers over there.
Seth, I see your hand up in the Adobe chat room. Do you have any questions?
Seth Greene: I’m sorry, Pavan. No, that was from before.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay, I’m sorry. Sorry about that. Okay, as mentioned for Point #4, the to-do list, the first main one will be reaching out to the ALS’. That will be done as soon as possible. For the rest of them, I’ll draft something and send it over to the list soon, as well.
Moving on to Point #5, which is about the Showcase Event Agenda. If you could click on the following link, that’s just something me and Seth worked on. Just a draft agenda for the Showcase Event. If you could simply take a look and see if there’s any comments or changes that you would like to see made. Anyone can speak up right now.
Edmon Chung: This is Edmon. Sorry for joining late. Also, sorry, which link?
Pavan Budhrani: The link is – I’ll put it on the Adobe Room.
Edmon Chung: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Cheryl, here. Pavan, obviously the only change at the moment is as we summararily dismissed the concept of having a Chair of the Showcase Workgroup. We’ve already gone ten minutes, so we can just use the Chair of APRALO at the time.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. I think that would be – the Chair of APRALO at that time would be the one coming on stage. Apart from that, I think we’re okay with how it is over there, right?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I think so. I guess the only other thing is, while I have the microphone, quite often depending on the time of day that this occurs, and I know that hasn’t been settled yet, you need to have some flexibility. From my point of view, for example, if the CEO is tied up in an important meeting somewhere else such as happened in the URALO Showcase, we are better off not wasting our time waiting for some individual, whether or not it’s the CEO of ICANN or a goddess themselves.
We should be still running with the program, and just have the flexibility of shuttling around. I think it’s appropriate for the majority of audience and everyone else that’s turned up. If a speaker, regardless of who they are, has another issue that they have to deal with as a matter of urgency; whoever is wrangling the events, just has the flexibility to say, “Okay, you’re up next,” or “This is happening now, instead of someone else.”
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, but I think that that --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry. I also question the need for the NomCom outreach. Why on earth do we have NomCom outreach, when NomCom at that point has closed its operations for this year and, in fact, will be deliberating in Singapore on who they’re appointing?
Pavan Budhrani: Okay, so maybe we won’t have the thing about NonCom. NonCom is something that – Seth, I think you added that thing over there, right?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, Seth (inaudible 0:26:59). Sorry. (inaudible 0:27:01).
Seth Greene: Sorry. Yes, I think that was right out of the NAROLO --
Pavan Budhrani: I think instead of the outreach, maybe we can just have an update, or the latest something like that, instead of the outreach.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, no, and no again. They won’t be in a position to say anything. NonCom will be meeting in Singapore to make its final deliberations. All they can tell us is that 77 people have applied, and six of them are women.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (inaudible 0:27:38)
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. It will be off the (inaudible 0:27:48).
Seth Greene: Sorry, Pavan.
Pavan Budhrani: Yes. We’ll remove the NonCom thing from there. As what Cheryl said, before the event starts, we’ll be sending an e-mail to everyone who will be speaking to remind them that their time may come anytime. It won’t be a really according to the agenda. Sometimes if one person is not there, the other one will come up. There will be the flexibility so we can move forward and try to complete the event in the 60 or 70 minutes that we have over there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, most important.That would be great.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Is there any other comments about the agenda? Siva, I see your hand is up in the Adobe room. Do you have any questions about that?
Siva Muthusamy: No, my hand was up from my previous request, but I still have a comment. Can you list the number of items on the agenda for the (inaudible 0:28:56)? For a short period I’m sure it’s not like we want (inaudible 0:29:03) in a row. Could we have a keynote speaker? Apart from the keynote speaker, maybe one other speaker. Make it more like a (inaudible 0:29:17) or a very short (inaudible 0:29:21). 60 minutes would be boring, that’s what I feel.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Siva, if I may, what the hell else are they there for if they’re not there to listen to the ALS’? If they’re there for the drinks, they should go to the bar. If they’re there to listen to what the ALS’ do, than they should be at the Showcase. I don’t believe --
Siva Muthusamy: (inaudible 29:44)
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I don’t think we need to bore them .I would be very happy to break it up and do other things, and have short (inaudible 29:51), but this is not a networking meeting. This is a presentation.
