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The following text is excerpted from an ongoing discussion on the IGF Advisory Group mailing list. The only changes made relate to an effort to anonymize the comments in respect of the Chatham House rule and separate issues related to logistics and internal procedures. The discussion took place between 1 - 31 December, 2008. (Writer A) A quick comment based on the first of these. The open mike worked fine, including people using nonEnglish languages (all right, French). The written questions seemed to me superfluous. I'd say we should concentrate on the live interaction. (Writer B) Writer A, I beg to disagree. You can get good or bad questions from online or from the live audience. By shutting off the remote input we would be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy we will end being sorry for. (Writer A) You misread me entirely. We should not take questions from *inside* the room. Of course the off-site participants should not be disenfranchised. (Writer A) Correction: You misread me entirely. We should not bother to take written questions from *inside* the room. Of course the off-site participants should not be disenfranchised. (Writer B) Writer A, thanks for clearing my misunderstanding - I've gone back to your original email and see what I misinterpreted re written questions. The ones I'd been observing through the webcast and typecast were written. Glad to support remote participation, then. One must note that the particular difference of timezones makes it more probable to get remote participation from Asia, Europe, and Africa, and less from the Americas, though some was also observed already in the first day. BTW I have saved the transcripts of the first day to a .txt file, if anyone is interested in having them and, for example, posting them somewhere to make them easier to access. (Writer C) Hello, I agree with Writer A. I would also prefer if the moderators could be on the same level as the audience instead of being above on stage. (Writer D) I agree with Writers C and A.
I also suggest to ask people from the audience that will make questions to form a queue in front of the mike to avoid misunderstandings about who talks first.
(Writer E) Here is my first experience of remote participation. As I wrote a couple of times, I lost connections to the webcast from time to time but in general, I would say, remote connection is a good tool for larger participation. On average, we had about 10 participants to the main session using chat communication, so we need to encourage more people to actively participate. Sending timely and focused comments or questions is not very easy for remote participants, I found. By the time questions were handed to the moderator, the questions may have been obsolete. This may be true for those questions written before and given to the moderator in the conference room. In order to avoid this problem, moderators and rapporteurs may give a list (or hint) of areas of issues they are going to cover and give remote participants enough time to write and send their questions and comments. In other words, moderators should always keep in mind that there are some remote participants (I am sure they did nicely last night, my time.) One might say too much control by moderators is not good, but ,, (Writer B) Writer E, thanks for these valuable comments. Many of us have years of experience in remote-enabled or even fully remote meetings (which go by the easier name of teleconferences.) I am witness that you are a master of the art. What we have learned is that remote participation can be much more successful and productive if the people meeting face-to-face are honestly committed to the distance participants. That is the message that has to be conveyed to moderators so that they can do as you wisely suggest, or to really take a few seconds off the excitement in the room to allow the remote participation to take place. Satisfactory feedback to those asking questions or raising discussion points is a must. We in the [EDITED] have a difficulty with the timezones for this meeting but surely you in [EDITED] (if you are physically there these days) have a much better chance to test all of this. Needless to say, organizations like ICANN and ISOC have long and deep experience in this mode of communication and decision making. We are all convinced that remote dialogue is one of the characteristics of the Information Society, for many reasons. We must make it work at the IGF. (Writer E) Dear Writer B, thank you very much. I fully agree. We should give an attention to remote participation since it opens much more opportunities. As a matter of fact, I am now settled and working in [EDITED] -- similar time zone as you. Time difference is an issue, though, personally, I am used to it by working with [EDITED] regularly. (Writer F) > Hello, I agree with Writer A. I would also prefer if the moderators > could be on the same level as the audience instead of being above > on stage. We wanted to, but, people told us that is not possible because we would not have been visible for people further back in the room. (Writer F) > You misread me entirely. We should not bother to take written > questions from *inside* the room. Of course the off-site > participants should not be disenfranchised. Followup question: How would we as moderator know what people wanted to talk about? The good thing with the papers where that we got in some cases many papers with the same issues, that we could merge. (Writer G) We're working on this. It's a lighting and camera issue. If the former can be adjusted and the latter can focus on moderators if they are 'on the floor' then that works.
