Cheryl: I think it's time for us to beginning. Looking at the introduction and please be aware, if I suddenly disappear we have very large storm activity around my area at the moment after extremely high temperatures. There are very, very heavy winds in some of the storms. If my power goes out, that means everything disappears, including me. Sebastian, however, has kindly ensured that he is well prepared and able to step in and take over at a microsecond's notice. So, I thank him for that.
Let's see if we can get started on this. We need to now look at the project planning and the implementation process, build on what we started in our meeting where we reviewed the very large spreadsheet prepared and linked in our agenda and made some prioritization with a level one, a level two, a level three priority, a medium-term or long-term plan. We made some major allocations, i.e. would this be a larger core business or would it be a staff piece of core business? For each of the 17 – actually 11 of the team recommendations for the ALAC review – what group finds report.
The two recommendations that are not dealt with in that spreadsheet and are also not dealt with specifically as a tab in the absolutely brilliant tool that Matthias has put together for us so that each recommendation in a Google spreadsheet has a separate tab, much more manageable. I've already had very positive things said back to me on that. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Matthias. That's made a huge difference to us all.
- is of course the recommendation two which is the voting board director. That's a matter we have excised out, not redacted. We're dealing with it but we excised it out and are dealing with it in a separate stream with our ongoing work in the appointment of a voting board director to the ICANN board from AtLarge.
And interestingly enough, the other one that is missing from what we're doing is number seven. Number seven is the recommendation, just so we all know, that states that the ALAC and AtLarge should be responsible for and able to make their own choices in their collaboration tools. I'm sure you'll agree with all of this at UC (ph). We probably don't need to have an implementation plan to explore and use whatever tool globally, nationally, regionally, and locally is best fitting to our needs.
The aim of this evening, this morning, today, whatever time zone you're in, is to get to the next level of allocation of tasks and specific assignments, including timelines, at least provisional timelines. I would assume that you will all agree that with our history in the successful use of working group models is that we should look at what working groups already exist. We have several whose core business and reason for being would fit into a number of these tasks or recommendations. And where we now need to form an ad hoc working group or more than one and of course where we will be suggesting that an activity may be of the whole community or of the whole of ALAC or of the whole regional leads and ALAC is to be decided at tonight's meeting.
In addition to this, we need to be very aware that our opportunity to take this to the next level is one that is going to require us to be having outputs and moving to at least those first priority items during the January period so that we are well prepared to have a more fulsome and productive discussion and perhaps even some reporting back at initial steps, reported to the structural improvements committee and the board at the Nairobi meeting.
So, with that macro view, I'd like to move on to the review of the AtLarge improvements outline and here encourage those of you who are able to to look at the Google spreadsheet which is linked to the agenda and also linked to the Adobe room. Yes, Dave, you're absolutely correct. It's an excellent piece of work on the Google spreadsheet.
So, what I might do is ask how this group would like to proceed. Do you want to look briefly through the whole document or take it in rank order, in other words, recommendation one through to recommendation 13. What is your preference?
Dijoni: I think – this is Dijoni (ph) speaking.
Cheryl: Go ahead, Dijoni.
Dijoni: I think that we have to go recommendation by recommendation.
Cheryl: Anyone wish to weigh in on that or will we take that recommendation which I think is an imminently sensible method of moving forward? I see no hands in the Adobe room and nobody's pinged me desperately on Skype. Nor do I hear someone yelling at me in which case we will now move to recommendation one.
You'll notice that under each recommendation, this particular recommendation is of course the one that's ensuring that the ILEC has a continuing purpose in ICANN and it has for key elements to that purpose, the provision of policy advice, the provision in ICANN operation and structural activities as an important of ICANN's accountability mechanism. Here we probably need to integrate IOC activities which of course were not on the horizon either when we were reviewed or when this document was put together. And something that's always near and dear to the hearts of all the regional leads and indeed the ALS's, how we can be better organized as a mechanism for ICANN's outreach. Again, that's something that I know the all the regions are focusing on and working very hard towards Nairobi to ensure that they're working as an original outreach to build their region and develop more ALSs.
So, moving from the top of the chart we have obviously the endpoint – someone needs to mute. We have a noisy background. Star six to mute, star seven to unmute – is the eventual amendments of the bylaws with the articles as listed. That's a high priority. We've suggested that it is a staff responsibility to create a red line document for us to review and that such review process will go through our normal outreach to AtLarge and ALSs and of course the results of that review will go back through the regional leadership and to the ALAC where we'll be wanting to transmit to the board via the SIC (ph) what types of particular changes so that we can have a normal public comment process that the bylaws would require.
