We are six days away from ICANN51 and I know many of you are busy preparing (and packing) for what will be an exciting week in Los Angeles. There is, as always, a lot going on next week and part of the ICANN Communications Team's job is to help share relevant information in timely, efficient and engaging ways. This involves more than just information distribution though. We need your participation and feedback too! To that end, we've been working on a few ideas to improve communication and engagement during the meeting, without I hope, overwhelming you with a tsunami of information.
Here are some of the ideas we'll pilot at ICANN51:
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We will produce a twice-daily newsletter (called #ICANN51) beginning Friday, October 10th. Attendees who have registered for ICANN51 and have opted to receive ICANN51-related information via email will receive #ICANN51. These newsletters will provide information on sessions, meeting tips, community profiles, user-generated content and trending topics on social. Our aim is to create a to-the-point newsletter, which we hope you find useful.
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When you arrive at the hotel, you will notice monitors located throughout the venue. Working with the ICANN Meetings Team, these monitors will provide a 24/7 display of meeting-related information including: venue maps, schedules and an ICANN51 Flickr photo album feed. Through this platform, we also will show tweets using the #ICANN51 hashtag. So use the hashtag and keep an eye out for your tweets on one of the screens.
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With each ICANN meeting, we see a great deal of interest in the photos. We hope to build on that interest and include your photos in the ICANN photo album on Flickr and Facebook, and feature them on the monitors and in the newsletter. We also enlisted the help of ICANN fellows, who will ask attendees to answer the question "How has the Internet changed your life?" Participants will write their answers on poster board (like the example above), we'll snap a quick photo and tweet it out with #1world1Internet. And you can share any of your favorite ICANN51 photos on Twitter with #Pics4ICANN and/or submit it to the ICANN 51 Flickr Group.
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Picking up on the popularity of the video hubs used during the London meeting, we are again teaming up with the Internet Society (ISOC) and our community to host video hubs at Thursday's major sessions. We'll share more details shortly.
So, if you have (short) stories or information you want to include in the newsletter or on the monitor feed, please send an email to jana.juginovic@icann.org or luna.madi@icann.org. While we can't guarantee we can meet all of your requests, as space is limited, we will do our best.
I encourage you to let us know what you think so we can keep improving and fine-tuning. While many of these initiatives are focused on the use of network technologies, we know that the heart of ICANN51 lies with the invaluable face-to-face interactions that ICANN meetings enable, and I look forward to seeing and speaking with many of you in a few days. Safe travels!