23 December 2014
Dear ICANN Staff Colleagues,
Before we completely shut down for the holidays, this is a quick save-the-date post-new-year message.
You may have already heard from your department leaders that after months of work by the Policy Development Support and Online Community Services Teams, enhancements to ICANN’s public comment proceedings will be launching later next month - on 26 January 2015 to be exact.
In addressing recommendations approved by the ICANN Board from the recent Second Accountability & Transparency Review Team effort (see - https://community.icann.org/x/mQllAg), two major changes will be implemented: (1) suspending the public comment reply cycle period and extending the standard public comment period to a target of 40 days, and (2) launching an “inquiry” feature to allow for community feedback on staff summary reports. These improvements will be featured in redesigned landing pages for all future public comment proceedings.
To allow for a smooth transition at the end of January, the Public Comment Team is planning to provide two briefings for all interested staff members to review these improvements. These briefings will focus on internal process and procedural changes – of particular interest to those of you who have responsibility for managing public comment activities and those that may have that responsibility in the future.
We are planning the briefings for Friday, 9 January at 1300 UTC and Friday, 16 January at 200 UTC. Teleconference participation details will be provided in subsequent calendar invitations after the first of the new year. We are also planning two briefings for community stakeholders during the week of 19 January that you are welcomed to attend. Look for a community announcement about those briefings on ICANN.org.
We will be processing feedback on the system enhancements during the webinars and will review the implementation of these changes in six months. For more details on these changes, please review David Olive’s message in the November Policy Update at https://www.icann.org/resources/newsletter/policy-update-2014-11-21-en.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. Public comment proceedings are a core organizational mechanism for facilitating robust community input on ICANN’s various strategic, operational and policy development activities. As staff, we need to assure that they are operated professionally, fairly and efficiently.
Best wishes for the New Year!
Rob Hoggarth