The addition there in item 1.2 under task number one is what we now know in a post APA world is a much higher requirement for internet end user and registrant input into the accountability mechanism that ICANN has agreed to under the AOC (ph). I would also assume we will need to work fairly closely with the various review committees and the processes moving towards the AOC.
Heidi, can I ask you on this, before I open for discussion, what an achievable time course would be on the staff owned pieces of work? Heidi might be muted?
Heidi: Thank you, Cheryl (ph). Yes.
Cheryl: Go ahead, Heidi.
Heidi: Let's see. So, the staff responsibilities right now would be to create a draft redline, edits to relevant sections of the bylaws.
Cheryl: Correct.
Heidi: I would say mid-January, perhaps.
Cheryl: Okay.
Heidi: Is that reasonable?
Cheryl: It's less an amount of how reasonable we feel it is and very much an amount of how practical it is for your overworked and underpaid staff to do so. If you believe mid-January is a possibility, I think the community can look forward to that as a timeline. I'll now open for interaction and discussion and any questions on that. Does anyone wish to raise a point on that particular matter? I see no one in the Adobe room. Sebastian, go ahead, please.
Sebastian: I think it's a reasonable time, even if I don't think we will do a lot of work within the next two or three weeks as a community. I just want to remind that we said on one of the other discussions that we would like to have a full view of the medication of the bylaws. Not to say that we don't need to do that. It's mandatory because it's our own piece of work. But we need at one moment in this discussion to try to have a full view on what is going on the revision of the bylaws.
My second point is to say just on behalf of Alan Greenberg (ph) because he's not participating to the meeting. He writes something specific to me on that. It's about the bylaw – he says the bylaws should, among other things, clarify roles of his. I know that trend in rewriting the bylaws was to keep to a minimum what is in the bylaw to allow things to evolve over time without the significant complexity of having to revise bylaws. I will suggest that we do that same. End of quote. I would like to support this proposal too. Thank you.
Cheryl: Thank you, Sebastian. Thank you for reading to the record the comments of Alan. I'd like to ask you to continue to do that because of course I've been offline and I haven't had time to familiarize myself with those as of yet. I certainly agree with that; however, holding those on the call or in the Adobe room, does anyone want to speak to that matter on the bylaws? Or of course Alan's proposal that we ensure whatever we propose is lean and is a minimalist view so that things can certainly develop without having to go back and continually review a more specific and onerous bylaws.
Carleton: It's Carleton.
Cheryl: Please, Carleton, go ahead.
Carleton: I would commend that concern, that the bylaws, whatever is happening with them, that they try to make them as lean as possible. It's something we can do actually with greater knowledge of how they effect inter operations.
Cheryl: I'm fairly certain that will be music to the staff's ears as well. I'm sure it's an easier task to make as lean as these proposals than it is a more extensive set. Heidi, if I may ask, is it your view that you would be running the proposed redline, the proposal for alterations to the bylaws through ICANN legal in advance of it coming to us in our community or after it's coming to us in our community.
Heidi: I think first it would be useful to take it to you and then back to legal but it also may be a parallel while I'm drafting –
Cheryl: Are you there, Cory? – home with all those people – I'd like to draw your comments in at this point, the advantages of at least having some advice from legal during the drafting or early drafting process or do we do it all ourselves and then take it to legal?
Carleton: I'm sorry, this is Carleton again.
Cheryl: Yes, Carleton?
Carleton: I would think that we should draft and then take it to legal.
Cheryl: Okay. Any alternate views? Disagree? Huong (ph)? No comments?
Huong: I agree with Carleton. We could make a draft and then send it to legal for rebuild. I don't believe they have a blueprint from us to make the first draft. We need to start from scratch.
Cheryl: No. I didn't think a blueprint was likely. I wondered before we went out to our own wider community review, should we get our draft checked by legal?
Huong: Of course. In that case it is important to have community input. So, I guess the structure of the working group could be based on the relo – if each relo could send a delegate to the working group, they can bring opinion from the region to the drafting process. It could work efficiently.
Cheryl: Huong, based on our discussions in Seoul, the intention was for staff to do the drafting here and then ALAC as a whole and in the community to comment, not so much for a work group to be involved in the drafting. Are you and Carleton proposing a change in that direction?
Huong: No. Of course. I'm not proposing to change. My previous comments and my comments just now were based on my understanding I acquired from the internet. I was not at the beginning of the meeting. I'm sorry, I missed part.
