Andrew



I really appreciate your comments!



I will think this through some more



I'm focused on getting to the point of having a Charter as I think we are in a weaker position (structurally with ICANN) until this is done



I understand the 'from with in" point - and the opportunity this creates to know people but there are "NPOC" members in NCSG now



I understand the "more specific focus" point eg I see possibility for Education, Consumers .....



Both of these in my view are fixable through dialogue



But our Charter includes Constituencies as an element in our structure - so for me the approach during the "Due Diligence" phase should focus on supporting the Constituency development and not on denying access



If I have misunderstood our process through inexperience that's fine



But these are my concerns at present



Cheers



Rosemary

Sent from my BlackBerry® from Optus



-----Original Message-----

From: "Andrew A. Adams" <[log in to unmask]>

Sender: "NCSG-NCUC" <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 02:45:24 

To: <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To: "Andrew A. Adams" <[log in to unmask]>

Subject: Re: SPAM-LOW: Re: NPOC Q&A Document



Rosemary wrote'

> I think we have a real problem...

> 

> Our Charter describes Constituencies at 2.3 (below) but it seems we are arg=

> uing against even the possibility of a Constituency within NCSG????



Remember that our charter is not the current one under which the NPOC is 

being propsoed. The NPOC is being proposed under the current board-imposed 

interim charter.



I don&t think the tone of comments here suggest people are against interest 

groups, or constituencies as the board insists we call them. What people are 

arguing against is both the principle and practice of this NPOC proposal.



So far as I can see if the NPOC constituency within NCSG is created then 

we&re hemmed in to only two constituencies' organisations and users. Very few 

organisations that are both eligible and intersted in joining NCSG will not 

be non-profits, I suspect, particularly under the broad definitions of the 

NPOC proposal. That leaves us with individuals on one side and NPOs on 

another. The NPOC is way too broad and seems to me to be either naively 

over-broad o cynically empire-building, at the very least, and perhaps an 

attempt at political spoiling as has been suggested.



I would also say that I am completely opposed, at this stage *and probably 

will be later) to any proposal that seeks to create a constituency/interest 

group in NCSG that doesn't already have a significant membership in the NCSG 

as a whole, or at the very least a list of eligible members who feel there 

isn't a suitable interest group/constituency for them to join. The only 

reason NCUC exists as an explicit constituency within NCSG is that the board 

insisted that we have constituencies right from the start, IIRC, and so 

everyone go to lumped into a single constituency. Over time we should expect 

that NCUC will either disappear as other more focussed interest groups form, 

or become the default place for members of NCSG who don't fit into a group 

and don't have enough others with whom to form a new group.



We're still in the formation stage of NCSG really, and need to be very 

careful how we allow our political structures to develop. Historical 

institutionalism and path dependence lessons tell us that once we've got 

structures in place it will be difficult to change them. Much better to get 

them approximately right first time and then tweak them than have to fight 

internal political battles to slice and dice  a group set up too early with a 

way too broad remit. Yes, this places NCUC in an unnaturally strong position, 

but that was forced on us by the board rather than being something we've 

sought for ourselves, and I actually have reasonable faith that the majority 

of current members will not seek to undermine our work in getting the NCSG up 

and running in ICANN by using NCUC's position to attempt to dominate NCSG.





-- 

Professor Andrew A Adams                      [log in to unmask]

Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration,  and

Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics

Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan       http://www.a-cubed.info/