ATLAS II Groups Reports
| ATLAS II Group | Report |
|---|---|
ATLAS II Working Group | |
ATLAS II Survey Group | |
ATLAS II Events Group | The Events Working Group started its work just after the final approval of the ATLAS II project and the constitution of the organizing committee.
It started by proposing a rough schedule of the whole activities of the summit that has been refined during several months according to the ALAC standard works and the summit specific activities.
One of the most challenging things the working group faced was the availability of the meeting rooms with the adequate size and shape. The Hilton Metropol wasn’t that large to easily accommodate the normal ICANN meeting and the At-Large Summit. Several interactions with the ICANN meeting team and a lot of effort were deployed to reach the final arrangement.
The most difficult thing was to find rooms after Sunday because the meeting staff accepted to organize both the ICANN meeting and the At-Large summit in the same Hilton Metropol hotel assuming that no more rooms will be assigned to ATLAS II starting Monday except one large room on Thursday.
I would like to thank Nancy and her team for their understanding and their efforts to conciliate the irreconcilable. It was a tough task, but with the willingness of finding a solution to all problems, we ended with an acceptable and workable arrangement.
I would like here to mention the hard problem of the venue of the “fair of opportunities” that was supposed to be the ALAC room with the U shape tables installed. It was a real problem because what was supposed to be a relax interaction and networking space would be a crowded and locked area with no way to circulate in. The willingness of reaching the aim of the event and avoid the failure pushed us to change some parameters (date) and have a better solution. I find it the most successful achievement of our Working Group.
The other task of the working group was to form the thematic groups according to the 5 themes chosen by the ALS representatives through a survey. But in Singapore, this task was handed over to Evan Leibovitch and Wolf Ludwig. |
ATLAS II Sponsors Group | |
ATLAS II Logistics Group | |
ATLAS II Public Relations Group | |
ATLAS II Return on Investment Group | |
ATLAS II Fayre of Opportunities Working Group | June 24, 2014 London, UK Event Fayre of Opportunities
The Fayre of Opportunities was a huge success bringing together the RALO communities in an evening of inspiring speeches, RALO displays, guest musicians, food and drinks The facility was ideal since the room provided a good stage for the performance and speakers. The RALO's each had table and television to showcase their activities. Some of the RALO;s were great hosts in having uniform outfits and small gifts for the attendees.
If any critical comments I would say that the speeches were too long
Short Video http://animoto.com/play/t3t1LBFJ61hNf7tEaI0IQA
Pictures of the Event https://www.flickr.com/photos/glennmcknight/sets/72157644961291308/
Video at event Fadi http://youtu.be/pb-2eh3q_uM?list=UUJA15ByE_VwRwN6gGjZhWTg
Olivier , Wolfgang, Nmema http://youtu.be/jk59hcc6IPw?list=UUJA15ByE_VwRwN6gGjZhWTg
Part Three |
ATLAS II Communications Working Group | |
ATLAS II Mentoring Program Working Group |
ATLAS II Thematic Group Reports
| Thematic Group | Report |
|---|---|
Thematic Group 1: The Future of Multi-Stakeholder Models | With regards to TG1, this is how I feel things developed:
1.- What worked well?
I think that the subject of TG1 was itself appealing enough to gather a huge crowd around it and discussion was easily sparked. This was not only an advantage but also a challenge in terms of organizing the discussion and focusing on the subject rather than losing focus as a consequence of having too many people involved and with everyone wanting to comment on the subject. Breaking into smaller groups helped with this challenge and also helped to produce an output that was sufficiently complete in terms of reflecting the wide variety of contributions from the different sub-groups but brief enough to make it concrete and easily understandable to people outside the WG.
2.-What worked less well
I feel we can improve the way participants not only engage but follow the discussion and stay in the room. I felt that, at times, we went from a full room to a mid-empty room. Another area where we can improve is in coordinating the expected outcome document for each TG. The final exercise of consolidating all output documents was rather difficult in terms of trying to find a single format and approach into a single document. This could’ve been easier if between moderators and rapporteurs of all TGs had had a coordination call or a brief meeting before or even while we were conducting the sessions. This would’ve helped to have a uniform format and an easier final consolidation exercise.
3.- What did not work at all
I don’t feel that there was something that didn’t work at all. However, I have a feeling that what worked least well in case of TG1 was the contribution of the SME and in my case my understanding of the role I was supposed to play. I understood that as a moderator I was responsible for conducting the session, sparking discussion, leading it so it wouldn’t get out of focus and coordinating with the rapporteurs the way we were going to build the document. All of this under the assumption (wrongly made by me) that the SME would provide with materials, speakers and a proposed agenda for the TG discussion. What really happened is that I misunderstood my role and kept waiting for the SME to provide what I thought he had to provide but came to a point in which we could wait no longer and had to take over and do all what I expected the SME to do, myself. I felt like there wasn’t enough engagement by our SME. I would have expected him to have a more active role but maybe that was my mistake and lesson learned.
4.- Were people engaged enough? why? how?
I believe we had a good level of engagement in an overall assessment. We had members that were hugely engaged as well as members that weren’t engaged at all. It was interesting to see how there was a mix of both experimented and not-so-experimented members that were highly engaged because they felt they had something to contribute and had the good will to do so, while there were other members whom, by their vast experience, would’ve been thought to be more engaged but ended not only not being engaged but critical of the work done by the TG. When I say critical I mean they criticize the work not in a constructive but a rather negative way.