I understand that Jonathan Charles will be moderating from the floor. (Writer G) Well, I would argue that it doesn't matter that we don't know. (Writer A) I agree with Writer G. The moderators will have some questions that have already been tabled, and some indication of who knows the issues and the ability to pinpoint speakers if they need to change topics. I would argue against structuring the open mike session strictly as first-come-first-served, but allow some leeway for moderators to shape the discussion by calling on different people with different issues and points of view. But a certain amount of randomness is going to happen. (Writer C) > We're working on this. It's a lighting and camera issue. If the former > can be adjusted and the latter can focus on moderators if they are 'on > the floor' then that works. Yes, we need to talk with the technical assistance staff about lights and camera. Does anybody know who is responsible for these matters so that we talk to right person? I wouldn't want to drop written questions altogether. But we can encourage people to queue behind microphones as well. (Writer B) as I write, there is a vote being conducted in a workshop (the post-JPA one), and announced by the Chair as "the first binding resolution of the IGF." I hope it is noted that: a. no remote participation was allowed in the workshop; b. the Chair clarify that this was strictly a joke. (Writer H) Hi Writer B I thought this was a serious proposal/recommendation when I first saw the subject of the message and start immediately wondering if it wouldn't be good to vote yes for a few binding resolutions :-) Don't ask me about which issues... (Writer C) Hi Writer B, to those attending the workshop it was absolutely obvious that the vote was meant to be a joke. (Writer H) Dear colleagues I followed remotely a bit yesterday - I can follow easily from [EDITED] only afternoon sessions (5 hour difference between here and Hyd.). I like the live streaming text - very good for people with bad connections and better than simple after workshop transcripts. I had a passport renewal problem and didn't submit application for visa in time (I only got the visa yesterday...). no more possible to travel. Have all a nice stay and my support to organizers. (Markus Kummer) Light and camera has been sorted out. We will see this afternoon whether it works. (Writer C) Thank you, Markus. Now, we could try for the sound :-) (Writer D) Hi,
I think that ther open dialogue went very well this afternoon.
Still there are some problems with the sound. (Writer B) Writer C, thanks for confirming. At the time I only had audio so the inflections were harder to get. (Writer I) I was in the security session this afternoon, and I thought it was excellent. Great participation from the delegates. Very well moderated by Jonathan Charles (ably supported by Natasha and Everton). I think it was everything we were hoping for in terms of content. Thank you. The wireless is also a lot better today, more stable, not cutting out. As Writer D says, the sound was problematic this afternoon, and I had a mail from a colleague at home who said he enjoyed watching the webcast of our workshop, at what must have been 6am our time), but there was no sound! Generally, I've now attended 3 workshops (one of which was [EDITED]), and compared to last year they were all very poorly attended. This is something I'd like to pick up in our wash up session in February. One workshop organiser (a non-MAG member at his first IGF) reflected that he was disappointed at attendance at the workshop he had organised - less than 20 people - and he felt a bit embarrassed for the people whom he'd persuaded to be on his panel. Most of the workshop organisers put considerable effort into putting together their programme, and the standard is generally good. Perhaps the answer is smaller workshop rooms! (Writer J) hi to you all i have had a similar impression like Writer I about the workshops i organized(took over from the [EDITED]) and/or participated. the participation was between 20 and 40 people. but at least the discussion between the people present was very interactive and interesting. so in the end, everybody was happy about the quality of the workshops despite the lower attendance. the lower attendance was probably at least partly due to the cancellations for security reasons, and other structural factors like the far distance from the americas, etc. but anyway, in my view, for the next igf, we should even be more strict about merging workshops and reducing the number of simultaneous events from 7 now to something like 4 maximum. (Writer F) Yes, much better. Having tables down on the floor among the audience worked very well. (Writer F) -- that could not be at the whole open dialog because of a conflict with a wg, but... (Writer E) I agree that the session was very well organized. I liked the 5 point summaries by the reporters. Short report of the remote participation on the 2nd day. We did not have sounds for some time, and were forced to go to text streaming. May be this was because of my problem, but I lost video (webcast) connection from time to time. Remote participation was not very easy unfortunately. (Writer K) Dear colleagues, Here is a quick update on the IG Debate. On tuesday we debated the motion " Internet voting is too vulnerable to be trusted”. The audience supported this motion. Yesterday the theme was "Governments m:ust ensure cybersecurity through strict regulations". This motion was refused. Here is the announcement for today's debate INTERNET GOVERNANCE DEBATE Should ITU and ICANN merge to create an International Organisation on the Internet? Where? IGF Village – Near Diplo’s Stand When? 10.30 - Friday, 5th December 2008 Are you