ICANN starts opening up

I wish I could say it was something to do with my very recent appointment as General Manager of Public Participation, but a few announcements yesterday have shown that ICANN is finally opening up a bit.

Perhaps most importantly, we have the first proper Board minutes from its 17 January meeting. That’s a two-day turnaround and the detail for the first time helps show what actually goes on at the top of ICANN. I think the minutes are surprisingly good. The .xxx discussion in particular appears to be a pretty honest review of what went on. And they’re not too stuffy either. I’m sure there can be improvement but it’s a bloody good start.

And then there is finally an ICANN blog – so feedback can partially get away from the out-dated email/mailing-list approach. I hope to make more of blogs and other more interactive technologies in my new role. But it’s good to see the start has been made.

And also yesterday, the first Annual Report – one of the new requirements of the new ICANN/US government agreement. I’ve only skimmed this but it also looks pretty good – comprehensive, cleanly worded, straight down the line.

That said, even if I could fine some holes in either the minutes or the report, I’m not sure I’d be in a position to point them out anymore. I have agreed not to be externally critical of ICANN in return for being in a position to actually fix the problems.

However, I would like to state very, very clearly – if people do have criticisms, issues, problems, suggestions etc etc etc then please email me and I’ll see what I can do.

As for my new role – I’ll do a lengthy blog post on it later. I don’t start for two weeks because I wanted to give Techworld time to find someone else to do my news editing job, but the position was announced on Thursday since there was a slew of other appointments and ICANN wanted to get em all out in one announcement.

So I said fine, announce it, but I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to anyone about it so my apologies to friends and colleagues if you’re wondering why I didn’t call and explain.

Right, I have to deal with my jet-lag and then get on with stuff…

  1. Congratulations Kieren!

  2. “I have agreed not to be externally critical of ICANN.” Could you post a copy of what you agreed to?

  3. Hey Ed,

    Well there’s nothing I’ve signed. One of the main concerns about giving me the job, I was told honestly, was that I would continue to criticise from inside rather than help try to fix it. So I thought about it and decided that was a fair enough request and so gave my word.

    Kieren

  4. Congratulations on your job. You’ll be gratified to know that the news of your appointment has overwhelmed the ICANN web server, which, rather worryingly appears to be down. Perhaps you could make this your fast task to tackle. 🙂

  5. Cheers Max – it has as well.

    Maybe I’m jinxed. I killed my mum’s computer at the weekend by installing an Ethernet PCI card and trying to add wireless to their home network. Mind you, the computer was running a 233MHz Pentium II and Windows Me…

    I’ve never known the ICANN site to go down before though.

    Kieren

  6. Many congratulations an as they say;
    The devil you know ( or hire as in this case )is better than the devil you don’t know ( or leave to their own devices ). Seriously, I’m sure your input is just what is required

  7. I don’t know whether to be delighted or disturbed that my mother is posting comments to my blog. You’ll be on Twitter next Mum…

    Kieren

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