Cheryl: We're sorry to. Carleton, are you proposing a work group as Huong picked up on or are you indicating that we go through our community commentary and feedback on the redline version before it goes to legal?
Carleton: The latter, Cheryl, do the community redlining before it goes to legal.
Cheryl: Fine. We just need to be clear on that because that will mean that we will have a small amount of time between the mid-January and our ALAC meeting which is where I would be hoping we will have already started some community outreach and the regional representatives could be bringing back some provisional response. (inaudible). Matthias, are you holding the pin on dates of things into the document?
Matthias: Yes. I am.
Cheryl: Okay. When we're saying mid-January and estimating, can we put the proper dates in and then do the usual rationalization of working back seven or ten days and then working backwards from a known date. Are you happy with that?
Matthias: Sure.
Cheryl: Okay. Shall do. I'm just dealing with another message on my screen. While I'm dealing with that, is there any other matter anyone wishes to raises either from the Adobe room or on the telephone bridge? If not, we'll be moving then to how we're going to do the slightly longer priority of working in with the AOC. At this point, Huong, I think is an ideal opportunity where your cross regionally balanced work group might be something we should consider creating so that we have an opportunity to make sure that we're also having proper ALS and regional input into any affirmation of commitment activities that are going on. Would you see that as a useful thing now?
Huong: Absolutely. I was running between computer and telephone.
Cheryl: Can I call for other comments on that, firstly for those in the call and not in the Adobe room. I see no one's hand up in the Adobe room at this stage. Carleton?
Carleton: I would also work a balanced work group for this. I know Jack (ph) for example has indicated some interest in this specific task.
Cheryl: Recognizing Sebastian as the next speaker, I'm wondering if whilst we're discussing this we should also consider this work group would be an ad hoc but newly formed work group. This would not be the work necessarily that is the business of a previously formed work group. Am I correct in this assumption? Sebastian, as active participant in several of those work groups, perhaps you could address that as well when you speak? Go ahead, please.
Sebastian: Thank you. First, I think it will be useful for the participants if they can get a little more inside of the aim of this working group. I think that with succession in some region, maybe not in all, or maybe I missed something, but I think from what I hear that it's an important issue. I think that it could be a link with the working group formed during the summit about high class participation because it's something in dealing with that. But we have to check. I don't remember really where this working group is now fitting. If it's an added group it's also – it's not a bad idea. I think if for example Jacquelyn (ph), she's willing to come back to address just that issue, it's better than to have a group where people like her who participate.
My second point is that I would like very much that will link also this subject with the current discussion on the strategy planning for ICANN because it's something we'll need to have some planning on the strategy planning. It's a good one. I guess I don't see yet in the strategy plan something really linked with the affirmation of commitment. But it could be one thing that we ask for.
I need to change to my Alan voice, if you'll allow me. From the desk of Alan, he writes something about point one, point three that is (inaudible) IIC GPAs and not talked about AtLarge having an effective voice in values forum. We will accomplish this not by simply getting slot allocated to us but by identifying and perhaps grooming people who can speak knowledgably on behalf of users. Without such people we do ourselves more harm than good by getting seats on values buddies. End of quote.
Cheryl: Thank you, Sebastian. Again, I'd like to recognize the almost sage like wisdom of what Alan has raised that of course it's not just a matter of setting up process where we have guaranteed seats. It's a matter of talent and appropriately briefed and supported people taking up those seats and furthering the voice of AtLarge. One of the issues that Carleton has seen in his role as the repeater is particularly challenged the plethora of demands that are put upon us. They seem to be ever growing and ever more demanding.
With the GNSO moving to more and more of a work group model with the GNSO council itself not becoming so much as a decision making body but rather a facilitating and management of policy development processes body and their activities in those PDP processes that Alan and Ander (ph) and I have extensively involved with and continue to be involved with, the rules that at least the GNSO work group will be operating under and I would suspect probably ccNSO to follow shortly after are going to be carefully balanced so that it is not a matter of having and in name or place that is going to give you influence.
It's going to be activity within a work group in the consensus building process that is going to give influence into outcomes and there will be a minimum if any attention paid to – well, we'd like to change this even though the consensus views this, our small subset disagrees or our constituency disagrees and we're going to make political pressure to change it. The whole thing is being designed to minimize that risk and maximize genuine bottom up influential outcomes. I think it offers huge opportunities not just of course for the regional leadership but I thin what Huong was beginning to get to in what she was saying is a genuine opportunity for representation from our ALSs to be involved in these work groups. But of course it is going to be contingent on the regional leadership to make sure that information and the opportunity for those people to be involved happens and more importantly that the ALAC knows how it can best facilitate the work load that these people are undertaking in the future and what sort of briefings or sharing of opportunities we need to facilitate to make sure they feel supported and briefed.