Siva Muthusamy: Yes, but there definitely is (inaudible 30:01) other than mixed speakers. There can be visual presentations; there could be presentations by some other way. It’s not like (inaudible 30:10).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I couldn’t agree more. Yes. Shift it around, do something, that’s fine, but all of the ALS’ need the opportunity to present.
Pavan Budhrani: What we could do is we could have the ALS presenting, and then maybe a keynote speaker, and then another ALS sandwiched between to make it a bit more interesting that way.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Something.
Siva Muthusamy: (inaudible 0:30:36) one of the ones. We had a video at the next couple of meetings. That was the last (inaudible 0:30:45), the video (inaudible 0:30:46) writing during the board meeting. That was a summary video presentation, so we can come up with a presentation like that, a (inaudible 0:30:54) video six or seven minutes. That combined (inaudible 0:30:58 - 0:31:16).
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. We could look at it. We could at look at those suggestions and see how to move forward. Either have it on video or have them present it. Of course, we’re shuffle them around to make sure every ASL have the chance to speak over there because it’s their presentation time.
Any other comments about the agenda? Hong and Edmon have questions? Maybe, Hong, you can go first.
Gisella Gruber: I see Edmon has his hand up. Pavan?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes. Edmon?
Edmon Chung: Actually I wanted to bring up the same issue as Siva did, in a way, with what Charles mentioned before. I think it’s probably important to identify how many ALS’ that we expect. If there’s a lot, we really need to think about how those – I think it’s important that everyone gets the chance to speak and tell people what they’re doing. That’s what the whole thing is for.
At the same time, that’s usually where we lose most of the people’s attention so we need to think about how best to keep people’s attention and give them the setting, as well, of what we’re thinking about.
I don’t have any concrete ideas right now, but I share the sentiment that we don’t want a situation where – it’s probably unavoidable, but we should at least try to think through how we can make it more interesting. Perhaps to have a few of the ALS’ up, and have one go, and they could have some interaction. I don’t know, but that is certainly something that should be thought about.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Hong, do you have anything to add to that?
Hong Xue: I fully agree with Edmond. We should – the line is terribly acting. I fully agree with Edmond. We should make the event interesting. I think that too many presentations very seriously is not going to be interesting to the community.
I have one suggestion for your consideration that is this is an International event, and we have International participants. However, we should think about local community. Singapore has almost 70% of Chinese speakers. I’ve heard that. I can promise to provide Chinese translation and interpretation. I suggest at least one at-large structure could present in Chinese and be translated into English. I guess that would an outreach for the local community. Singapore has no at-large structures, unfortunately, at the moment.
I guess it’s also a Showcase ICANN’s English utilization policy, so it’s not only English dominant. Okay, back to you Pavan.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Could consider that, actually. Moving on to Point #6, which is about the Discussion of a Keynote Speaker and Related Matters. I’m not sure if Charles is on the call, but do you have an update on the keynote speakers outreach, or maybe Edmon could give an update on the keynote speakers? They don’t seem to be there, so look at your e-mails which have been sent. I know that they’re looking at some people to invite for the keynote speakers. Outreach has started between Charles, myself, and Edmon and we’ll be --
Edmon Chung: Sorry, I didn’t realize I’m on mute. This is about the keynote?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes.
Edmon Chung: Yes. I think we had a brief discussion on it. There was a few names suggested, Joey being one of them, also a potential of having a few of them perhaps from the region. Right now I don’t think we – Charles has been putting a little bit more thought to it. Is Charles still on the phone?
Pavan Budhrani: He said he’s on and off. I’m not sure if he’s on right now.
