Table of contents

• Introduction and welcome to the ISOC Sphere Project
• An invitation to participate and what does it mean if I volunteer?
• List of all Sphere participants
• Phase 1 - Sphere Project Interviews are now concluded.
• Phase 2 - An invitation to creative participation
  • Sphere Integration Team
  • Project Briefs
• Sign up for a Project
• Project Teams and Project Web pages
• Mailing list
• Reports
  • Sphere Project Update - September 8, 2008
  • Sphere Project Article for ASAE - April, 2009 In English and Spanish
• Face to face meetings
  • Past meetings
  • Upcoming meeting

Introduction and welcome to the ISOC Sphere Project

The ISOC ‘Sphere’ project is introduced as an activity that seeks to develop the relationships between ISOC Chapters and ISOC staff. It is a key component of the Chapter Development Plan, which is a multi-year strategic effort to develop the ISOC chapters into strong, effective and robust organisations that promote and defend the principles of the Internet Society. The overarching goal is make the best use of ISOC’s collective skills and talents to advance the organization and the mission of the organization.

The project is intended to lead to the development of strong, trusting and respectful relationships based on well understood methods of communication and interaction. This project is therefore an essential foundation for our work together as part of the Internet Society . Tangible outcomes are expected in the form of the implementation of some practical projects to develop the relationships. The full project document is available at Sphere Project Overview.

A brief overview of the project is also available here (in English and Spanish) :
http://wiki.chapters.isoc.org/tiki-index.php?page=Sphere+Project+Article+for+ASAE+-+April%2C+2009&bl=y


Until he passed away, the facilitator of the project from January 2008-November 2008 was Tim Gartside. His work was based on the work of Jacob Moreno. Those with an interest in Further Reading can follow the linked pages to references. From late January 2009, Robin Loan, a long time friend and work colleague of Tim's has took up the role of facilitator. She is passionately committed to continuing Tim’s vision for organisations, systems and human communities with the same vigour and drive that he had, albeit in her own way.

An invitation to participate and what does it mean if I volunteer?

We would like to extend a warm invitation to you to join the ISOC ‘Sphere’ project. All participation is voluntary. We are seeking individuals who are able to commit a few hours per month to actively work on the Project. The project will have 3 phases as laid out in the table below. The first phase will be consultative - one-on-one interviews with the facilitator, so no more than a maximum of 90 minutes of your time is needed. The second phase will mostly consist of a number of e-meetings. Initially a larger group meeting followed by some smaller group meetings consisting of those who are interested and able to advance conversations into an outline of progressive steps into actual work. This will be complemented by face-to-face meetings but attendance at both is not compulsory. The last phase is getting the actual work done in smaller groups, and reporting back of the work to the wider community. This all requires a committment of a few hours per month.

There is no limit to the number of participants per chapter. Anne, Sabrina, Dawit, Sebastian and Raj are available to assist you in participating in this project. If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us on .

We look forward to your active participation!

Phase	Purpose	Activity	Timing
Phase 1 - Sphere Project Interviews	Consultation - gather information on how to improve the relationships between ISOC and ISOC Chapters	Individual phone sessions with volunteers and the consultant	February. Interview with Tim will commence the week beginning Monday 4th February
Phase 2 - Creative participation	Develop and explore themes that have emerged in the consultations. This will lead to progressive steps and tangible activities	Virtual on line e-meetings. Supplementary face-to-face meetings alongside regional meetings (voluntary attendance)	April until June
Phase 3	Continue to develop and support activities of the workgroups emerging from both virtual and face-to-face meetings	Online e-meetings as follow up	July until September

List of all Sphere participants

Phase 1 - Sphere Project Interviews are now concluded.

Activities in Phase 1 of the project have concluded. Twenty two interviews were conducted with volunteers drawn from ISOC Chapters and ISOC staff in the period from 7 February until 19th March 2008. Most of the interviews lasted around seventy five minutes and were held in the small ISOC meeting room on Marratech.

