Of 1,120 total attendees (excluding staff and Board), we emailed 540 of them using the information they had provided on registration and received 110 responses – a healthy response rate of 20.4 percent.

All responses were from you the community (i.e. no staff or Board responses) and the results are below (these results are also published on the Seoul meeting site at http://sel.icann.org/survey.):

Quick analysis: The results are surprisingly good. There isn’t a single question where a significant majority of people weren’t positive in their response. Obviously there is always room for improvement – two meetings after we introduced the document deadline, it seems there are still large sections of the community that are not entirely happy – we will have to look into why and what we can do about it.

In terms of what happens at meetings, the least important event according to you was the Board meeting – but even then a majority of people felt it was very important or important.

And there was a very positive response to the lively opening ceremony – in which not only traditional Korean drummers but also a young guitarist made famous by a YouTube video played. And ICANN’s new CEO is off to a positive start at his first ICANN meeting.

Combined with an extremely favourable review of the overall meeting and the facilities it offered, it seems as though we are clearly doing something right at meetings. Something that we intend to not only maintain but to improve.

Here is a quick rundown of ICANN-related events and information for participating both in person and remotely.

Open Forum

There are two main sessions from the ICANN perspective. On Sunday 15 November, at 9.30 to 11.00am local time in Room 1 (Sinai), ICANN will be running an open forum that will cover the organization’s latest developments, including the new Affirmation of Commitments, the recently approved “fast track” for IDN Internet extensions, the new generic top-level domain process, and other topics.

If you not attending the conference in person, the session will be audiocast and you will be able to send in interventions via email and through a chat function on the IGF site.

Critical Internet Resources

Then, on Monday 16 November, there will be a main session on Managing Critical Internet Resources in the main room from 9.30am to 12.30pm.

This event will be webcast and, again, you will be able to send in questions via email and through chatrooms.

Participating Remotely

Links to the webcasts, audiocasts and chatrooms will be posted on the IGF’s webpage at http://www.intgovforum.org.

There are also a number of “remote hubs” around the world that comprise local meetings where participants are able not only to watch the webcast of the IGF but also to interact with the meeting.

Those participating will also be able to discuss the themes covered by the IGF from a local perspective with others from their own region. The Forum serves as a stimulus or a starting point for the debate of local issues and implications and for the development of a network of interested people in every region.

For more information go to: http://www.igfremote.com/

Other sessions

Apart from those two main sessions, there are a range of other sessions that may be of interest to ICANN community members. These include:

Monday 14.00-15.30 (Room 2, Red Sea): Best practices in ccTLD Policy and Operations management Resources

Monday 14.30-16.00 (Room 3, Suez Canal): Managing Internet Addresses: Global and regional viewpoint

Tuesday 11.00-12.30 (Room 2, Red Sea): Domain Name Use: Theft, Threats & Solutions

Tuesday 14.30-17.30 (Room 4, Nile Valley): Securing Cyberspace: Strategy for the Future

Tuesday 15.00-18.00 (Main room): Internet Governance in the light of WSIS Principles

Wednesday 9.00-12.30 (Room 3, Suez Canal):Code of good practice on participation, access to information and transparency in Internet governance

Wednesday 14.00-15.30 (Room 4, Nile Valley): Arabic Script IDNs: Challenges and Solution

Full schedule

You can view the full IGF meeting schedule online at: http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/2009/sharm_el_Sheikh/WorkshopSchedule.html

A mock-up of what the new front page may look like

Since June, ICANN staff has been working hard with external consultants Revere Group to redesign the website to fit with the community’s needs. Revere first carried out a site audit [pdf], pointing out all the areas where the website didn’t fit in with best practices and guidelines.

Then it carried out the online survey as well as around 15 in-depth interviews with community members and staff to find out what it was that people felt the website needed to do. And it also went through the full logs of website visitors to find out who was coming to the site and from where. And from that created a research document [pdf] summarizing the findings.

Based on these two documents, a new taxonomy [pdf] of the site was developed in iterations. New categories and menus cover all the different aspects of ICANN as an organization and structure them more simply and logically. And from that, wireframes [pdf] – blueprint designs – for new webpages were drawn up and new functions and approaches were discussed in an effort to make the site as easy to use as possible.