Edmon Chung: I think this is something we could discuss here. We talked about Joey. We talked about having perhaps some of the earlier ICANN board members from Asia together. We talked about having potentially figureheads from Japan, Korea, China, India and around Asia to act as a joint keynote. I think this is definitely something we should talk more about here. I wonder if anyone has any further thoughts or suggestions how to do this, and also to in a way attract more people to come.
Hong Xue: Pavan, I’m sorry to jump in but --
Pavan Budhrani: Go ahead. No worries.
Hong Xue: Edmon is right. I filmed, and it would be useful to let many at-large structure to join in but only speak possible one sentence in their own language. That would save time and make it really multi-lingual and event interesting I think. Okay, back to you.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Anyone else have any comment about the outreach for a keynote? I don’t think Charles is on, but Charles probably has an update. I’ll ask him to send the update over by e-mail perhaps, so we can maybe talk about it further in the next call that we’re going to have.
Moving on to the next point which is about the Discussion of Strategy to get Sponsors. Again, we can look at how NARALO did that outreach. Of course, as Cheryl mentioned before, to outreach to the ALS’ as well. Not about sponsorship and stuff.
Over there you see the link about the LACROLO sponsorship letter. We can take a look at that and I can edit it for APRALO, and we can see who to send it out to.
Anyone has any comment about the strategy on how to get sponsors?
Eduardo Diaz: This is Eduardo. May I?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes. Yes, you may.
Eduardo Diaz: What we did in the NARALO, we used basically – we all have contacts with local companies. We just went out and reached whoever we knew. That was (inaudible 0:39:25) we reached two or three companies. One of the people that worked in the Working Group had a contact with Google, which was the one that just put the money for the event, because nobody else wanted to put money. I guess we were lucky. It’s going to be a challenge to get sponsors for this. I guess that’s what I was trying to say.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Anyone else have anything else to say about the strategy to getting sponsors?
Edmon Chung: This is Edmon. I guess we should figure out what the cost is first, in a way. I apologize for joining late. I don’t know whether we’ve discussed what kind of setting, venue, and cost we’re looking at first. Then we can think about sponsors.
I observe in the chat that Cheryl was about to mention whether we need them. That’s essentially the question. Once we identify how much we actually need, how much I can or cannot cover, then we probably have a better idea how much we need to raise in a way.
I actually also have another point for earlier. I included it in the chat, as well. For the keynote, I guess Pavan having not pointed to any person to take the lead on it, you or maybe Charles would continue to take the lead on identifying the keynote and also keeping us all up-to-date and getting input. I just won’t want to keep it hanging. Somebody needs to take the lead and make sure that it happens.
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, sure. I’ll be working with Charles with that and than try to get an update. I think that’s something we could use as propaganda and marketing. You get more people to come to the event, as mentioned for the NARALO event in San Francisco. The keynote was one of the major reasons so many people turned up, and it was a real successful event. That’s something we can do for APRALO as well.
Edmon Chung: Yes. Somebody local, as Cheryl said, might be useful as well. Huang Wa [sp], whom we’re working with on the Regional ITF might be somebody we want to include to help identify the right person as well.
Back to the sponsorship and cost.
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, I’ll be working with Charles for the keynote thing. Anything else about the strategy of getting the sponsors? What I can do in the meantime is the letter from LACRALO, I can edit it and make it suitable for APRALO, and then we can see how are we going – than what Edmon mentioned as well, about getting the cost. We need to look at the event, the venue, and the cost and see what the roundabout cost is going to be, and see how much sponsorship we will actually need, and then probably try to send the letter out.
Olivier? Do you have anything to add?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, Chair. I was just going to agree with Edmon’s fact or idea that you needed to get a figure of how much you needed. Obviously that will depend, as Cheryl mentioned on the chat, that will depend on the time of the day. Are you going to do an afternoon event, a lunchtime event, a morning event? Will there be food? Will there be drinks? This sort of stuff.
Finally, I was just going to mention that you might also try to obtain sponsorships from some of the keynote speakers that you might get. Some of them might come from large organizations now. They might have been in ICANN before, but they might have left and worked for another organization. They might wish to provide some funding to the actual event. Thank you.
