Call for Bids: Redesign of ICANN.org

Answers to Questions Vendors Have Asked

Thanks for your interest in redesigning ICANN.org. We’re excited at the prospect of having a dramatically improved site. If you would like to bid on the project but have not received our RFP, you’ll find it below, followed by our detailed requirements:

icann-org-redesign-rfp-final.doc

icann-redesign-detailed-reqs-final.xls

All responses are due no later than January 17, 2011.

Asked Questions (whether Frequently or Not)

We have approached 28 vendors with our Call for Bids. As of this writing, 11 have responded with follow-up questions and thus far, 8 have said they plan to respond in full. In order to keep a level playing field, whenever any of the vendors asks clarifying questions, we also post them here so that all bidders have access to the same information.

From which physical ICANN office will this project be run?

The project will be run out of ICANN’s headquarters, in Marina del Rey, California.

Where is the site hosted?

ICANN.org is hosted primarily from clustered servers on the West Coast of the United States, with some redundant servers on the East Coast. The selected vendor will receive more detailed information after signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

Is ICANN encouraging bids solely from firms in geographic proximity to ICANN's Marina del Rey office, or is ICANN seeking bids from any qualified firm, regardless of location?

ICANN’s mission is truly global, and we are used to working on teams that are widely dispersed geographically. We encourage responses from any company anywhere that has the technical qualifications and the ability to conduct this project in English.

What is your budget for this project?

We fully anticipate that this is a six-figure project (that is, over $100,000 USD). Beyond that, we’re not specifying a budget to vendors, as we want to see the spread of price ranges proposed. As the RFP indicates, we are not eager to enter into a permanent, maintenance-based relationship with any vendor. The goal would be to leave ICANN as self-sufficient as possible after the redesign.

What is the timeline for the project?

We plan to select a vendor by 18 Feb. 2011, and hope to have that vendor contracted by 4 March 2011. From there, we don't know the timeline yet because it will be set by the vendor's proposal. In our estimation this is easily a six-month project, and we fondly hope the improved site goes live in 2011.

What are the main drivers for the project?

There are three critical drivers for the project.

One is that our existing site does not work for visitors. People cannot find what they’re looking for and cannot complete tasks they set out to do, roughly half the time. Unacceptable.

Secondly, the site’s aesthetic does not rise to the level of a pre-eminent, international, non-profit organization. The artistic sensibilities need to be more human and reflective of ICANN’s important work.

The third main driver is the need to eventually open up most content on ICANN.org to direct maintenance by staff, through our existing wiki installation. We seek to build a seamless bridge between ICANN.org sections and content grown in staff-maintained wiki spaces. We plan for the amount of staff-maintained “wiki-ized” pages on the site to grow significantly over the next two years.

Will ICANN accept a proposal that includes two firms working in partnership?

Yes. The site redesign is complicated, cuts across several web-related disciplines, and must work well all over the globe, in several languages. If you can offer a better, more globally appealing result by combining your skills with those of a like-minded company, we will give your proposal consideration equal to proposals offered by single companies.

Do you have a CMS preference for the re-designed site?

In two words: not really. ICANN.org is currently a static site. Many of the other sites it interacts with are in Drupal, but senior management is open to any sensible CMS proposal. We deliberately solicited proposals from houses with expertise in a variety of CMS tools. Pick the tool you think is best, and make your case.

Will a consultancy’s work with ICANN be limited to interacting with a project committee, or will the consultant be involved in public-facing discussions with other members of ICANN's community, including constituents from other countries?

For the bulk of the work, the consultancy will be working with ICANN staff, primarily (but not exclusively) US. At certain key junctures as we show the proposed site to our volunteer community and receive community input, and at the end, when the site is nearly ready to go live, we welcome participation from the vendor. In these sessions, you will interact with a wide variety of races and nationalities.

Does ICANN plan to make public the proposals it receives in response to this RFP?

As a not-for-profit organization run for the public benefit, ICANN uses open, transparent and accountable business practices. However, we realize that publishing vendor proposals in full may reveal a vendor’s trade secrets or otherwise hamper a vendor’s ability to compete for future customers. To balance the needs of transparency and privacy, we plan to post a public list of all vendors who respond to our RFP, and their aggregate score at the end of our evaluation process. Currently we do not expect to post vendor proposals in full.