ICANN Day 4
Today is the Public Forum — schedule is here. It will be webcast and we are actively soliciting online participation. There are some very important topics being discussed this week, including the idea of having different tracks for different categories of new generic top level domains and the progress we're seeing on internationalized domains generally.
We're trying to avoid reading any reports or presentations as much as we can. Instead, the Board committee chairs will be available to answer questions, and we'll have ample open mike times.
For Los Angeles (the next meeting - in October 2007), we're trying to think of ways to change the format of the public forum to make it even more interactive and meaningful. Much of the work of this week has happened in constituency and cross-organization meetings — how can we get that word out to the world in the best and clearest way? I'm personally very interested in making progress in this direction, so please do let me know (here in comments or via email) how we change things in an effective/efficient way.
Not About ICANN Day 3
So the Yale Law School alumni office has been sending out a zillion emails about my talk on July 9 in New York City. And, right at this same time, we've hit a really dry spell on this blog. I'm at a truly arcane and self-involved meeting, circling around and talking about internationalized domain names and how to reform the GNSO.
Yikes. You may be saying this to yourself. Why would I ever go hear her talk? Well, I see your point. I really do. It looks from these last entries as if things are really boring in the Susan Crawford Blog land.
I swear it isn't always like this. It's just ICANN! It has this way of sucking you in and making you sit squirming for hours and hours, as the globe spins and your life goes by without you. You can't leave the room, you can't even go outside, because you're supposed to be there for a solid week, paying rapt attention, all alone in a sea of circular policy-talk.
I promise not to talk about ICANN on July 9. Nope, I'm going to have a lot of interesting things to say, one or two of which you will remember until July 10 if I do my job right. I predict there will be some reflections on the digital life, a few cave-dweller-lawyer jokes, some thoughtful asides about human reaction to overwhelming change, a neat set of stats, and a little Second Law of Thermodynamics riffing. It will not be a waste of time to attend, and my talk won't last long.
So — do come, okay? July 9, 6:30-8:30 p.m, 42 West 44th
Street, New York
City. Go here to register. There will probably be great snacks.