for it? Are you against it? What are your reasons? Just leave your comment and participate on the debate! The debate surrounding the structure of Internet Governance is one of the most important among Internet-related issues, since all other policy areas must be debated within an established framework. These arrangements may show different levels of institutionalization and formality, but they will determine the way in which different actors will interact, as well as the nature of the outcomes of the decision-making processes. Among the organizations that currently play a role IG issues, ICANN, which is dedicated to the administration of Internet critical resources, has motivated the most discussion. Since its creation it has not been easy to draw a line between ICANN and the pre-existent ITU, and the relationship between them has not always been smooth. Recently, more wood was put on this fire during the 33rd ICANN meeting in Cairo. It was postulated that the organizations would be destined to endure a forced marriage. Is there really a dispute between them? Would their marriage be beneficial to the Internet and its users? These are some of the issues we hope to address today with our motion "The first team takes the position that the ITU and ICANN should merge and form the International Organization on the Internet".Take a stance: argue "in favor" or "against". Test your position in a controversial discussion! Join the IG Debate! For more information please visit http://www.diplomacy.edu/ig/igf-india/ (Writer C) I also thought that the discussion in the open dialogue session on security and privacy yesterday was quite good and not easy to top. However, I got also a negative feedback this morning. A security expert who attends the IGF this year for the first time expressed his disappointment. He said that many of the information given in the morning session was actually several years old. The same presentations could have been made some years earlier. He also pointed out that the open dialogue in the afternoon lacked direction and a focus on potential outcomes. While I lack expertise to say anything about the morning session, I would say that he has a point regarding the lack of direction of the afternoon session. Jonathan was very good at keeping the discussion going and creating it a very dynamic atmosphere but it is probably also true that he didn't have much of an objective or outcome in mind other than laying out the diversity of opinions that co-exist in this area. To be fair, I am not even sure it is doable for a moderator to encourage a lively discussion among the audience and at the same time pursue an objective or outcome of the debate. (Writer F) I was on the panel in the morning, and I must agree with the view that there was not much new. Same for the session on multilingualism [EDITED] . But, this is also one of the problems with meetings like these. Regarding security (where I choose my messages), I choose to say things I know do get traction at the moment. Sure, for me, working with security, that is old stuff. CERTs are built, informal processes are built, bottom up processes. So yes, the presentations where old. All of them. But this is a problem with "buzzword" things like "cyber crime". Now suddenly everyone want to work with it, and because they do not know what is happening, they have to get the history. Sort of part of the capacity building process. When I in other fora tried to say "that is already taken care of", people do not trust me. So, one have to start with the background. For people that _do_ work with the issues, it is old stuff. Just look at the previous IPv4 -> IPv6 panel. That was not old stuff. That panel could have been in 1996. Honestly. So, I am _NOT_ worried about some information (or a lot) be old data. It is part of the capacity building. The "education" that is needed before we can move forward on an equal footing and discuss the next steps (still in this multistakeholder process the IGF is). What I *AM* worried about is that too many panelists so far have spent too much talking about what they think the world look like, what they think the problems are etc. And almost nothing about what they think should be done? Where is cooperation needed? In what way can each one of us help? Can we solve the problem one by one, or do we need cooperation? Do we need some multistakeholder process for resolving the issues in some PPP processes? I.e. I am much more worried if we have similar presentations at this IGF as we had in Athens. We are mid term now, and must rise the level of the discussions. (Writer A) I'd just like to emphasize Writer F's last thought -- we need to raise the level of discussions. I think we've now talked through most if not all of the WSIS issues and it is evident that people from all stakeholder groups are more or less comfortable with the format. I feel that some of the workshops can fairly be characterized as the same people talking about the same issues for the second or third time. Can we try to develop a qualifying criteria for next year that there be a high probability of some movement from last year. We don't want to let "comfortable" become "complacent. (Markus Kummer) Dear colleagues, Please find below an email Everton asked me to forward to the list. While I share his view that Jeanette and Chris did an excellent job, I beg to differ with his assessment of the seurity session. I thought it worked rather well and I also think that Everton made a great contribution. The session was lively and there was plenty of interaction, which was basically what we were seeking. In any case, we will have time for a first evaluation this afternoon and then again in February. Best regards Markus ----- From: "Everton