A Call to Action from Ashwin Rangan, ICANN Chief Innovation & Information Officer (December 3, 2014 HD Version). Ashwin asks for the ICANN Community's help in creating a common stakeholder, community-wide set of tools and technologies.
Excerpt from his blog post: "... many Stakeholder communities are saying the same thing – but from their specific point of view. For example - The ALAC wants a set of Issues Management Tools that, in its request, is almost identical to what the SSAC wants. The GAC and the ALAC are both requesting revised websites. The GNSO and the ALAC are both seeking a Knowledge/ Information Management tool. And so on.... To address this, we have a choice. The Stakeholder communities could EITHER have different parts of ICANN be pressed to define, develop and deliver specific, point solutions to satisfy each of these requests, satisfying one Stakeholder community at a time. OR, we can choose a path where a single Stakeholder community (or a small cross-community group) takes "ownership" of an idea, fleshes it out completely and, when almost fully-cooked, invites other Stakeholder groups to weigh-in. The result could be a robust set of requirements that represents the collective needs of our vast, global community. We - the ICANN staff - can then take these requirements and source a tool or a set of technological capabilities in the most cost-effective and time-efficient manner.
"Of course, not everything will fit into this mind-map. However, there are many requests coming at us concurrently which do fit this model. If we choose the "one-off" path, we would be robbing ourselves of an invaluable opportunity and adding to the confusing plethora of tools already in the ICANN toolbox, not to mention adding to ICANN's operating costs. So here's what I am proposing. We will create a page on the ICANN Community Wiki, where all the requests coming our way are catalogued with the specific Stakeholder community making the request. That can be the base from which we could journey together towards a common Stakeholder, community-wide, set of tools and technologies. Our remit could then be to ensure delivery and support of a harmonized set of robust tools which interoperate where possible and sensible.
"Here are my questions of you:
- Do you agree with this concept – of build once and re-use many times? The IT artifacts and services I have reviewed do not currently show much of re-use.
- If you agree, would you be willing to work as a member of a cross-community working group, focused on Community collaboration Tools? For the sake of brevity, let us call it a Community Tools Focus Group, or CTFG.
- If that too is agreeable, would it make sense to have just ONE such CTFG across all SOs? Like an SO-CTFG? And ANOTHER such, for all ACs? Like an AC-CTFG?
- As a working charter for such CTFGs, could you commit time to work with other CTFG members to help frame a Problem Statement (along with clear and specific examples)?
- The ICANN staff can take this as input and seek appropriate solutions to address the problem. And get back with the concerned CTFG with a small (2 or 3) set of considered options. From which the CTFG can pick the solution that best meets the needs.
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