Meet the candidates - Q&A on the list!

[David Morar]

Dear all,


Thank you very much for your questions. I wanted to make sure I waited
until the end of the period, to make sure I answered all of the
potential questions. Below are the questions themselves and my answers.
Thank you very much for your consideration.



*Tomslin*


*One of our biggest challenges is finding active and enthusiastic
volunteers willing to commit significant amounts of their time to policy
development work from our large pool of members. In the past, as a
stakeholder group we've tried out a few strategies to increase our pool of
policy volunteers but with no significant success. I would like to
know what exact ideas you have on this issue.*


*David , in your statement, you mentioned something about "solid outreach
plans". Can you unpack that a little for us?*


*I see from your resume that you've previously been on the EC, but
personally I am not aware of your work in NCSG and haven't been exposed to
your participation in NCSG (maybe because I am not in the EC). Robin
however mentioned that you did a "wonderful job of looking out for and
representing the voices of non-commercial users at ICANN" Can you tell us a
bit more about what exactly you did to represent non-commercial users at
ICANN?*


Thank you very much Tomslin for your questions. I would like to answer both
together because I feel like they are connected. As part of the NCSG EC, my
main task was to be responsible along with my colleagues for approving new
membership. I have noticed first hand the slow down of member intake. Not
only that, but as you point out, the list seems to be lacking in folks
willing to volunteer for policy positions, myself included. A potential
reason for that is contextual, and another may be structural. Even as part
of the EC, I felt a bit scared to interact more than what my specific
duties were, since while the community is welcoming on an individual basis,
the pandemic has flattened all sorts of events and ways we usually
interacted off-list, and I believe it is a similar reason for why folks
have a hard time interacting with the list and being more involved. I hope
that the fact that ICANN is going into live events now will allow more ways
to build community, that is crucial in increasing engagement. An engaged
NCSG that is not also a strong and supportive community where relative
newcomers feel comfortable expressing their perspectives, ideas and are
being legitimately involved in the policy conversation, is one where we
have a few loud voices doing all the work. I started my ICANN journey back
in 2017, as part of the fellowship. I went to all the NCUC and NCSG
meetings, and informally identified with these groups, but in full
transparency, I was entirely too overwhelmed by it all to officially join,
the infighting, the polite name calling, the groups of influence. And those
of you who have met me in person know that I am anything but a shrinking
violet. With each ICANN meeting, I continued to join in person meetings,
and created and furthered friendships with fellow fellowship participants,
a majority from within the ranks of NCSG, but felt absolutely out of my
depth in joining officially. After making the jump officially during and
perhaps because of the pandemic, that did not go away. While I read all the
emails going around, I rarely felt comfortable expressing my perspective or
chiming in because I felt it wasn’t my place. I did not join the policy
meetings because I felt like I had nothing to contribute and felt like an
outsider. Again, a good chunk of that is because external circumstances
have eliminated our in-person meetings, but it will likely not all go away
once we’re back to three meetings a year in person.

More specifically I think outreach and inreach need to be consolidated, and
it is important to work with members to come up with a strong plan that is
both doable and effective. My suggestion is to work on three areas,
recruiting members, setting them up for success and fostering a stronger
community. Finding new members should focus heavily on recruiting folks
that are interested in getting involved, or are involved but have not
officially joined, these are people who have the knowledge, insight or
experience that has them interested already and can make it easier to not
just be members but be involved, hopefully bringing in a diversity of
opinion and skills. Also important but perhaps to a lesser extent, finding
folks who may not be aware of NCSG or even ICANN but would be great
additions to the community, since they may turn out to be folks readily
wanting to be involved once exposed to the institution. On setting up new
members for success, an onboarding that explains the way NCSG works, makes
those in leadership positions visible and available to members, and
explains the way list conversations go, etc. Finally, fostering a stronger
community would require a member-led working group (rather than an
executive decision) on ways to enhance general participation.




*Olivier*


*IMHO, the lack of more participation and involvement of the community in
the NCSG works is due to the lack of a real diversity promotion within this
ecosystem. The problem of the language of work is one of the main one.*

*Is it possible, at least, to benefit from interpretation and translation
in others languages ie french, spanish during the NCSG online meetings ?*


Thank you very much for your question, Olivier. I think that Julf has made
a good point, with the centralization of the language services at ICANN. I
will note that NCUC seems to be in contact with ICANN about this issue, and
there may be further movement soon. I think there are things we can do in
the near future that can be a stopgap rather than a lasting solution, such
as one paragraph policy update in other languages than English, until we
are able to properly address the issue with ICANN.


* Poncelet*


*Will be grateful to know from David Morar in chronological order what is
involvement with Non commercial stakeholder group has been?*


*My last question for David  Morar,  will be what experience do you think
is needed for this position?, as I was recently informed been a former
 councillor is a big plus to doing the job of NCSG chair effectively?  do
you hold that view ? or what’s  your take on qualities is needed ,  for the
NCSG chair  with loads of divergent views that you need to build a
consensus around to move forward.*


Poncelet, thank you very much for your question. As a fellow I joined the
meetings of the NCSG and NCUC while at ICANN meetings and have been
following the work of my friends from the fellowship, I officially joined
in 2020 and was asked if I wanted to join the EC following that. I believe
NCSG chair should enable members to get involved with policy and help the
PC chair to lead by engaging with other stakeholders as well as recruiting
and managing volunteers. So the NCSG chair in my opinion should be an
effective bridge between ICANN various stakeholders, ICANN staff and the
NCSG. Having knowledge about policy processes is crucial as well. Some of
our good chairs did not have a council experience but they followed up on
policy issues and observed the policy committee work and the GNSO council
work. But I can understand how not having experience with the council be
perceived as a shortcoming on substance. I have been observing the work at
the council, PC and others for awhile now and I am committed to learn more
and strategize in the future. My previous positions as part of the Board of
an academic association, as chair, vice-chair or co-chair of conferences
and publications, have given me significant experience in dealing with the
structural aspects of the Chair position. I am well aware of the amount of
work and determination that this position requires, both in tackling
internal NCSG issues and in connecting with the Board and the Org. I
accepted the nomination knowing that I would take on a significant extra
work load, and am ready to do that work, to learn and to help the community
as best I can.


Have a great day,
David Morar


David Morar, PhD
@morar <https://twitter.com/morar>
davidmorar.com


On Sat, May 7, 2022 at 1:26 PM Olivier Kouami <olivierkouami at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thanks for the clarification.
> Good luck !
> Warm regards
> Olévié
>
> Le sam. 7 mai 2022 à 16:24, Johan Helsingius <julf at julf.com> a écrit :
>
>> Dear Olivier,
>>
>> > IMHO, the lack of more participation and involvement of the community
>> in
>> > the NCSG works is due to the lack of a real diversity promotion within
>> > this ecosystem. The problem of the language of work is one of the main
>> one.
>> > Is it possible, at least, to benefit from interpretation and
>> translation
>> > in others languages ie french, spanish during the NCSG online meetings ?
>>
>> That is a really good point.
>>
>> Unfortunately ICANN has mostly provided translation and interpretation
>> to the GAC, but not other SOs or ACs. I think it is fair to say that
>> GNSO has historically tended to be dominated by US-based companies,
>> it has been hard to get a majority in the GNSO to support demanding
>> similar services to the GNSO and it's constituent parts. Correcting
>> that will require a concentrated lobbying effort, but informal
>> discussions with both the board and especially Göran is certainly
>> worth the effort.
>>
>>         Julf
>>
>>
>>
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