Design

Once the wireframes were in place, the study then moved into a design phase where a wide range of different approaches to the actual site look were drawn up and run through a group of around 10 staff over the course of a month, and the designs were gradually honed down to the point where the blueprints for the different pages were created as images.

And that’s where we currently are, as of 21 October. The remaining steps are the important ones – figuring out how to implement the new approach, ensuring that we keep as much of the design and new functions sketched out earlier in the process.

We will be working on a timetable for that in the next few weeks and will try to be conservative in our estimates so we don’t end up over-promising. But it is probably safe to say that before the next meeting in Nairobi in March 2010, there will be an updated and fit-for-purpose website that should finally put an end to most, if not all, of the usability issues that the community has had to deal with on ICANN.org for the past few years.

We are publishing summaries of the different aspects of this whole process so you as the community can see the work that has been put into this effort. Hopefully you will like what you see.

Usability study work summaries [pdfs]

• Site audit
• Research
• Taxonomy
• Wireframes

Session goals and outcomes:

The public forum is the community’s opportunity to make comments on the main topics in front of ICANN at each meeting directly to the Board and in front of the rest of the community.

The goal is to give a public and open forum for issues to be raised toward the end of the meeting and draw the community and Board’s attention to anything important.

The public forum is split up into the main topics of the Seoul meeting with a time alotted for each subject (see below). Attendees are encouraged to be brief and concise to enable as many people to speak as possible. A microphone is placed near the front of the room and commenters line up behind it to take their turn in asking a question.

Answerable questions are much preferred to comments, and both are preferred to statements – which can be incorporated into the official record without the need to read them out. If there are a large number of commenters, a two-minute clock may be introduced.

The ideal outcome of the public forum is that everyone who has an important issue to raise is able to relate it to the Board while also making the community aware of the issue.

The issues for discussion and their time slots are provided below.

The question box will take questions until Wednesday 14 October in preparation for the public forum at ICANN’s international public meeting in Sydney on Thursday 29 October.

Questions are limited to two per individual and 50 words in length each. They can cover any topic related to ICANN and its work. Answers will be provided either during the public forum or emailed and published in the weeks following the meeting.

You can find the form below, as well as on the Seoul meeting website and on the participation pages on ICANN’s main website.

If you can’t see the form below, you can go to it directly at:
http://icann.wufoo.com/forms/seoul-question-box/

Sections are:

• JPA/Affirmation
• Applicant Guidebook/new gTLDs
• Fast Track/IDNs
• Public comment periods
• Seoul meeting
• And the remainder

JPA/Affirmation
Last Wednesday, 30 September 2009, the Joint Project Agreement with the US government ended and in its place a new Affirmation of Commitments was signed.

This is obviously of enormous significance to ICANN, so it currently sits front and center on the ICANN front page. We have an announcement, the Affirmation itself, a video of CEO Rod Beckstrom explaining its significance, and reaction from the community. The Affirmation has been signed but obviously there is much that the community now needs to discuss, and that conversation will start in Seoul.

Applicant Guidebook / new gTLDs
The third version of the Applicant Guidebook was released today. It’s all out for public comment, as we have done twice before. We are gradually moving forward with the overarching issues and, again, Seoul will be place to have more discussions.

It is worth pointing out that today, Monday 5 October, is the document deadline for Seoul (15 working days before the start of the meeting), which is why so much stuff has appeared in the past few days. The idea is that everyone will now have plenty of time to read the documents and so be in a position to talk about their contents at Seoul.

The full rundown of documents can be found at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/comments-3-en.htm, including red-lined versions so you can see what has changed.

Fast Track
This is the process for introducing internationalized domain names (IDNs) into the root – but only those that related to territories i.e. ccTLDs. The Fast Track final implementation plan was published last week for public comment, and the plan is to have the Board authorize it at the Seoul meeting (end of this month).

So, this is the last chance to have a look and have your say before it actually happens. You can find all the information you should need for that process at http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-30sep09-en.htm.

Public comment periods
As usual in the build-up to a meeting, we have a raft of public comment periods. Ignoring the ones for the Applicant Guidebook and Fast Track, both of which are mentioned above, we have also opened comment periods on:

• A root-scaling study by TNO
• The use of proxy services for domain registration i.e. people paying to ensure their personal details do not appear publicly as the owner of a particular domain name
• Board review final report i.e. the changes to be made to the Board itself as part of the ongoing independent review process
• SSAC review report – same as Board report above but not as far along in the process
• NomCom review report – same as SSAC above

Seoul meeting
Why we have this glut of material is, of course, the upcoming Seoul meeting at the end of October.

