If you want instant input you need to webcast the meeting (and that means linking the live webcast from the agenda, which should be well publicised) and have a jabber or irc or webchat system for getting comments and questions from remote participants.

The RIRs have been doing this for their open policy meetings for a couple of years, and it seems fairly successful, with a couple of questions from remote participants in most working group sessions.

One of my FAQ questions will be: “Isn’t this just a talking shop?”

Let’s see what I come up with.

Kieren

I’m trying to get people help build the site at http://igf2006.info/cms/. I want to get it a bit more useful before I mass email though. That said, if you could supply a list of URLs/mailing lists etc, that would be very useful. I am still finding new sites covering the issue.

Nah, I don’t mind criticism. I dish enough of it out. Any help you can give, people you can inform etc etc, gratefully received.

Kieren

Feel free to email me ed (at) opencoding (dot) net.

Remote access meetings need reminders, they don’t stick in the memory the way knowing you’ve to move from your chair,to a train/bus/bike/plane and to some other physical space. Don’t be scared to hammer likely lists with news and reminders. And Nominet’s 10AM start might be 5PM for me. For Athens think about timeanddate.com

Athens remote access: Start planning now. Work out what resources you have (governance/net policy lists, members of the IGF advisory group — we’ll help… honest). Start hitting mailing lists now. Work with some of the other bloggers in this space.

And thanks for doing it — I apologize if this sounds critical, volunteering to do stuff and then taking negative stuff for it is a pain.

Interesting you should mention “spread Firefox” – we’re building on the same system – Drupal – that SpreadFirefox.com uses.

Will you offer editorial tips Ed? I strongly suspect I know too much about the IGF and these assorted issues to give a proper easy-to-understand entry point for the majority of people out there who have better things to do with their lives.

Kieren

To get this really going you need to encourage people through more than “just another blog”. Start a site dedicated to the IGF, explain why your average Joe cares about the IGF – explain how they can take part. Currently the average user has no idea what the IGF is or how it affects them. You need a “grassroots” website (along the lines of ’spreadfirefox.com’ perhaps) to encourage people.

There’s loads of potential, its just the IGF seems so “away” from the real Internet – your average YouTube viewer has no idea about. Perhaps you don’t want them to know about it? Is it relevant to them?

That should produce pretty good coverage of what’s going on out there, but I’m open to other suggestions.

I’m not sure I understand this “hot air” idea. It’s not as if there are other bodies even discussing these vital Net matters in any useful way. The IGF is exactly what people have been saying would be really good to have for years. Governments, business and civil society all in one room discussing how to tackle these issues. What more do people actually want?

I suspect it is just plain old inertia. The Net loves moaning and complaining but its much-heralded collaboration abilities a la Wikipedia and open-source software are very difficult to tap. I’m trying to figure out how best to do it.

Kieren