Pavan Budhrani: Thank you very much. Those ideas will be considered as well. I think we can get someone, or even myself, to look at the cost and see what the roundabout costs are going to be and discuss amongst ourselves, do we want it to be a day event, a night event, with food or with drinks and so on, and see what the cost would be for different options.
Edmon, anything to add to that?
Edmon Chung: Yes. I think I asked this question back in San Francisco, is how much ICANN can support us. We got the rough idea that it’s about $2,000. I wonder what about the venue, as well. If we are able to use the ICANN venues, how would we coordinate that? I think it’s something we need to explore as well.
Pavan Budhrani: Cheryl, anything to say?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Am I un-muted?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, you can hear (inaudible 0:45:24).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Great. Thank you. Just on that, time of day is important. How much ICANN is or isn’t able to offer a facility is equally important. I was under the impression that certainly in the African situation where AFRALO failed to get sponsorship, it was deemed quite appropriate and worked quite well to match up the activity in terms of time and day with another already sponsored activity.
You note that in the African Regional Showcase, it was done at the same time as a nibbles and drinks event that was involving the fellows. In the URALO situation, it was done in the middle of the day. The cost of an afternoon tea were matched up to some extent with the costs of the beverages provided at the event.
We really need to look at what was available. I did say in the chat space, at some ICANN meetings the cost of even morning and afternoon teas has been too prohibitive for even ICANN to consider providing as part of the meeting.
We need to know from meeting staff what the (inaudible 0:47:00) for the Singapore meeting. Is it like in Brussells? We all going to have to go and buy our own can of Coca-Cola and cup of tea up the road? Or, for example, if afternoon tea is being provided than having an event that finishes immediately before afternoon tea might be a smart thing to do, then everyone can just move into a tea and coffee situation that is available.
Depending on what we can get, we can then make it match to give the best possible Showcase outcome that we can in the circumstances. Can I ask, Pavan, if we can find out from staff exactly who we will be using as our liaison point between our Workgroups, ICANN and ICANN meetings people please?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes. Seth, any (inaudible 0:47:53)? Is Seth on the call?
Seth Greene: I’m sorry. I didn’t hear that, Pavan. What was – could you repeat that please?
Pavan Budhrani: Cheryl was asking who should be the person --
Seth Greene: Liaison?
Pavan Budhrani: – that we should, liaison, that we should work with and talk to for communication with ICANN.
Seth Greene: Sure.
Pavan Budhrani: (inaudible 48:25) for looking at which rooms to get, or are we able to get a room during the meeting time for the event. Which is the person that we need to speak to for that?
Seth Greene: Right. I don’t know traditionally whether the Showcase Workgroups have dealt directly with the, for example, someone in the meeting staff or whether they just used the at-large support that --
Gisella Gruber: At-large – sorry, Gisella here. At-large support will then liaise with the meeting team.
Seth Greene: Okay, then that would be me, Pavan. That would be me, Cheryl.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. As mentioned by Edmon and Cheryl, we need to find out what are the options rooms that we could use, maybe in the afternoon time. Cheryl mentioned a good idea about having it just before afternoon tea so we could have the event, and then guide everyone to the afternoon tea.
Maybe, Seth, you can go look at some options, see which times some venues are open, and we can use those venues for the Showcase Event at that time.
Seth Greene: Sure. Certainly. Do we want to make a guess, an estimate of the number of attendees at this point? That will probably affect the rooms that the meeting staff (inaudible 0:49:46).
Pavan Budhrani: From the experience of Eduardo, how many people were at the North American one?
Eduardo Diaz: You mean in the event? During the event?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes.
Eduardo Diaz: To tell you the truth, I’m not sure how many people were there at this moment.
Pavan Budhrani: Maybe, Edmon, because we were in Singapore in April for the Internet show. We looked at the venue. Any room, in particular, you think would be suitable for this event?