With respect to the meeting itself, there are several other pieces of information:

• The agenda is live - check it out to see what is going on, when and who will be speaking
• If you can’t attend, you can ask questions in the public forum online
• If you haven’t see it yet, the meeting has its own website at http://sel.icann.org

And the remainder
And there’s still more:

• Nairobi fellowship applications
• A new process for registry security requests
• A bulk transfer advisory

Hopefully that helps breaks down the work into manageable chunks. If you still have queries, please add them as a comment below.

Picturesque Bled - location for the ccTLD meeting

I’ve been around the domain name industry for a while and have attended a few ICANN meetings, but this was only my second regional ccTLD-focussed conference. I’ve also had some exposure to Eastern Europe but my exposure to Central Asia and the Caucasus is almost zero, limited to watching a picture of a plane following a red line across a map of the area on overnight flights between Australia and Europe.

I therefore wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, though my background research suggested that it was likely to be an interesting affair. The attendees list indicated a healthy turnout of ccTLD Managers, representing everyone from EU member states to Central Asian Republics. As my role at AusRegistry International is to build relationships with ccTLD managers around the world, this looked promising.

The conference itself was organised (very well, it should be said) by the Coordination Center for TLD RU (ccTLD.RU – Russia’s ccTLD manager), with local assistance from ARNES (the Slovenian ccTLD manager) and the Slovenian chapter of the Internet Society.

Each of the countries represented at the conference (with the exception of guest speakers, such as myself) share similar histories and so cultural perspectives and I was curious to see to what extent this, and Russia’s historically dominant position in the region, impacts on how ccTLD managers see their role in the Internet.

Many of the attendees spoke better Russian than English so a significant proportion of the conference was conducted in Russian. This was my first experience listening to a translation, which took a little getting used to, but the translator was really very good. Trying to watch a presentation in Cyrillic though was a reminder of just how spoilt I normally am as a native English speaker in today’s world, and of how critically important IDNs are to this (and other) regions.

It was fascinating to hear some very different perspectives than I’ve been used to in the past. As I come from an English-speaking country that is politically closely aligned with the United States and well represented within the ICANN community, it’s easy to forget that there are groups of people who are much less comfortable operating within the ICANN process, especially when it comes to the role the US government plays with respect to the agreements and contracts it has with ICANN.

A number of ICANN staff attended the meeting and did their best to allay some of the concerns expressed, particularly the idea that the US government has ‘a big red button’ that can be used to turn off the Internet at will. While this at first seemed ludicrous, even paranoid to me, it was a view earnestly held by a number of my colleagues and it was instructive to hear their views and arguments.

For example, some of the countries in this region do not send representatives to the GAC, because (as I understand it) they feel that this would be interpreted as recognition of the US government as the controlling body of the Internet. Others feel it is better to work from inside the tent, rather than outside – and there was also much encouragement to join and participate in the ccNSO. I hope I was also able to provide them with some of my, Australian, perspective.

This conference therefore plays an important regional role as an event that allows ccTLD managers (and others in the industry) to share their experiences and to support each other, without becoming entangled in the political issues that make ICANN a problematic space for some of them.

From a personal perspective, it was great to have the opportunity to meet with ccTLD managers from a range of countries, and to hear about the various challenges that they face in an increasingly competitive market and an increasingly challenging security environment.

I also enjoyed the chance, as part of the Marketing panel, to present some of the experiences that we have gained during our time as Registry Operator for the dot-au ccTLD and from our work with other ccTLDs, especially our clients in the Middle East.

I should also mention the local hosts’ hospitality: we were treated to two excellent dinners – the second one being a particularly special affair held in Bled Castle with spectacular views over the lake and the mountains beyond.

The only real complaint I have is in relation to the extremely flaky wireless internet connectivity in the conference hall. I have a suspicion though that this may have been a deliberate strategy on the part of the organisers to get people to actually listen to the presentations. A strategy to be considered for future ICANN meetings perhaps…

Jon Lawrence is Business Development Consultant at AusRegistry International

We have put that document out in a radically different public comment period to allow for as much community discussion and collaboration as possible.