Lucero" Markus, I hope you have received Adam's forwarded e-mail with my feedback on the open dialogue that I helped to moderate (copy below). This is to confirm that I'd appreciate if you could share those ideas with the MAG, as an input for your review of the arrangements for the next IGF. I'd like to add that the open dialogue on Critical Internet Resources, yesterday afternoon, had a much better setting, with moderators standing at the same level of the audience. Because of their outstanding knowledge of the issues involved, Jeanette and Chris were able to conduct the open dialogue in a much more structured and focused way, around key questions that had been presented by the chairpersons of the morning panels. The result was a debate that was rich and meaningful. Regards, Everton ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Adam Peake Everton, Thank you for your comments. I forwarded your email to Markus, I can no longer post to the MAG list. I thought you did a good job yesterday, and I have heard both positive and negative comments about the session and many in between. Thank you for your work! Best, Adam Everton Lucero wrote: Adam, My overall evaluation of the afternoon session is not good. In the end, it turned into a talk-show, meant for an uninformed, lay audience, which is not the case of those who come to the IGF. Jonathan did a great job, but people in the audience had too different expectations about what issues should be discussed and how to address them. There was no focus, it was difficult to follow a line of thought, and I was not able to intervene the way I should (my fault). I felt uneasy being at a higher level than the audience. In a dialogue, people should be at the same level, don't you think? The panelists from the morning session did not participate, and they are the experts! Being in that rather strange position of co-moderator without actually moderating, I had to be kind of a "comentator" of such diffuse questions, which was not easy for me (again, my own fault - I was not prepared for that). The panels in the morning were both excellent, high-quality debate, but the open dialogue was poor in substance and results. In the end, the session did not contribute to make IGF a meaningful exercise. I am sad because I feel like I contributed to this bad result. But well, it's done now, I hope we will learn from experience. The format definitely needs to be improved. Could you kindly forward these comments to the MAG list, as my feed-back? Thanks, Everton (Writer L) Dear all, dear Everton,
I think each of the MAG members who played a role as organizers, panelists, moderators or commentators in the various sessions in the main room are all fearing that they did not do enough or did not do it right. I myself feel a bit bad at the general flow of the emerging issues session, which is not going in the direction I hoped.
But, just two points :
- it is a positive thing that those who engaged are not satisfied with their own involvement : it just shows they feel a strong responsibility; and it's certainly better than making negative comments about others
- let's wait for the participants to give their feedback : they are the ones setting the standard;
In any case, in spite of the limitations and frustrations of the new format, we must keep in mind that there is at least one positive evolution : the main hall sessions are attended much more than in the past. So there is progress.
Let's keep the high standards and exigence, but wait for the feedback.
(Writer A) This is why I was arguing this morning with Lee that his little vote, while clearly a joke and a straw poll, does open the door to misinterpretation. That possibility increases as time passes. I don't mind at all this "taking the temperature of the room" exercise, I do think we have to be vigilant to make sure we don't see headlines like "80% of IGF participants vote for US to conclude the JPA." It was 80% of a self-selecting group who did not know in advance a vote would be held. The proportion for the IGF itself could be the same, but equally could be higher or lower. (Writer F) > In any case, in spite of the limitations and frustrations of the new > format, > we must keep in mind that there is at least one positive evolution : > the > main hall sessions are attended much more than in the past. So there > is > progress. I am personally first of all very happy with us being frustrated, because from the frustration comes experiments, conclusions, new tests, new frustrations. A feedback loop that move us forward. This time the time for a full loop has been in some cases shorter than one session (!!!), the first year, we had a feedback loop of a few months. I am secondly actually happy I in the first open panel tried something completely different, because the result was that I now know I do know I don't want to try (exactly) that again! And I hope it gave all the others the conclusion that we all should be on the floor, and not on the stage. So, this is progress friends, progress. I feel extreme amount of positive energy when I talk with people. Tons of ideas on how to do this better. But I also agree with Writer L that we should be careful with our conclusions. The feedback from audience is important. (Writer M) I agree with Everton that sitting a podium made it difficult to interact with Jonathan - other than to interrupt him from up there - and that this impacted on the extent t which panelists were called on ... or not, in this case. But I cannot agree with an assessment that the people who spoke were an uninformed lay audience and that the contributions lacked substance. This is a different matter than saying the force of the debate should have been focussed more sharply on the details of the relevant