Executive Director's AGM Report 22/06/01

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TO THE AGM OF THE INTERNET SOCIETY OF NEW ZEALAND INC JUNE 22 2001

1. Introduction

I am pleased to present my third Annual report to the AGM of the Society. I will try to encapsulate the year as the ten reports I've made to Council in since the last AGM are on the website as are my reports of ICANN meetings

The period July 2000-June 2001 has been busy and has seen positive progress in relation to what has been a rather frustrating set of circumstances from an Operational perspective. There have been a variety of challenges for the Staff, including financial uncertainties relating to the introduction of a Shared Registry System, an unclear division between the role of Council and the role of the Office, and a tendency within the Society to focus on what the Society is not achieving rather than what it is. The last few months in particular have brought more clarity and the Office is well set to be both pro-active and responsive in supporting the work of the Society.

2. Staff

The 2000-2001 year has seen the Office become better resourced enabling more effective support of Society work. Our new Administration Manager, Beverley Irvine , took up her position on July 10 2001. Many of the members will have dealt with Beverley by email, phone or in person, and will be aware of the combination of friendliness and professionalism she brings to the role. The Executive Assistant, Gail Cornell , finished her role in September 2000 and then undertook the project of updating the website, finishing on Feb 23 2001. The Executive Assistant's role was divided between the Administration Manager and the Technical Manager. John Vorstermans , former Technical Manager of Actrix Networks, took up the 20 hour per week contract as Technical Services Manager on March 12. 2001. John has managed the key changes to the Society's electronic infrastructure, providing a seamless transition from out-sourced to in-house services. Unfortunately John will be moving on a month earlier than originally planned, but he is working with me to determine the nature of future technical services the Society will require. I will be looking first to the membership for a replacement towards the end of July 2001.

3. New Premises

We are now fully settled into our new premises for which we have a very favorable rental set for three years. Members who have had the opportunity to visit the new office, with the attached Boardroom facilities, will appreciate the professional surroundings. (For those who haven't had the chance to visit - before and after photos are at: http://www.isocnz.org.nz/public/beforeandafter-office2001.html ).Costs on the Boardroom are being offset by renting out the Boardroom to other organisations. Committees, Working Groups, and individual Councillors doing Council business now have space where they can meet and work on the premises. The move was preceded by Staff working from "Cyber-offices" for a month because of construction delays, and we appreciated the co-operation of members and Councillors over the period. The experience finally convinced me that 'tele-working' is not a good option for the Society.

4. In-house Technical Operations

I saw the move into the new premises, and the completion of the website upgrade, as the ideal opportunity to bring in-house our technical operations. As well as setting up the internal office network, the Technical Manager also:

• moved the Website in-house with backup on office server.
• put in place process to update website automatically twice daily.
• moved Mailing list in-house with update to v2.2.
• facilitated office document storage on servers.
• brought office email in-house away from ISP.
• commissioned and put in place a voting system with Catalyst IT
• set up equipment to allow audio/video broadcasting of SGM and future council meetings.
• put in place auto backups of essential services on servers.
• backup critical data in to CDROM.

5. Planning: Strategic/Annual Planning, Budget, and Business Plans

The uncertainty of both income and expenditure arising out of decisions taken at the 2000 AGM led me to advise the Council to work to a 'zero-based' Budget for the first few months of the financial year. Whilst this was a fiscally prudent stance to take, it did not endear me, or Council, to those who wanted to see non-DNS projects moved forward. This uncertainly meant that the operating Budget was limited to $147,000 (money in the bank plus Domainz management fees) which we were relatively certain of - a drop from the AGM Budget $428,730. It was not until September that the bulk of the $275,000 dividend came in from Domainz (an advance was made earlier to cover running costs). In November it became clear that the majority of the SRS expenditure would likely fall into the 2001-2002 Financial Year, so the financial 'reins' could be loosened, allowing such projects as the Road Show to go ahead. I had input into the Strategic/Annual Plan, and drafted the 2001-2002 Budget and BP for Council consideration.

