[Mmwg] Re: Mechanism proposition

[David Allen]

May I suggest a place to anchor our organization design question: 
the task or mission.  How do we get put together, so we get there?

Deliberation is the explicit task.  Still, it is widely commented, 
off-the-record but nonetheless, how this may one day segue into 
action.  So our question is how best to underpin deliberation.  But 
future action doesn't disappear entirely from the radar screen - if 
entirely submerged now.

One thorny dilemma for the CS side is whether some form of 
representation, beyond one-person-one-voice.  We know how important 
is 'openness,' the CS trademark.  But Bill shows us how, in practical 
terms, particularly some DCs remain uncomfortable without a measure 
of discipline too.

Beyond ICANN and the IETF (the latter a particularly salutary 
example, for me anyway) the CS experience, over the WSIS years, may 
be informative.  CS brings its trademark openness.  Yet for WSIS, CS 
also divided into representative caucuses.  Membership was fluid, to 
give what was surely vital flexibility.  Yet even for CS there were 
conceptual baskets by which some discipline and forms of 
representation emerged.  Equally, when it was time to present, there 
was the hard work to choose who, and what message, would best 
'represent.'

The question of voting is another form of the larger dilemma, AFAICS. 
And this (CS) MM Working Group, in which we are now deliberating, 
found itself in the end establishing a voting process.  Indeed one of 
the reasons there was not more action out of WSIS was the absence of 
such a decision lever.

Those aren't answers, only attempts to look for a path toward 
answers.  But a wider frame may begin to poke out:  The IGF is a - 
bold - step further along, to CS, and PS, and governments sitting 
together more as equals.  That is not a small thing.  It does, 
however, make more starkly evident the 'two cultures' brought 
together in tension (channeling here of course 
<http://dannyreviews.com/h/The_Two_Cultures.html>CP Snow from some 
decades ago):

Those who know the standardization world know how the IETF on the one 
side and the ITU on the other seem to occupy separate universes, as 
far as process goes.  Open, y'all come versus hierarchical 
discipline.  So we at CS bring a foreign - open - mode up beside 
governments who understand and rely on structure.

Yet as the tiny history above tells us, we too needed some structure 
and discipline.

Perhaps at the core:  As we move beyond those whom we know personally 
- inevitable in a global dialog - mechanisms for discipline are 
sought to substitute for the trust no longer so easily built.  But we 
need the trust to create an atmosphere for successful deliberation 
... maybe the horns of our dilemma become clearer.

An air for successful deliberation needs the trust in informal, 
personal connections.  But when the breadth of participation leads to 
the impersonal, then we also need the opposite, structure and 
discipline.

If I try to list, I will fail to mention someone - but of course this 
only grows organically out of all the deliberation here, so far.  And 
is only a poke further into the puzzle.

But we do find the focus back to the mission, deliberation. 
Hopefully we can temper ourselves to factor in both the opposites, in 
a canny way that makes for even greater discourse with governments, 
the next time around.

David
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