http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/03/13/icann-sf-rundown

If you’re an SME and want to learn more about the parliamentary system, how it can be accessed and utilized by businesses and how to campaign at parliamentary level, then this event is for you!  I’ve requested a place reservation so hope to be there and it would be great to see some of the SMEs in the domain name industry represented.  With more talk of broadband plans, continued discussion on digital in/exclusion, media coverage of networked nations and the Race Online, not to mention the Digital Economy Act and the broadening of the ASA’s remit, I’m keen to learn more about how our business environment is influenced by Parliament and how we can shape that involvement.  Hope to see you there!

The campaign is a good example, I think, of how various agencies and stakeholders can work effectively together to create something of benefit for the wider community.  I am sometimes a little frustrated at how insular we, as a community/an industry can be and how our many diverse starting points can somehow detract from our many common interests in our efforts to collaborate on a multi-constituency effort.  I must be drinking the water too, as words like “multi constituency” don’t exactly scream “wider community” .  Whoops.

The campaign’s reach is of particular interest here, I think.  The coalition has managed to actually disperse the message out across the industry really effectively through leveraging networks and utilizing partnerships in arenas like Social Media and Telecoms!

Anyhow, please read the article here and do let me know if you have any thoughts on how it might inspire a similar project closer to home.  I’ll be at the Parliament and Internet conference on Thursday, so would be great to hear from you before then!

The research, which interviewed 2,000 mobile media users in the UK, France, Spain and Poland, showed browser usage is most prominent in the UK, with 7 out of 10 mobile media users choosing to find information and content in this way, instead of using mobile apps.

You can read more here

You’ll have to excuse my prolonged absence – I’ve been taking some time to have a baby!  His name is Harry and has grown from a tiny, hungry newborn (left) to a whopping, active three month old baby (right).  He’s now so busy trying to eat his toes, grab the cat’s tail and sit upright, that I have much more time to update my blog again.

Luckily, I have been able to continue my Nominet NED work over the last few months!  We’ve been very busy with consultations out on the PAB and two character .uk names.  You can read the responses here.  We’re also welcoming a new chair (Baroness Rennie Fritchie DBE) and independent Non Executive Director (Piers White MBE) to the Board, which is very exciting!  I’m very much looking forward to working with them both.  You can read more about the new appointments here.  The Nominet 2010 Non Executive Director elections are currently open – you can find out more here and if you’re a Nominet Member, please use your vote!

I’ll be at ICANN from Sunday to Monday so hope to catch up with lots of familiar friends and new faces there!

Nora

For the past few months, the PAB (of which I am an elected member) has been conducting a self-evaluation and this week, we published our conclusions. We have all agreed that we need to optimize a few things about the way we work and, more than that, we need to increase the participation of a broader range of people with an interest in .uk matters.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on all this, so have a read of our plans and let me know what you think.

Why the PAB needs to change…

The Internet is constantly throwing out issues and new problems as it evolves, and Nominet – as one of the largest registries in the world – needs to constantly develop a range of policies to deal with such issues.  In order to assist this policy development, in 1999 the Policy Advisory Body – made up of a range of member representatives and other stakeholders – was created to discuss topical issues and give recommendations to Nominet’s board.

What worked well in the early days of the UK’s internet, has however been struggling to cope with the impact of the massive growth of .uk and the associated issues this raises. The issues that are thrown up these days affect more people, need faster solutions, and would benefit from greater expertise than was originally envisaged. Our small group of PAB members has been trying to adequately discuss these often specialist topics by pulling in views and expertise from outside to complement the competencies around the table.  However, a lack of visibility, a cumbersome stakeholder input mechanism and a fixed format made it difficult to find the best and most informed solutions. At the end of last year, we finalized some exciting new ways to work to enable more voices and constituencies to be heard.

Extending our reach

Instead of the closed group of up to 18 meeting in person every few months, we have decided to dramatically extend the process and put you – the Internet user – at the heart of Nominet’s policy process.

The policy process will become issue-led and stakeholder focussed open to all to participate in through open forum meetings and issues based discussion groups.  To facilitate such an open process and ensure it works we need new structures to support it.  One of these new structures is  a Standing Committee that helps draw together those most interested in a particular issue. The Standing Committee will, crucially, support, rather than run, a series of channels for gathering information, holding discussions on that information in different formats, and developing ideas and solutions.

The stakeholder process will follow six clear steps, the first of which is identifying and approaching relevant people that are likely to have an  interest in, or relevant to, the topic under discussion.

The issue itself will then be clearly identified, groups (as relevant) set up, public discussions and consultations held, and then the results analyzed before being passed onto the Board for its consideration and review.