6. ICANN

At Council direction I was a delegate to the following ICANN meetings: Yokohama (11-15 July 2000), Los Angeles (11-15 November 2000), Melbourne (8-13 March 2001), and Stockholm (May 30 - June 4, 2001). It is important to note that (apart from the well-attended Melbourne meeting), the with cessation of Domainz representation in early 2000, the delegation to ICANN meetings dropped from 3-4 people to two people, vastly increasing the workload at a time when the actual work at the meetings increased.

I want to acknowledge the work that Society Chair, Peter Dengate Thrush has done at these meetings. Peter has earnt the respect of the international community through his leadership, and his work is a key factor in the progress the ccTLD community has finally achieved vis a vis the ICANN Board. That this is not an overstatement is reflected in the fact that the Chair of the Asia-Pacific Top Level Domain Association (APTLD) delegated Peter, as Senior Vice Chair of APTLD, to be the APTLD "voice" when dealing with ICANN and other ccTLD's. Peter therefore acts for all the APTLD's on the Administration Committee of the ccTLD organisation.

In addition to attendance at ICANN Meetings, New Zealand was host for the APTLD arranged "ICANN Outreach Pacific Seminar Tour" in November 2000. Of the ten ccTLD's in attendance, five were Pacific ccTLD's which had not previously been ICANN participants (Fiji, Samoa, Norfolk Island, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu). The other ccTLD attendees were Niue, Korea, Singapore, and New Zealand. Ten people, including two from Telecom NZ, stayed on for the APNIC training session (compared with 12 at the Australian session the week before). Follow-up work is planned at this year's ISP Forum.

7. NetForum: ISOCNZ/UniForum Joint Conference (Oct 3-6 2000)

After an approach by UniForum, the Council agreed to trial a joint annual Conference with UniForum in October 2000. As ISOCNZ finances were uncertain during the planning process, the ISOCNZ contribution was administrative support by the Administration Manager. NetForum was a successful event, but the hoped for improvement in attendance numbers for both organisations did not eventuate, though ISOCNZ gained roughly 30 new members from the exercise, several of whom have been active contributors to the Society. Valuable lessons were learnt, but the decision was made not to proceed with a second joint Conference.

8. Media

Media contact continues at a high level, and as much as possible is pro-active rather than reactive, e.g., media releases. I've done two interviews with nzoom (TV One's Internet division) - one ISOCNZ's lobbying activities in relation to 0867 as a part of their series on the Telecommunications Inquiry, and one on the Second Level Domain process (".bank.nz"). Radio and print media call regularly for comment, and I did an interesting interview for Fair Go for Christmas ('Safe Shopping on the Internet') which unfortunately didn't air as The Warehouse interview was cuter!

9. ThinkQuest 2001

ThinkQuest is "an annual global competition that challenges students, ages 12 to 19 to use the Internet as a collaborative, interactive, and learning tool. It gives out prizes worth US$2 Million each year" and ISOCNZ is the New Zealand National Partner. ISOCNZ member Wayne Leong took on the role of National Co-ordinator, and drove the project until his retirement because of work commitments in late 2000. WISE Net was instrumental in getting things moving in the Wairarapa and hosted a regional event; with other regional events in Lower Hutt and one planned for Christchurch. WISE Net is sponsoring the website at http://www.thinkquest.org.nz . Since Wayne's retirement I have acted as 'temporary' national contact point, but my other responsibilities have meant that no significant work has been done. In order to move this forward we need a voluntary National Co-ordinator, and ideally, Regional Co-ordinators.

10. Executive Director Participation - Council Activities

Apart from the Office providing Administrative Support for all Council activities (range: Minutes to Mail-outs), the Executive Director attends all Council Meetings and some Committee meetings, and has input where appropriate into other Committees and Working Groups. This year the Executive Director has withdrawn from receipt of all Council mailing lists except the Administration, International Affairs, and (recently) SRS Implementation Oversight Committees.

Some input has been made into the Constitution Review WG, and Councillor Hine's work on the Confidentiality of Society Documents and on Second Level Domain proposal application fees, with the Technical Manager taking over the input into Methods of Electronic Participation WG. I wrote the Executive Summary and a covering letter, and did minimal editing to the Internet Surveillance WG Submission on the Crimes Amendment Bill, and formed part of the Oral Submissions team.