institutions working around this field, what they do, and how - among other things - they work towards ensuring security and what measures they take to safeguard privacy and openness. Some comments have also been made about the need for formats - for next year? - that will allow stakeholders with a high degree of consensus to work on more concrete outcomes. Looking at the views expressed during the Day 2 open dialogue that this level of concensus is there on *all* the issues that were raised. And I think the format was more suited to (some of) issues the discussed on the day. (Writer N) Dear Markus, MAG members, Let me add my considerations to the security session open dialogue, I share with Everton very similar concerns. Having organized the main session panel on fostering security privacy and openness, I was personally really satisfied of how did it went. During the early morning preparation meeting I took the decision with the panelists to limit their presentations down to 5 minutes each, instead of having a session made of a sequence of presentations and then wait for the debate in the afternoon, I asked the moderator to pose questions and put the panelists perspectives around (I proposed to do something similar in the afternoon, during the lunch preparatory meeting). The moderator did a great job and to be sincere the session went farther better than I could expect! not only the panelists where engaged in confronting perspectives, but calls for active coordination emerged from the panel, and surprisingly enough from the private sector! I expected that the afternoon dialogue would have been smart enough to take the call from the morning and build on it, provide a commitment for action from the stakeholders and wipe away at once all the semantic around "enhanced cooperation". The afternoon instead ended up being a sequence of interventions stating what each of one thinks and where stands on security, like Everton said no focus and no line of thought, and I would add no action. Markus noticed that the session was lively and plenty of interaction, I agree but if we want to get away from the 'being a waste of time' definition we should seek both (inter)action! (Writer O) I was also at the emerging issues' session and I think that it's a good thing to have several points of views. People have diiferents priorities and ask for issues that we will want IGF to address in Cairo. In my opinion, it was a very good session. (Writer P) All, I am in substantial agreement with Everton's comments regarding the Thursday afternoon open dialogue session. I felt that some of the remarks were very worthwhile, made by people who had thought about the issues and were more or less passionate about them. However, I felt that there were also remarks that were inappropriate and misinformed, and there were sufficient numbers of them that it was difficult to see any threads in the discussion. Now I admit that I was present for only half of the session; I had to moderate a session during the other half. But what I heard was discouraging compared to what the session could have been. I think the moderator could have shown somewhat more discipline in keeping relevant threads moving and stopping responses that were clearly off track. I know that this is a problem whenever one has an open discussion varying over a broad field of topics with a large audience that is heterogeneous in its composition in a number of dimensions. I suggest that this format needs to be rethought and restructured before using it again. The current format may have made contributors feel good by knowing that they were being heard, but I believe that the relevance and coherence of what the listeners heard suffered not insignificantly as a result. (Markus Kummer) Dear colleagues,
Many thanks to all of you who commented already on the Hyderabad meeting. It is very valuable to hear your reflections, when memories are still fresh. All in all, positive comments prevailed, also from outside the MAG. The panel sessions were generally well received, but there were some critical comments on the value of the open dialogue session and different views were held whether they achieved their aim. I for one hold the view that they did, insofar as they allowed more people to express themselves and to voice their opinion. However, I also agree with those who felt that they did not necessarily contribute to a better understanding of the issues under discussion, but then I felt that was never to be intended to be the main objective of these sessions. There will certainly be merit in discussing whether or not to continue with the same format.
In one area we did worse than before: there was little relationship between the main sessions and all the other events. With hindsight, I feel that it was a mistake to do without the reporting back sessions altogether. While it may have been tedious to listen to all the reports in Rio, at least there was some information made available on what was going on in other meeting rooms. Again, this deserves to be discussed. One way to handle this could be to have one session as an open microphone session on the substantive issues under discussion and another one as a reporting back session, from national and regional IGFs, Dynamic Coalitions, Workshops and other events.
In any case, we would like to launch the discussion and we have prepared a questionnaire, based on last year's version, that we would like to make available online before the end of year break. As one day of the February consultations will be devoted to the IGF review exercise, we have also included a question on how this should be conducted.
Please let us know by Thursday evening end of business Geneva time should you have any comments or suggestions.