Going down through the 1.3 and I see all of these as having slightly longer-term priorities but could very much be the purpose of the work groups that were already put together for – as Sebastian mentioned, the AtLarge involvement in ICANN and of course something I'd very much like to see as an outcome from this implementation of the recommendation process, a better established work group, a formalization of an ALAC and regional lead interface. It happens at our face to face meetings but it would be, I think, a very good thing if it happens more frequently through the plethora of work that we're faced with. Perhaps the ad hoc group, Huong, that you were mentioning might take that to task as well.
Does anyone else wish to speak to that matter?
Huong: We are talking 1.3, right?
Cheryl: Correct.
Huong: It is too bad I cannot open the Google document. It's been blocked from my side. So, what I'm reading is the old document in PDF.
Cheryl: That will make it slightly more cumbersome for you. But really the only change is more columns on the Google document so we can allocate work groups and timelines and the fact that each of the recommendations has a tab all to itself. What I'll do is ask if we can explore another method or mechanism where we can have that same information published in a way that is accessible to you and obviously to others who have similar issues with Google documents. It's 1.2 and 1.3.
Huong: Alright. On the old version, 1.3 is about ICANN's structure improvement program. My question is actually when are we going to have another ad hoc working group on this or it will be the same working group working on the bylaw revision?
Cheryl: What is your view and the view of those on the call? What's your view?
Huong: Thanks. I've read through the documents and it seems that if we're going to split all these sub issues, we're going to have 100 working groups. It's too complicated.
Cheryl: No, no. We don't want that.
Huong: I wouldn't want that. I wish to concentrate on certain issues instead of distract our resources, especially human resources. For your consideration, I suggest one big category, one big subject, one working group and within the working group there could be a division of labor on the bylaw drafting. It's a big task. And this one on structural improvement. This is another big topic.
Cheryl: Huong, if I hear, I think, Carleton agreeing vigorously in the background on the audio bridge. I'm seeing nobody disagreeing with you on the Adobe room. If I can make sure I'm correct in what you're saying, it goes back in some way to what Sebastian mentioned earlier and that is that we have at least two existing work groups whose core business through the summer it was to look at topics which fit into these recommendations. And they desperately need revitalization. Perhaps it's possible for the freshening up of ALS end regional input to be focused on those existing work groups for the majority of these tasks and by these tasks, I mean for recommendation one through to 13 with the exception of recommendation two and seven. In other words the voting board director and the bit that says we should decide how we work. That we try and allocate which of those tasks – and I would think it would be the majority of them, the business of existing, standing work groups and we focus on getting fresh people and energy involved into those. We also need to ensure that we have a perhaps future standing working group. Let's try it as an ad hoc one to begin with, at least between now and Nairobi, you'll probably map on Brussels, where we have a more formal liaison and relationship between the ALAC as a whole and the regional leadership so that we can make sure that the ALSs and the individual members in each region are getting the information and being encouraged to be involved in these working groups. Is that a reasonable way forward or a middle ground, Huong? And then Carleton? And then Sebastian?
Huong: Sure. I guess that's the right way to handle this critical issue, to use existing working groups and bring in fresh blood if possible. But most important issue to make them, to drive them to work efficiently.
Cheryl: I could not agree with you more. Carleton? And then Sebastian.
Carleton: I just say ditto to what Huong says, Cheryl. That's the best way to do it.
Cheryl: I predicted it would be a ditto. Therefore I put you in that order. Plus you're not on the Adobe room, so I can't see if you're waving your hand frantically at me. Sebastian, go ahead.
Sebastian: Yes. I was looking to the existing working group. I guess we – I will say Carleton and maybe there's a (inaudible) spend some time on that because it's not yet updated. But I remember that we discussed about the AtLarge engagement in ICANN that Carlos (ph) will lead these groups. It's quite a new discussion. Not too long ago, I guess I remember. But there's something wrong in the rest of the information. We have to check with them if he's willing to do that and to honor that. If not, we have to discuss who will honor that. But I think if these AtLarge engagement in ICANN is revitalized, it could be good because I think the work we will do on this review will not just be for a few days, weeks, even months. It will be an ongoing process. Because if for example we have the opportunity to add to the strategy planning that we want to add at least ALS in each country, it's really something, who will need to be led by this working group under the ALS.