5.- How can we improve participation before the event?
With capacity building. I saw a lot of people engaged but having average or poor contributions due to a lack of understanding of the subject at the level needed or expected for the outcome document.
6.- How can we improve participation during the event?
- Regulating temperature of the AC system. I found that this was, believe it or not, one of the main reasons for people leaving the room at some time (or so they said).
- Having people rotate the role their having in the TG. For example having different people as rapporteurs during the discussions will help all group members engage, at a certain point, in the subject because they will have the responsibility of reporting the work of the group. This helps fostering participation among those who are either shy or lazy.
- Asking each ATLAS participant to file a personal report on the activities. This will help having people stay in the rooms and engaging with discussion. My experience as a participant of the Fellowship program is that if you tie the stipend/per diem you give to people to this report, you can improve the participation and outcome in a significant level.
I hope these comments help improve our future work. I would’ve loved to have the comments from my co-moderators, rapporteurs and SME but I didn’t get reply, as of this time, from them to an e-mail I sent them asking for their thoughts.
Here my humble report on Thematic Group 1 – The future of Multistackeholder models :
What worked well: First of all, I want remark the excellent work done by the people in charge to manage discussion. I think this was a point in favor for this TG. The Labour made by Leon, Evan & Rafid was superlative. Second point to have in account and wich was part of the success of this group: the great level of knowledge of the Thematic Group participants. Lastly in this short resume, I think only one topic generated discussion, this was the concept of multistackeholder model, but this obstacle was solve inmediatly by capacity of the participants as I said before. We had a very constructive, deep and rich dialogue. So, what worked well: the excellent work of TG leaders and participants together contributed to build great and clear debate.
What worked less well – I think the only mistake or bad election was the tool to communicate among participants at preparation of final document time. Is the only black point in the TG, but wasn`t important at the end. Finally Evan as reporter was incredible and the final document very good.
What did not work at all – Everything work well, maybe could be better but limited times conspired with this. Maybe more discussion could be better to clarify some complex point, specially for new participants.
Were people engaged enough? why? how? – yes . debate room was full of people during discussion, and representing a many end users sectors and with diversity and multicultural perspective.
How can we improve participation before the event? - I think, and is something that I repeat always, to improve participation is needed a well directioned Outreach. I think each region need to work in outreach independent of ICANN work on this sense, ALSs are who better known the field and needs, and also know how to do with less budget, also some ALSs have people prepared and ready to serve as mentor and teacher for new participants.
How can we improve participation during the event? Participation during event will be good, if the selection of TG leaders result good. I think is very important to have a good leader with experience to manage this kind of discussions, giving time and importance to every proposal made into TG, and to know when cut the discussions. Also is important to see who are participating into WG, and if they respect diversity, gender and multiculturalism. |
Thematic Group 2: The Globalization of ICANN | |
Thematic Group 3: Global Internet: The User Perspective | Feedback on ATLAS 2 session (TG 3) What worked well -Subject Matter Experts provided quality value added comments - Core team meet during the evenings to work extensively to assess the notes and summarize the core ideas
-Lack of process and well defined duties -Lack of repetition of the key tasks, Rule of thumb is telling people three times the key tasks to assure results -Day One facilitation was more confrontation style -Despite efforts to have pre-meetings before the Atlas 2 session the facilitator would not attend
-Expectation that a summary to be provided to audience immediately after lunch without any warning -Lack of full participation -Room layout wasn't conducive to equal discussion and a free flow of ideas
We had one of the largest rooms with a large group setup in a classroom format The vast majority of participants didn't speak up during the session
-The facilitators should have engaged silent majority directly to speak up on the topics -Break up into small groups and encourage summaries from their discussion -Small groups organized into linguistic groups with a bilingual reporter
-Direct questions to individuals for their comment so no one is silent |
Thematic Group 4: ICANN Transparency and Accountability | What worked well: The topics did generate lots of discussion, including some disagreement, which generated further, constructive dialogue. I found splitting the group into smaller groups, with each group reporting back meant everyone was actively involved in the discussions and debates.
What worked less well - the actual venue, in that it was one small room without a lot of room for different groups to hold their discussions. But that is simply what was available, so we made the best of it. (as one does)
What really made life a bit more difficult was that the reporter (Alan) simply had too much on his plate and wasn’t there a lot of the time. My session experts were also not there. Avri didn’t attend at all - which she had already telegraphed, and Hong wasn’t there for close to half the time. In future, if people put hands up, they should commit to being there. Chester was a huge help - he stepped in and was an excellent reporter.
Yes people were engaged - splitting people into smaller groups really helps with engaging people. Some people did have other meetings to go to, but enough stayed around (or came back when they could) so that there was real involvement - which is my suggestion for participation on the day (that, and making sure those who are supposed to be reporters/moderators etc can attend for most if not all of the discussion).
I’m not sure how to improve participation before hand - up for discussion
As to time pressures - accountability and transparency was a big topic. We tried to deal with both, but we took time defining the task, agreeing on terminology and then were pressed for time to come up with recommendations.
In future, possibly better defining (or confining) topics may help. |
Thematic Group 5: At-Large Community Engagement in ICANN |
