I am sitting in the "Meeting on meetings", a workshop convened by Susan Crawford - one of our ICANN Board members, which is discussing how to improve the way ICANN meetings are held.
ICANN meetings are unwieldy, complex, demanding and tiring; and yet hugely constructive places to get a great deal done throughout the days (and nights). Work begins each day with an alarm clock at 6am in the morning, and you'll rarely get back to bed before 1am in the morning. The question is: how do you make them better, reduce the exhaustion factor, and eke out the most from the precious few days when everyone is in the one place?
I've been coming to these meetings for about five years. Not as many as some, but over this time I've come from three different points of view. First as a representative of the board of the ".au" registry - at the time working for a large ISP; then as a staff member of CENTR trying to act a conduit for the interests of ccTLD operators; and now on ICANN staff working in IANA.
There is no magic bullet I can think of, but this kind of self-reflection we are hearing in this workshop is very helpful and needs to continue. Countless great suggestions are being given. Most important I think is ensuring a accessible meeting for participation by people of all cultures and languages, whether participating in person or remotely. As a native English speaker I am at a natural advantage, but my European colleagues in my years at CENTR have made me acutely aware of the problems they face participating in ICANN.
Modest tweaks like altering the ordering of the days, as has happened in the S
Only one big meeting?
Maybe if we have 10 days, for all the things, and in the rest of the year we working online, could be the best option.