Cheryl: I could not agree with you more. In fact, this is a perfect example where such an approach, providing it has the support of the AtLarge structures and individual AtLarge members and it has the enthusiastic encouragement and nurturing that is going to be required from the regional leadership, then it goes to meeting our planning needs and our implementation needs for the ALS, relo and ILEC structure recommendation, for recommendation three, for recommendation four, education and engaging ALSs. Clearly the ILEC strategic and operations plan is one where I would see both the existing work group and the regional leadership and ALAC new ones working together.
Again, we see that happening for AtLarge cost models. Right? The published comments period I think is actually a much simpler one. We'll get to that in a minute but probably could be left very much to the recognition that what we asked for in the summit has been, to some extent, watered down, but nonetheless it goes fairly well in the recommendation and we just go, "Yes, thank you very much." The translation and interpretation issue is one that really is a recommendation on ICANN, now on us.
We probably should put a reiteration, a restatement on the importance of how interpretation and translation is provided for what types of documents and at which types of levels and expense because I know we've heard from the regions for as long as I've been involved that for some of the documentation where local language and the high level of accuracy, so not something like the bylaws but rather something a little more simple and local (inaudible) to use for briefings, for example, could be done more locally. And I think that's something we might want to perhaps have a multi regional ad hoc work group created to particularly look at that issue separately.
Recommendations ten and 11 very much matched up with the same activities that the bylaw work is. In other words, these are things we need the board to affirm and recognize. The matters of recommendation 12 increasing consumer organizations, again, that fits very much with the need for regional involvement and outreach education and ALS is growing to include consumer organizations. Of course the formalization of AtLarge policy advice should be a whole of ALAC, whole of relo leadership and whole of ALS activity and one that I've like to handle separately towards the end of this call, if you will indulge me.
To that end and because I'm aware that we're all leading very busy lives and this call is not planned to go on for too long, can I ask that we empower those of us who are on this call to put to the Google documents or an e-mail to the working list. Huong, you have access to the working list. Your positions of which work group or committee is going to be responsible for each of the sub tasks numbered one through 13 in the same timeline as staff has undertaken to do their work on the tasks 1.1 through to 1.2, not inclusive of 1.2. In other words, mid-January. Would that work for you all in the community?
Sebastian: It's Sebastian. Maybe we can try to use some tools we have to for example take each item and put the list of the existing working group and to ask everybody to answer which one is dealing with this issue. It's a more modern, if I can say, like that. I guess we have the tools to do that eventually. I'm thinking about Google but maybe in the vote system we can use some to ask questions. It could be even broader and easier to do it like that. It will oblige us to fix the current working groups. That's something important to do. And it would be easier for the participants to be aware of the working group and to answer either – I am willing to help that I guess to start and stuff if you want to do that.
Cheryl: I would love to see you and Carleton take the lead on this. I think that is excellent. Again, can we commit to a mid-January end point for this allocation? In other words, feeling out the rest of most of those columns? What I'd like to do is ensure that – I'm very aware that we do not have full regional representation on this call. Is it possible for not only the various regional representatives that are here today but also for me to encourage Matthias when he's working with the regions on their next round of regional meetings if this particular matter could get onto their agenda?
Sebastian: Sure. Yes. We can take it on board and discuss it in January.
Cheryl: Excellent. I think that would be fairly important. As Sebastian says, gives us an opportunity to ensure that we refresh and revitalize the work groups. I think what we'll be doing is putting out a number of announcements or calls for people to join various things.
Carleton: I was going to suggest that.
Cheryl: Yes. We'd like to get those calls out I think before perhaps if it's possible close to the end of next week with the view of getting responses and real results until the middle of January and then perhaps finalizing some of that at the ALAC call in January. But it does give us a full cycle of regional meetings so that the regions and the ALSs could have some time to focus on it.
Huong: May I ask, will that work for Africa as well?
Carleton: This is Carleton. I am putting out some calls to the regions to let them know what's coming ahead. I would want to work with Sebastian to just allocate the various topics on the – make a pass at them, say which work group we think they belong to. Then we can use that as a basis to stimulate further discussions in the region. I think that's a good way to go forward. That said, I have to leave where I am right now to get to the airport. I know I'm going to be cut off. I will join back as quickly as I can.
Cheryl: Okay. I do in fact plan to have this meeting not go on too long. If you join back promptly, you'll catch us. Travel safe, wherever you're going.
Carleton: Thank you, Cheryl. Speak to you later.
