Page History

Barriers/Problems

Solutions/Opportunities

Generally Across ICANN

(all SOACSGC)

• ICANN’s value proposition is hard to state and to convert into an exchangeable asset.  i.e. “I understand ICANN is important, and I am glad it exists, but what do I (or my organization) personally get out of participating actively?” (CM)

• There is no accreditation or level/grading program to identify a volunteer’s experience or capabilities (CM)
• Determining people's specific skills and where they fit/can fit within ICANN. (TH)
• Newbies are immediately confronted by a large array of parallel, ongoing and often long-running work streams on complex issues and may feel overwhelmed and unable to see where and how to start. Better information architecture and resources would help, but will not solve the problem without some accompanying human 'sherpa' support. (BD)
• The relatively small sets of 'hard core' volunteers who do most of the work are too often swamped with keeping their groups administratively and substantively in the game for them to take on sherpa service as well. Sub-groups devoted to in-reach and membership support can do a bit, but again rely on volunteers who may be spread thin and unable . The incentives to sustain the effort over time. The incentives in many cases are often largely normative and soft. (BD)
• While ICANN has excellent remote participation opportunities, people who lack opportunities to physhically participate in meetings often do not get 'hooked' and drift off over time unless they have a strong material incentive incentives to stick with it (e.g. business representation). Conversely, people who do get to the meetings seem mostly likely to transition into the 'hard core' participant category (although sustained tourism is not an unknown phenomena). (BD)
• Has ICANN ever done a study on the relationships between purely remote /participation vs. physical attendance and sustained engagement?  (BD)
• Unpaid administrative work lacks strong appeal relative to substantive policy work, so it can be difficult to get much participation, thus leaving chairs and a few elected reps as the default 'mules'. (BD)
  
• Volunteer frustration.
• Some people seem to be involved simply for travel support.

• Expand the limited public acknowledgment of tenure, leadership awards, etc. (CM)

• Invest in and provide training on enabling tools and platforms:  Language Services, remote participation, Wiki’s etc. (CM)

• Buddy scale/system at constituency level. (TH)
• Identify existing issue leaders as point people to answer newcomer questions. (TH)
• Effective, sustained in-reach may require having people paid to do the iterative tasks of capacity development for each new set of group members. Immersion in the 'cultural milieu' of a group is essential; outside efforts, no matter how well meaning, can seem offmay seem off key and become a burden on volunteer leaders. A logical solution would be to enable the groups to hire and oversee part-time staffers drawn from the respective milieus. Even 5 hours per week of someone's dedicated time could make a significant difference. (BD)
• Staff could provide various kinds of informational inputs in easily digested formats with pointers to further info, e.g. 'this week/month in xyz group or area of interest' emails/web material. (BD)
• Make better use of ICANN meeting registration data - share with stakeholder groups.
• Paid staff for volunteer engagement. (BD)
• Call-out or sanction non-contributors.

Specific to SOACSGC group(s)

(if referring to specific group please identify)

• Constituency leaders lack time for outreach or mentoring and are not trained in these disciplines (CM)
•  Civil society members usually have less financial "'skin in the game" ' than their business counterparts to motivate deepened and their sustained engagement. If your ones' drivers are normative commitments and intellectual/political interest, sticking with iterative and often glacial and procedure-laden work programs that yield small if any gains may seem less compelling than other possible uses of your time. If for example you're an advocate for freedom of expression, privacy, human rights, etc., other forums and processes may seem comparatively more "high yield," especially insofar as your This is specially so if one's issues are not officially recognized as salient and institutionalized as salienton the agenda, even if ICANN policies impact these arenasissues. Hence, people can become frustrated at their inability to "get anywhere" in ICANN and exit to other policy spaces. (BD)
• Civil society members usually have fewer financial resources to physically attend meeting . While ICANN has some of the best remote participation support in the business, people who actually get to meetings tend to "get the bug" and feel connected to the community and its issues and willing to keep at it more than those for whom ICANN is a remote abstractionthan their business counterparts. (BD)
  
• High number of administrative tasks. (BD)
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• Programs such as CROPP and special budget requests could be expanded to fund inreach activities (CM)
•  NCUC has launched a partial travel support program from its own piggy bank, offering up to two active member $2,000 each to attend toward attendance at a given meeting, with applications on a competitive CFP basis. If members can supplement this via other sources, they can come and maybe "get the bug. " ICANN 's piggy bank being a bit bigger, it could experiment with a similar micro-grants program geared toward participants lacking the resources to fully self-finance that would cover some but not all the costs of meeting attendance. (BD)