Best regards
Markus
ATTACHED: Questionnaire.16.12.2008.doc (Writer Q) Dear Markus Thank you for sending across the draft copy of the feedback questionnaire. I would like to add my comments and see if we some of them might be incorporated into it? 1. To start with, I agree that with your summary that the main sessions were well received as well as the open microphone ones. 2. One lesson learned is that we should have no sessions prior to the Opening Ceremony next year. 3. Time to interact between sessions and workshops. I found that the Hyderabad provided more structured time to interact and network. Scheduled lunch breaks and gala as well as fewer workshops provided more time to interact. This is where we also made some progress looking back at the Rio meeting. 4. Orientation meeting/workshop. For those new to the IGF and its processes, it would be useful to have an orientation meeting about the meeting, tools available, etc as well as get feedback from this particular group that experiences and possibly sees the IGF meeting with a "fresh pair of eyes". At each IGF, ISOC holds a similar orientation meeting for its ISOC Ambassador fellowship program. Diplo probably does the same? A 45-min meeting session could be part of the program and held prior or immediately after the Opening session. This is something that, perhaps, MAG could discuss or evaluate further. I volunteer to work with others interested on creating material for this in Egypt. 5. Moderators. I believe that if we are to have better panels and open microphone sessions, we must choose moderators early on in the process than we did so far and get them and participants briefed already in July/September time frame. Also questions for the sessions should be posted in the same time-frame to encourage better remote participation. 6. Encourage new workshop models. A couple of workshops were more interactive and innovative in the way how they were structured. Workshop participants and workshop organizers sat together at the same table during the workshop - rather than participate in the usual panel session, Q&A format. 7. It would be good to get some feedback if webcast worked well and how many streams, downloads there were since the Hyderabad meeting. Thanks Best Regards (Writer R) Dear Markus, I join Writer Q and thank you for the draft feedback questionaire. Adding to Writer Q's comments below: 1. The main session mornings and open dialogues worked well in general, and I think the formats can be further improved for next year, and would be good to discuss in february. 2. If there are sessions before the opening ceremony next year, given the message you sent a few days ago, thought should be given to what kind of sessions take place. My sense was that having main sessions before the opening was not the best approach. 3. The time to interact, the coffee and lunch breaks, the ability to quickly grab lunch generously provided by the Indian hosts, were really appreciated by many participants. The fact that the coffee and lunch buffets were spread through the venue was both convenient and also made it possible for people to interact because it was not overcrowded. I agree that these informal opportunities to network along with the wonderful evening gala event, were very useful. The Village was well placed, and was another good opportunity for networking, exchange of information and discussions. 4. The idea of an orientation session is a good one. I think this would allow more new participants to get the most out of the IGF by having some guidance and briefing on how the schedule works, when certain issues will be discussed etc. I would be pleased to contribute some factual materials we have put together to the effort to develop orientation materials and to help with this effort. 5, 6, and 7: I support Writer Q's inputs In addition, I would add the following: A. I think it would be useful to have more points in the schedule where there are few or no parallel sessions. The feedback I heard was that some workshops/open forums were well attended, and others were not. There is probably a better balance to be struck by reducing the number of parallel events, increasing the opportunity for more people to benefit from the main sessions and contribute. Thought should also be given to how the workshop proposal process is handled next year. There were quite a few workshops that addressed similar or overlapping issues, and the discussions may have been enriched by having those workshops combine. B. I have had some questions about how much the IGF was advertised in Hyderabad and how/to whom, and would be interested to know more about how that was handled. Thanks again for your efforts and for the whole IGF secretariat team's efforts. (Writer A) First, let me say that I appreciate the comments from Writers Q and R. I largely agree with their suggestions and questions. I look forward to continuing these discussions in February. Second, thanks for the opportunity to review the questionnaire, Markus. In general I agree with your overview. I would not be too critical of the lack of repoprting back sessions. Those were a weakness in previous years, so it's hard to see how to achieve both a dynamic session and the linkage we would like to see developed. Perhaps we need to challenge our workshop organizers more; for example, to creatively link their report to the broader discussion so that the report becomes a relevant and valuable contribution to the open dialogue? Concretely, I would only recommend that the question about the synthesis paper be clarified so those not completely devoted to following IGF will know what that paper is, as your office produces synthesis papers at various points in the annual cycle. Finally, as I'm intending to shut down for a couple of weeks, let me take this occasion to wish you, the Secretariat and colleagues on the MAG, a restful and rewarding festive season and a happy, fulfilling year in 2009. (Markus Kummer) Dear colleagues,
Many thanks to those who made suggestions on how to improve our questionnaire - we have taken due note of your comments and have posted what we hope is an improved version. Many thanks also to those who made first substantive comments - please make use of our Web based form and cut and paste your comments in there, so that we can make them available to a wider audience. I think they were already helpful and we will be able to build on that when planning Sharm El Sheikh.
We will also upload a new video on the IGF YouTube channel and ask for video contributions. All MAG Members are cordially invited to upload their own comments and give the MAG some visibility in the stock taking process. It is simple and a fun thing to do!
Last but not least, I got the green light from new York to get started with the MAG renewal process. Hopefully, this should allow us to announce the renewed list of MAG members in time for the May meetings.
We are closing down the Secretariat for the next two weeks. I would like to make use of this opportunity to thank you all for your support during the past year and I look forward to our cooperation in 2009.
With best wishes for peaceful holidays and a happy and prosperous 2009.
Markus
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