Cheryl: We've moved to allocation of the prioritized tasks and the organization of work. I'm quite happy that much of this can be done online but it is contingent on not just announcements going out and something happening to the list. Those of you who are on this call and the regional leadership must commit to promotion within your regions because what I think will be a failing of these laudable plans is if we do not engage more AtLarge's structure and individual members either directly of their regions or all of the AtLarge structure's involvement. Part of what we must do, in this process of implementation of our review recommendations is to make it clear to the rank and file registrant and internet end user that their voice and their commitment and their involvement in policy development processes is important. If we do that, we will have achieved about 50% of our recommendations anyway. Matthias, I recognize you. Thank you. Go ahead.
Matthias: Thanks, Cheryl. I was just wondering now going forward do you wish us to – do you want to have a more structured working group approach where we would create a working group on the implementation plan with a corresponding mailing list and perhaps a Wiki or would you like to keep this as open as it currently is where we send our invitations to the entire community and more sort of on an ad hoc basis. How would you like to continue?
Cheryl: Sure. If I may take the chair privilege of giving you my personal view, as a chair, not as an IP relo representative. I'll give you that separately. As chair, yes, I agree 100% that what we should be focusing on is using this exercise as an opportunity to bolster and build our existing working groups, not create new things where they do not need to be created. Avoid the work group of 100 or is it death by 100 cuts that Huong was referring to earlier. And that we keep it as open as possible. We do recognize, however, that there are some needs that will need to be met by a more formalized and focused process and to that end, I would think that we would perhaps use as we've done in the new names process some work team models. So, as a subset of a work group, a work team can be developed to focus on a particular need. Translation is a nice example where by being a member of the AtLarge involvement in ICANN work group, you can also be part of and focus on the activities of your interest. If you interest happens to be a work group on translation or a work team on translation, I think that would have great benefits of using our volunteer's time more wisely. Having hear my view as chair, what is the rest of the meeting's view on that? Matthias? Did you have your hand up to say more or did you forget to put it down?
Matthias: I forgot to put it down. But actually I would like to follow-up. What about the group of people currently on this call? To coordinate the activities of the people closely involved with the implementation plan, would you like to have sort of a –
Cheryl: Yes. I think those that have come to this particular meeting should see themselves as interested parties who have indicated and I'll also note that most of them are names who were leaders in some way, shape, or form of work groups that we established for the summit anyway. These are people who are capable and willing and able to be active in focusing the work and the work has to be done by us. Yes, Sebastian? Go ahead.
Sebastian: Yes. I agree with your proposal. I would like to add one suggestion. We need to involve more people at the regional levels. We will have this discussion going on in each region. But it's quite complicated to jump into these documents. As I remember, we had this document or the previous one was in French and Spanish and in English and I would like to suggest that we organize a meeting in each of the languages – at least in French and Spanish – to allow people speaking this specific language to be aware of what is going on and to share knowledge on what is going on and how they can be involved and if they have some idea to put into the discussion, we can have something similar to this discussion and put them into the other two languages. Thank you.
Cheryl: Thank you, Sebastian. May I just clarify your intent with that proposal. Were you saying replication of this call's activities? Or were you saying as we move into the implementation planning we ensure at least three languages if not fully UN multi-lingual views. So, we would have the work groups as they did in the summit operating in English, French, and Spanish because I was not sure what you were intending.
Sebastian: Thank you, Cheryl. I would say that it's a little bit of a step back from what we're doing here. Here we are people who already know what's going on on this subject. They take the time to read the spreadsheet and have a discussion on that. My fear is that at the ground level ALS it's not at this stage and to help get to this stage, I would like very much that we organize a French speaking and a Spanish speaking and of course an English speaking call to allow as much as possible for people to be aware and then to be able to participate in English. It's not the other three or four or six language working group. But it's more to allow them to be aware and to have more knowledge and to be able to participate. Not just because they will have the barrier of the language and the barrier of the understanding of the subject and I would like to decrease the second barrier, to help them to participate. Thank you.
Cheryl: Thank you, Sebastian. I understand your intent far more clearly. I recognize you, too, Dijoni, but if I may just bring to the table a very important matter and that is one of the horrendous and I do mean horrendous waste of money that happens when we have live interpretation calls without the critical mass of people involved in those. We most be so careful to avoid that because part of what is also going to happen with our implementation process is that we are going to elevate our own accountability for expenses we in cur. We need to be very, very careful about how we do things and what we do. I therefore come back to the best use of tools where perhaps the right tool may allow the more bilingual or multilingual of us to ensure that those who are monolingual are properly engaged. Of course it offers opportunity for more focused work to go on locally and in the regions. I for one, from an Asian-Pacific perspective where we have not just a French or a Spanish or a Portuguese preference of language, we have – Huong, correct me if I'm wrong, but is it something like 28 or 32 different languages in our region? It's a very large number to say the least. We would like to be able to focus within our region on local language outreach. That said, I see Dijoni and then Sebastian.