The comment period uses Jive software which allows for simple interaction and discussion between community members. It is an experiment we are running from now until 24 September. You can view everyone’s responses, clearly broken down into different areas, and if you register post your own thoughts and responses. As well as vote in polls, write blog posts, and so on.

The AC/SO summary drew out six main issues as well as seven suggested solutions to fix those issues. The top two issues were frustration and exhaustion at the huge volume of work, and the lack of visibility of the impact of volunteer input on decision-making.

The top three suggested solutions were: prioritization of the workload; better scoping of issues at the start of policy processes; and improving accessibility to issues by providing summaries.

Now we need you as the community to flesh out these broad points into specific ideas and suggestions.

The discussion space will be shut down after 30 days as the experiment closes and a report will then be written covering what happened as well as the feasibility of using Jive or similar software for future community discussions.

So if you want to make your voice heard not only about how ICANN can improve but the ways in which those improvement discussions are held, then please login on today and start interacting.

You can log-on to the collaborative space at: https://jive.dev.icann.org/community/acso.

Not having been to an ICANN event, I didn’t know what to expect from the “Regional Gathering of ICANN-Accredited Registrars and gTLD Registries” when it came to Toronto last week. A check of the agenda had me wondering if some of the material would be over my head. The subject matter included security, compliance, data escrow and the Registrar Accreditation Agreement among other things. As I said, I try to stay up on what’s happening with ICANN, so at least I was familiar with most of topics being discussed.

The first session I attended was probably not the best introduction to the inner workings of ICANN. I had heard that there was a tendency to use acronyms to excess, so I came armed with a BlackBerry and the link to the ICANN website glossary. Despite my efforts, I still found myself leaning over on a number of occasions to ask my more experienced neighbours what the ALAC was and why the New gTLD AG3 was all about.

Once I got past the acronyms and got some background on some of the issues, I began to see in the room a group of people, each representing different interests, struggling to come to a consensus on how best to proceed. There was most definitely differing viewpoints presented, and a clear belief of being right about the best way to proceed. However, there was also a clear passion shared around the room (and around the world via phone) for ensuring that the eventual solution, or direction taken was the best for the Internet community as a whole.

Outside of the discussions around issues like the new Registrar Accreditation Agreement and the New gTLD Program which get a lot of press around the Internet industry, the gathering provided a good introduction to the work of some other areas of ICANN.

A presentation by Yurie Ito, Director, Global Security Programs for ICANN provided an excellent introduction to the kinds of challenges that the industry faces in terms of criminal activity and other abuse on the Internet. Presentations from representatives from .MOBI and .ASIA were valuable in understanding how different registries are working to market their domain extensions to the public.

The discussions about how the de-accreditation process was and wasn’t working revealed some of the differing challenges faced by ICANN, registries and registrars when a de-accreditation was undertaken. While the process is clearly not yet perfect, it was also clear that each of the stakeholders was committed to doing right by the registrants and was willing to give and take to ensure the best possible outcome was achieved.

That said, what I found most valuable was simply being a part of it. Lunch meant a chance to meet and converse with counterparts at other registrars, partners at registries, and even some long-time customers of Tucows. The evening activities, including a fantastic night at the baseball game (thanks to Afilias) allowed everyone to unwind and walk away from the issues that have the potential to overwhelm and burn out those who are front and center in the process.

Adam Eisner mentioned to me after day one that the most rewarding part of being involved in ICANN was that you were a part of the process that leads to changes that have a real impact on the Internet and how it works. It was a chance to be one of the people making it better.

The perception some have, and I confess that included myself, is that ICANN is a mess of bureaucracy and that nothing ever gets done. Sure, ICANN can be a frustrating experience at times – that was made clear in some of the discussions that took place. But I think that those involved have an unequivocal understanding of the task they have taken on and the challenge it represents.

There is little room for error when you start changing the very structure of the Internet. Second chances are hard to come by with a global network of such immense value to society. What’s amazing to me is that those involved are willing to work to make it better as opposed to being frozen in the fear of messing it all up.

The net result of attending the gathering is both a fuller understanding of just what is involved in nurturing and stewarding of this amazing thing called the Internet. I’ll definitely pay more attention to what’s happening, both through the remote access that ICANN provides and hopefully also in person in the future.