Ooookay.  Another big day (but you knew that).  We had the second part of the public forum this morning -- my big issues were the GNSO LSE review and transparency stuff (tired, sorry).  Then the board went into its conclave between 2pm and 10pm, then we met for a chat in the bar, then, finally, we were done.

Tomorrow I have to report on the meeting about meetings, the meta-meeting, so here's what I'll say:

Positive remarks:  People have lots of positive things to say about ICANN meetings.  The scribes come in for universal acclaim.  The healthy culture of debate is appreciated -- the idea that you can get to a mike pretty easily to speak your mind.  Hallway/networking very fruitful.  ICANN's meeting coordinators do a good job. 

Communications:  Translation is a key issue, and it would be good to have key documents available in major languages (we're working on that).  Some concern about doing business/legal document only in one language.  Lots of interest in agendas available in advance, and cross-cutting meetings focused on a single issue.  Each ICANN meeting should leave a footprint of some kind, by attracting local people who join in policymaking and stick with it.  Perhaps we need to set goals re how many participants we're seeking to attract from each region.   Need to get basic information out before the meetings.  Need to make it easier for newcomers to understand what's going on so they can get involved.  Maybe we should have a daily service that provides an overview of key discussions during ICANN meetings. 

Some of the most interesting meetings are small in size, but they're not publicly visible.  It may be everybody's responsibility to take notes about those smaller meetings and get them posted online. 

We're not getting remote conversations into these meetings -- everything's a one-way broadcast.  It would be great to project the IRC channels in the meeting room.  In general, we need better online tools (and asynchronous, virtual meetings).

We should encourage people to set up satellite meetings-around-the-meeting -- before and after.

We really need to speak more slowly to one another.

And, of course, we need to know why we're communicating!  What are these meetings for?  We have a narrow technical mission...We certainly need a better web site.

Meeting protocol.  Should we charge a small fee?  It would create a barrier, but it would help us cover costs.  How about voluntary fees?  How would we allocate fees?  Are we overdoing security, requiring badges and security?  (This may pose a big problem for local hosts.)  We should make it obvious which meetings are "closed" and which are "open," and move towards as much openness as possible.  We should make meetings comfortable and open for attendees -- better signage, better guidance, better context (what's the history of topic X?) etc.  Maybe we need to revive the Salzburg Seminar idea of funding participation at meetings through scholarships.

Meeting structure.  We have a good opening tutorial for newcomers, but then it's not clear what they should do next.  Our intake processes aren't good.  We need more joint cross-constituency discussions.  The room setup is awful for the public forums.  We shouldn't read reports (we're getting better at this).   More dialogue!   The nominating committee should be part of the first public forum at the beginning of the week.  The board gets over-scheduled, but these meetings shouldn't focus on talking up to the board.  The board meeting on Friday is too staged (we're going to loosen up tomorrow).  Maybe there should be a public meeting AFTER the private board prep meeting, for feedback on what we've decided on.

Number of meetings/location of meetings.  Who would get sponsors for non-local-hosted meetings?  Maybe ICANN should be renting the A/V equipment for all meetings.  We need to collect data about how many people come, and where they come from.  We need to find out whether holding these meetings actually benefits the local community.  Maybe we'd have more participation if our meeting locations were more predictable.  Maybe we need to consider having one of the three meetings in a "hub" location.  Visa issues are a major concern.  We're not sure whether two or three meetings is the right number, but we are sure that more dialogue is what should be happening at these meetings.

That's it -- scattershot but well-intentioned.  The Board will have to take all of this in and decide what to do for 2008.