Dijoni: Yes. Thank you, Cheryl. I was absent for awhile. I apologize. I second the proposal of Sebastian. I think he doesn't mean to have calls with interpretation. He means that we need calls in certain language. Calls in French and Spanish at least those two languages. Because if we want regional participation, the ALS is to participate, we need to make them up to them the good information – they have to be aware of what is happening because I agree with him. They don't have the same level of knowledge and information.
Cheryl: Thank you. Sebastian and then Huong.
Sebastian: Yes. I agree with Dijoni. I was not putting translation or interpretation call but rather a call where in French, for example, I can take the lead and in Spanish if you need me but it could be Carlos or Ander or somebody else to take the Spanish. I must apologize. I must say in some other native language, my biased way of thinking because I know those three languages. But if it could be useful to have one in another language, I have no problem with that. We just need to have a leader who knows both the language and the topic to do that and I will not have any problem to do that in other language. Sorry for that. Thank you.
Cheryl: No problem. Huong, go ahead, please.
Huong: I guess Sebastian raised a very important issue, how to engage those non-performing large structures and members of relos into the work of ALAC. Language barrier could be one of the important reasons to prevent these non-English speakers to actively participating in the discussions. So, it may not be a bad idea to have these peer, non-English calls if the community has such strong demands. For example, if letting America or the continent, North America will actually have a call that is solely in Spanish. I assume it would be helpful to the local community to understand what we're discussing in the structure improvement program. But on the other hand, I do see the difficulties. Cheryl is correct. In Asia-Pacific there are almost 30 languages. Main languages. If we include the non-official languages, there could be more than 1000.
Cheryl: I didn't even want to scare them with those numbers.
Huong: Right. So, it sounds scary to have the non-English calls in each community. The budget will not support that. So, how do you balance the need and the need of language diversity and the need of outreach. That's really a delicate issue. I assume we need the leadership of ALAC on this. Back to you, Cheryl.
Cheryl: Thank you, Huong. If I may ask a particular clarification point before I move to Sebastian, I think we need to distinguish for the record and remember one of the wonderful things we have here is at the moment we have audio recordings and I think that's a very useful tool of what we're doing now. There is nothing to stop someone who is multilingual taking that audio recording and making a local language transcription. Not one that will hold up in a full-blown bylaw test case, but a good enough one that if I was in a particular area of Africa, Dijoni perhaps may help me hear my language spoken in Gabon, whatever that is, I assume it's French, but there may also be a local language. If I wanted to outreach not just in French but in the local language, I would use a local person who understood the technical terms to make some form of rough interpretation or rough translation. That's certainly what I've heard from North American relo and some of the European representatives in the past where they believe there is a difference between ICANN paying for formal and at a high service level, a high accuracy and at considerable dollars per word or cents per word – I don't know what it is, but it's a lot – in interpretation and translation costs versus this strictly is for information and to stimulate debate which could perhaps be done more locally and engage our AtLarge structures. So, Sebastian with those particular points in mind, the floor is yours.
Sebastian: Thank you. Yes. I was thinking that to have a call without translation, it's not so expensive. But if I am wrong, I am sorry. But at the same time, I want to underline that European has a lot of language. When I talk about French and Spanish, it's not the language of my region at all. We don't really have to use French or Spanish. We use English as a common ground. But it's more for South American countries and for the African parts speaking French that it could be useful. But if it's too complicated and too expensive, I will not push too much this proposal.
Cheryl: Sebastian, as we bring ourselves to the close, we started at some ten past the hour, so I would like to finish off this call very shortly. I think we need to – and as part of our recommendation, this whole issue of interpretation and of course it also goes to outreach as well, we do need to look at recommendation nine. Recommendation nine I think does, as Huong indicated, need a more narrow focus. We also need to involve ICANN's formal staff involved in interpretation I think in our activities there. So, that's one of those areas where we need a particular work team. I would assume, Sebastian, that yourself and a couple of others from Europe but also Dijoni and some more from Africa and Huong, you and I will have to rally and get a few more Asia-Pacific voices in there as well but we do need, I think, one of those subset work teams to really discuss the most cost benefit, preferred way of meeting our outreach and involvement needs but not at exorbitant or unreasonable or unsustainable expense. They might be reasonable, but they simply may be unsustainable.