11. SRS Implementation

I produced the Green Paper in December 2000, and was part of the interview team for the SRS Implementation Manager in March 2001. Recently the new Chair of the SRSIOC requested that I participate formally in the Committee, so I have resubscribed to the SRSIOC mailing list.

12. Internet Code of Practice

The Hon Paul Swain followed up on his intention to write to all ISP's asking why they have not signed the Internet Code of Practice and we sent this out with a covering letter. As a result we have had three new signatories (Attica Communications Ltd, V-Net Ltd, and Watchdog Corporation Ltd). I plan to devote the majority of my time in August to revamping the Code in the light of industry feedback and undertaking any further consultation required. This will need Council agreement as I will be unable to take on other work for Council if the job is to be done properly. Failing this, it will be my recommendation that Council report to members, industry, and government that, based on two years experience, the Code is not workable and a new approach is needed for the New Zealand environment.

13. Networking

The core of the Executive Director's role is that of communications. This is a sampling of the people and organisations follows I have worked with this year:

• NZ Maori Internet Society/Te Whanau Ipurangi (sponsorship of website and domain name)
• LIANZA - Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (comment on draft Position Paper "E-Citizens, e-business, and e-government")
• eMSA - Electronic Marketing Standards Authority (comment on draft "Self Regulation of eMarketing in New Zealand" which is a Code of Practice for e-marketers)
• "Information Policy Summit" - e-Summit follow-up (participant in Summit arranged by Victoria University)
• eGovernment Survey - (threats to the Internet in NZ)
• GOVIS conference - invitations arranged for non-GOVIS Councilors and Executive Director
• NZ Film and Video Security Office (interview on ISP regulation in NZ)
• Presentation to the Masters of Commerce class of the Auckland University Law School (ICANN issues in relation to Intellectual Property, Trade Marks, and UDRP.)
• NCW - National Council of Women - Website launch (advised on the original scoping documents)
• BayCorp ID (digital Certificates for members)
• SeniorNet (work of ISOCNZ, ICANN issues)
• Regular contact with colleagues in UniForum, TUANZ, NZ Computer Society, and ITANZ
• Trevor Mallard (IT Leaders dinner consultation)
• YWCA ('Young Women into IT' pilot project)
• The NZ Internet Safety Group - (ISP Forum and NetSafety Conferences 2002)
• Australia/New Zealand E-Business Summit (Speaker: 'The New Yellow Brick Road - New Zealand Responses to the Digital Divide')

14. Re-Branding

The Council decided on a preferred name at the Strategic Planning meeting in February 2001. In the light of the Society's previous experience with a proposed new trading name, the Council determined to undertake precautionary measures before the issue was taken to members. As a result a Trade Mark search was undertaken, and the preferred name registered. In order to keep costs to the minimum before the membership had made a final determination on the new name, I was to commission 3 logo designs at a cost of up to $5000 for presentation to the AGM. I have done this and will present the results to this meeting.

15. Administration Committee Chair - Dr Frank March

In an organisation of volunteers who give many hours of their time, it is perhaps unfair to single out one person for thanks. However, with the retirement from Council of ISOCNZ founder member Frank March, a gaping hole will open which will be hard to fill. Frank has acted not only as Secretary of the Society for the whole of my time here, but also as the Administration Committee Chair. In both roles Frank has been the pivotal person in ensuring that the Executive Director was in a position to deliver services to the Society. Between them, the two roles take a large amount of time which is rivaled only by that of the Chair of the Society, but this work is largely unsung. I'd also like to acknowledge the support of Hilary Pope, Frank's wife, for the time he has put into the Office - "It's that red-headed woman again!" was heard a lot in the early stages! Frank's wisdom, experience, sense of humour, and practicality, have not only enabled me to survive some very stressful times but to grow in the job. A key result is the newly defined, and clearly separate, roles for the Policy and Operational arms of the Society.

On behalf of the whole Office, Frank, "Thank You".

Sue Leader
Executive Director
ISOCNZ

© 2001 The Internet Society of New Zealand
Last updated 21 June 2001