Edom Chung: Well, we looked at the additional function areas which is high up above in the hotel. That would be, obviously, nice to have. I don’t know whether I can’t have that booked up as well, which means we will be able to use it. Otherwise, I think all the rooms are on the same floor, which means as long as it’s big enough it won’t be too far off. In that case, it really depends on the availability of (inaudible 51:04).
(Beeping on call audio.)
Gisella Gruber: We’ll look into that. Siva’s line dropped. Sorry for that.
Pavan Budhrani: It’s okay. Olivier, you have your hand up?
Olivier Crepen-Leblond: Thank you, Chair. I was just going to give the statistics for the NARALO Showcase. There were a total of about 220 attendees at the Showcase, and 199 had registered online. Of course, these numbers are more than what was originally intended. In fact, the first room that was secured was a smaller room, or less well located than the one that was finally used. It was only a few days before the Showcase taking place that things were moved around.
I would imagine that you should look at between 80 to 100 attendees to start with, as a starting point. Depending on what keynote speakers you’re going to get, and whether you’re going to start drawing more crowds. You’ll probably gain a better idea. At that point, you may need to shuffle things around.
From experience at what happened in the San Francisco meeting, it looks as thought there was a lot of shuffling around of many rooms and last minute movement. As you well know, with the Board and GAC Consultation, things were thrown all over the place. I would hope that it’s not the case in Singapore, but we never know.
So far, I haven’t had any advance knowledge of how the rooms are going to be arranged. The schedules are not even drawn up yet. I’ll be working with Seth, of course, to work on that. Thank you.
Pavan Budhrani: In the meantime, Seth, could you look at some options for rooms for 80 to 100 people as mentioned by Olivier? See some options which you could suggest to the APRALO Showcase Group. Would that be okay Seth?
Seth Greene: Sorry, I was on mute again. Yes, absolutely. I was actually just wondering if anyone had any feelings about day of the week that the Workgroup might be leaning toward.
Pavan Budhrani: Edmon, you have something to say?
Edmon Chung: Not about day of the week, but in terms of room, once you figure out which ones are possible, I can probably help in terms of making suggestions. I was there to check out the venue as well. On day of the week, I don’t have a good idea. I know that Monday is going to be a big day for this ICANN.
Pavan Budhrani: Anyone else has any suggestion about the day of the week for the event? People in the chat room seem to think that we should avoid Mondays because it’s going to be really hectic that day. So it’s either Tuesday or Wednesday we’ll look at. Seth, maybe you can look at some options for Tuesday or Wednesday first, then we can take a look at the options first and then see which time is suitable for us.
Seth Greene: Certainly.
Pavan Budhrani: Edmon again?
Edmon Chung: What about Sunday? I wonder if that’s too early. It’s a big Monday this time. I’m guessing a lot of people might come in Sunday. I don’t know, but that might be a – I see Olivier say that nobody’s going to be around. Just a suggestion, I guess.
Pavan Budhrani: You can maybe put Sunday into consideration as well, Seth, and see if there are any locations or rooms available and then get back to us and we could look at the options then.
Seth Greene: Sure. Absolutely.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Moving on to Point #8. Is there any other business anyone would like to talk about or bring up? I guess that’s a no, so we just need to set up for Point #9 for the next meeting. Is everyone okay having it next week at the same time, same day? If no one says anything, I’ll take that as a yes. Maybe, Seth, we could make it a weekly or bi-weekly thing. Is everyone okay having the meeting next week? Again, I think we should have it next week.
Okay. Edmon seems to agree, so we’ll do that. We’ll have it like a weekly meeting, so same time, same day next week as well. We’ll send out the e-mails to make sure people are reminded to attend the call and have the agenda up for that one as well.
Okay. Thank you everyone. Thank you for your time. We’ll follow-up on the action items from this meeting. We’ll continue our discussion next week for the Showcase Event.
All: Thank you.
Pavan Budhrani: Okay. Thank you.
Siva Muthusamy: Thank you. Bye.
Pavan Budhrani: Bye-bye.
Gisella Gruber: Thank you (inaudible 0:57:07)
[End of Transcript]