To that end, I think what we've done so far in today's call is say we will bolster and utilize our existing ALAC work groups. We will be making calls for participation. We will recognize the need to in these refurbished and refreshed work groups have dedicated and focused work teams. We will make sure that those work teams - at the moment, things like translation and interpretation, strategic planning, and cost models as well as probably the education and engaging ALSs will also involve the regional leadership as well. We need to allocate which of these or how many of these responsible working groups or committees are going to be involved in each of the tasks in our discussion document. We need to establish whether or not there's a single purpose call required and for most of them at this stage, I would say, "Yes, but." Some of the recommendations can be bundled together. So, educations and engaging ALSs, recommendation four can be bundled together with recommendation 12, gaining more consumer organizations in our model. So, we probably can twin or pair up some of those single purpose calls. We might need, Matthias, if you don't mind me suggesting you, splitting that cell to say whether or not a single purpose is yes-no but it might be correlated with another recommendation.
Our next steps are to have this wonderful tool that Matthias has put together for us in a fairly filled out form by the middle of January and the other thing that we need to do is decide are we going to convene again in January with a community call to look at how far we've gone and where we should be moving next or not. And to that end, I would like those on this call to give their opinion. Sebastian, your hand is up. Go ahead.
Sebastian: Yes. It was a mistake. I didn't – I think we need to – this topic, it's an important one. I think it could be better if we're able to do that, to use that ALAC conference call as a wrap up of all the working groups on that subject. At the same time, I recognize that we are lacking of time to do all we need to do in the ALAC calls. Maybe a single topic call on that subject, one per month in the next six months could be a good idea too. Thank you.
Cheryl: Other opinions? Firstly from the phone bridge? Vick? Or is Carleton back on the call? Okay. Then I call for anyone in the Adobe room. Dijoni. Go ahead, please.
Dijoni: Yes. Thank you. I think that we have to (inaudible) the regional representatives, the regional end users, representatives, to fill in the stable and to put their names in the working groups column. After that, the constitution of the working group will be done reasonably if you want. We will not have 100 working groups for sure. We can merge some of them. But the first thing we have to do is to make the regional representatives to try to put their names in this column.
Cheryl: Thank you, Dijoni. That will be very important. As we're talking about columns, I'm a little concerned that, for example, Huong Shua (ph) is unable to access the Google docs. We may need to duplicate this tool in an admittedly more static form, but one that is more universally accessible and allow some comments which we will manually add into the column. I might make it a point that the executive committee explore this with staff. Go ahead, Sebastian.
Sebastian: Just to say I guess what is done with the Google spreadsheet could be done with an Excel spreadsheet as easy as it is done. Then we can have both and it will allow people who are not able to go to Google to have a tool where they can add some information in one column and then frame and then we will be able to replicate it into the Google doc. It's just a way of organizing the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet was one single spreadsheet but it could be sorted like in this one and then it would be there for people who use Excel to do the work. But I have no action in any spreadsheet.
Cheryl: Thank you. And of course what we'll ensure is that such a link to any Excel or preferably Open Source version of it or at least if it is Excel, make sure it is open by any Open Source tool is on a Wiki. Go ahead, Des.
Des: Just to say that the Google spreadsheets, you can export the Google spreadsheet to Excel easily.
Cheryl: We will make sure we do this. That I think is important.
Des: You can do that at regular intervals, I should think.
Cheryl: Yes. Someone will have to own that responsibility to make sure there is regular update. Des, seeing as your hand's still up and I know you're a dab hand at all of this, I think you just got that job. Congratulations. I think we should all give Des some applause and thank him for his generous offer.
Des: Very well. Thanks.
Cheryl: I do like to have at least one piece of railroading in any of the calls I facilitate or manage. I don't normally make it quite so blatantly obvious as that. But I do thoroughly enjoy that. I think we've gone a good way forward in our next steps tonight, ladies and gentlemen, or today, ladies and gentlemen, and I want to thank each and every one of you for the time and energy you've put into it. We will, of course, be calling on you as those who had particular interest to continue your leadership role. I would like to wish all of you the very best of the season, be it your religious observances, your holiday break, or you're looking forward to new year and special family times, and hopefully you'll all have some time to commit to these very important activities between now and January. Good morning, good evening, good day, good night, and good work on behalf of each and every one of the internet end users and registrants at large. By for now.
Huong: Thanks, Cheryl. Good bye.
Sebastian: Thank you, Cheryl.
