Hi Klaus

On Jul 10, 2014, at 10:17 AM, Klaus Stoll <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On 7/10/2014 7:55 AM, William Drake wrote:
> 
> "I don’t think we have less influence because we lack strategic vision or intestinal fortitude, or that the "Whack-a-Mole” characterization does justice to the hard work that people have put in on Council and off over the past fifteen years.  We’ve done what we can with the resources we have, i.e. volunteer labor and a bit of madness, and it has mattered."
> 
> Part of the problem is that over 15 years we have not managed to get more NFP's involved and consequently not enough hands on deck.
> NPOC is making an concerted effort to change that and I hope that our colleagues will join us. Many hands make easy work.

FWIW, NCUC started in 1999 and has 95 “NFP” organizational members. NPOC started in 2011 and has 47 “NFP” organizational members.  So both are making concerted effort to get civil society more engaged and welcome colleagues to join.  

Ideally, the focus of these efforts should be NCSG rather than constituencies.  The most sensible approach might be a unified stakeholder group in which we don’t waste time and energy building different sand boxes on the same beach and confusing people with a fragmented visage and voice.  Then more of us could lend our hands in doing actual policy work and trying to impact ICANN processes.  The few who’ve been doing this for years could use the help.
> 
> 
> Everybody, and with me in the forefront, accepts and respects what has been done by a few with very little, it's a miracle, but we should expect and put into place what my old teachers wrote beneath many of my exam papers: "could and should do better!". (Not much has changed since then I am afraid). Given the importance of the Internet and Ig today, we have no other choice and that includes to look very critically and constructively at our-self and the structures we help create, serve and maintain.

Total agreement.  Can we have that constructive look at our structures, and how best to advance civil society’s interests in ICANN?

Best,

Bill
> 
> 
> 
>> Hi
>> 
>> On Jul 9, 2014, at 5:57 PM, Horacio T. Cadiz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> 
>>> On July 4, 2014 1:51:46 AM Sam Lanfranco <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> This is in marked contrast to how the commercial and government
>>>> constituencies approach these issues. They maintain both early warning
>>>> and early intervention systems.  As has been pointed out, business
>>>> constituency lobbyists are already at work in the halls of government
>>>> advancing their strategic interests in the IANA transition process.
>>>> Their 360 degree assessment (environmental scan) assumes early and
>>>> sustained intervention as ongoing process, one which by the way breeds
>>>> familiarity and has benefits beyond the Policy-Mole at hand. This is the
>>>> opposite of a Whack-a-Mole strategy. In the case of RC, they understood
>>>> this and used their clout to act more like commercial stakeholder
>>>> protagonists.
>>> I don't think the difference in strategy is by choice. This difference in strategy is a result
>>> of NCSG (and  not-for-profits, in general) not having the resources to continuously lobby
>>> the powers-that-be.  The business-affiliated constituencies have the funding to do this.
>> I couldn’t agree more.  I don’t think we have less influence because we lack strategic vision or intestinal fortitude, or that the "Whack-a-Mole” characterization does justice to the hard work that people have put in on Council and off over the past fifteen years.  We’ve done what we can with the resources we have, i.e. volunteer labor and a bit of madness, and it has mattered.
>> 
>> Bill
>> 
>