What does this mean for you?

It means that if you have an interest in Nominet issues, domain issues, or related Internet issues, you will be able to become a part of the group itself that decides the best way forward.

The new Standing Committee, will act as a guide, assisting in communication, providing consistency and ensuring that the process isn’t abused. And a support team from Nominet will help different groups with logistics and materials so their work can progress effectively.

This approach will, we hope, enable Nominet to come up with better, more broadly considered, effective solutions and to call on a breadth of experience that any committee of 18 could never have. Most importantly, we want to remove barriers to participation and give you a central stake in policy development of the .uk name space addressing issues that affect us all. The PAB’s original function, I believe, was to add value to Nominet’s policy process – i.e. to reach beyond consultations, mailing lists and Nominet outreach events and to consider broad policy issues from the viewpoint of all member sectors – especially those not traditionally reached by the core outreach initiatives.  The proposed changes will allow us to return to the original intent of the PAB by making it easier for you to be involved, in issues that interest you, in a format that works for you, in a framework that supports and enables you, the .uk stakeholder, to help shape the future of .uk

If you are interested in the formal report from the PAB on this issue, please view the report at: http://www.nominet.org.uk/digitalAssets/39402_DraftPABmeetingreport_november2009.pdf

Get involved

If you have questions, or want to know more, just add a comment to this post or contact me directly – as ever, would be delighted to hear from you!

Today, I attended the Parliament and Internet conference and came away feeling inspired and enlightened.  I gained an understanding of why the preservation of self-regulation in the Internet space is so important.  I learned about why and how the IGF was originally established and heard about how this lead to the UK IGF.  I began to truly appreciate why the IGF and its premise of learning from sucess, sharing ideas and debating solutions internationally is a good thing; that not all organizations have to deal in the business of decisions.

The event was very valuable for me, in learning from the successes of parliamentarian and industry debate on the subject of “the Internet”.  I am beginning to more fully appreciate the balance between local priorities, governance and membership issues and the public purpose role of Nominet.  I begin to see how it all fits together.  I believe that we all can continue to learn from success ; as a registry and as its Members, as Internet users and online businesses, by engaging as UK stakeholders in the UK IGF to help shape the future of the Internet and the future of Internet governance.

Some quotes from today’s conference:

Ed Richards (Ofcom) talked about how our traditional “creaking regulatory architecture” is straining under the weight of providing a basis for entirely new and fast moving technologies.  He commented on how this will have to change as we move “from the broadcast era to the Internet age”.

Martha Lane Fox (Digital Inclusion Champion) spoke about Internet technology as a facilitator and the social and economic imperatives for digital inclusion.  She introduced us to the idea of an “intelligent hub” in encouraging peer to peer mentoring, boosting existing schemes and raising awareness.  She emphasized that affordability and accessibility are fundamental to digital inclusion and that the space continues to develop rapidly so we must be prepared strategically for “game changing technology”.

The Rt. Hon. Stephen Timms (MP) now leads the Digital Britain strategy and spoke about minimums such as 2MB broadband as well as his concerns about behavioural advertising.  He also confirmed that the 50p per month tax on landlines would go ahead as part of the implementation of the Digital Britain strategy.

You can read more about the Parliament and Internet Conference here.

Thought I’d recommence blogging here today with a roundup of some newly released stats from the .ie registry and the .org registry.

Key numbers include:

• Registrations for .ORG grew 11%, up to 7.69 million total registrations in the first half of 2009, compared to a year ago
• This growth rate outpaces other well known Top Level Domains (TLDs) such as .com and .net
• The UK is number two in .ORG’s top ten markets
  
• A total of 9,398 .IE domains were registered in Q3, up 15% on the same period last year
• In the first nine months of the year, new registrations of .IE at 28,522 are up by over 7% compared to the first nine months of 2008
• The growth in .IE registrations is from sole traders or limited companies, states the IEDR report, who account for, the majority (83%) of registrations in Q3

I’ll be back on October 14th – let me know if there are news/topics/issues you’d like me to discuss!

Best wishes,

Nora

Many thanks to all those who voted for me and for your congratulations – they are much appreciated!  I’m delighted to have won a seat!  The candidates were very strong this year and I think it was a very close call.  Congratulations to Clive Grace and to Jonathan Robinson – I’m really looking forward to working together with them and the other Board Members during this exciting time in Nominet’s development.

Best wishes,

Nora

Off to Nominet’s AGM today and to the stakeholder meeting afterwards – hope to see some of you there.  Will update later.  In other news – domain prices on the secondary market are on the increase; first green shoots?  Read more here!

Best wishes,

Nora