[Membership] Staff report section IV. Creating the At Large Membership

["Tom Lowenhaupt" <tjpl@ix.netcom.com>]

Concerning the ICANN At Large Membership Drive -

Re: Staff report section IV. Creating the At Large Membership

To create an At Large membership the staff report recommends:

"…to facilitate the rapid recruitment of a large and diverse membership
base, the staff believes that consideration should also be given to
membership partnership arrangements with a number of existing
Internet-related membership organizations. Such arrangements might include
automatic ICANN At Large membership for members of the other
Internet-related membership organizations, or the ability for ICANN to send
a specific invitation to their members to join ICANN's membership
electorate."

While I applaud the effort to develop an At Large membership I find the
staff's recommended focus on existing "Internet-related membership
organizations" quite narrow. I suggest (minimally) a four pronged
recruitment effort:

1. Registrars - NSI and the "testbed" registrars are established
organizations with direct and regular contact with domain name holders. They
should provide access to their customer lists as part of the membership
drive.

2. ICANN Financial Sponsors - ICANN's financial sponsors should be persuaded
to contribute their customer lists as well as cash contributions to an "At
Large Membership Development Fund" to further the Internet's development.

3. Consumer Groups - One hundred leading consumer groups should be contacted
and encouraged to contact their memberships about participating in the ICANN
At Large election.

4. Existing Internet-Related Membership Organizations - These organizations
should be contacted for prospective members but "automatic membership"
should not be provided.

The number and nature of the contacts with the prospective At Large members
is critical. But that's a subject for another posting.

Tom Lowenhaupt
The Communisphere Project

toml@communisphere.com