Following Phase 1 a document has been prepared by Tim Gartside called ISOC Sphere Project : An invitation to creative participation using our collective skills and wisdom. A Chapter delegate's log-in to the wiki is required to access the invitation document. It contains a summary of activities undertaken to date, interview highlights, a section entitled 'observations and hunches' which is based on the common themes to emerge from the interview data, and a description of project briefs. The project briefs are based on both the interview data and the 'hunches and observations'. In other words, the projects suggest action in the key areas that arose in the interviews. A Sphere Interview Report contains a representative, anonymous selection of interview quotes and paraphrased comments.

Phase 2 - An invitation to creative participation

The next phase of the project is to form small project teams around the project briefs. It is anticipated that the projects described in the report and below will be a effective vehicle for progressive change. The projects will provide the opportunity for small groups of interested volunteers to work together on topics of mutual interest. The protocols for the formation of teams are as follows.

After the first round of projects are completed or resolved we expect to launch a second round (either new projects or a second phase of the initial projects) and perhaps, a third round, later in the year. We are expecting the duration of a project phase will be about six to eight weeks, being sufficient time for a group to meet virtually several times, for some research to be conducted and an initial output produced.

Sphere Integration Team

In order to co-ordinate and support the work of the Sphere project teams and to provide a flexible interface between the project teams and the Executive and Board a Sphere Integration Team (SIT) has been formed. SIT team members may also take part in Project teams. At the time of writing the following have offered to serve on the SIT: Anne Lord, Franck Martin, Frederic Donck, Marcin Cieslak, Rimon Levy, Fred Baker and Sebastian Ricciardi. Further SIT participants may be added as the project goes on. If formal proposals emerge from the project teams these proposals will be submitted to the formal organisation in line with the appropriate procedures of the Executive Team and Board. In that case then members of the SIT team who are also members of the Executive or Board will take off their informal hats and put on their formal hats.

Project team and SIT participants will be taking part in their personal capacities as ISOC members not in any formal roles they may hold.

Project Briefs

Project Number	Project Title	Description	Brief
1	Chapter Multi Criteria Analysis	Interview data suggests that there is no commonly accepted definition of what it means to be an ‘active’ chapter. There are also no measures in place to be able to gauge success with the chapter development plan.	The brief is to a) Identify two or three criterion by which to differentiate between Chapters. Examples might be size, activity, type of governance structure etc. b) Clarify the criteria sufficiently so each Chapter can assess where it fits on each criterion. c) Allow the Chapters to make their own assessment of where they fit on each criterion or scale and d) Using the data, create revealing arrays giving the viewer some sense of the overall ‘topography’ of the Chapters.
2	Chapter Sociogram	There is no clear view of how the chapters engage with each other. Promoting chapter to chapter collaboration is a key part of the Chapter Development plan	Using basic techniques of social network analysis gather simple data and produce a network map (sociogram) giving some sense of the current relationships amongst Chapters and between Chapters and ISOC Global. A simple question for each Chapter might be something like “Of the Chapters listed on the ISOC web-site which are the three chapters with which your Chapter has the most interaction over the last year?” Gather and map the data. If required, Tim Gartside can provide assistance with the methodology and production of the network map.
3	Language and Translation	While English has always served as ISOC's lingua franca, it is clear that to more effectively serve the needs of a diverse global community, ISOC must provide an increasing amount of content in other languages. While many translated documents are currently available on the ISOC web site, these have generally been produced ad hoc and there is no structured programme in place for ongoing translation efforts..	We need to establish a structured translation programme that will provide professional, efficient, culturally sensitive translations of an increased amount of ISOC content. The programme needs to make effective use of the financial and administrative resources available, while also making appropriate use of the skills and commitment of ISOC's global membership and Chapter network.
4	Two way consultation between Chapters and ISOC Global	It appears there are no protocols or procedures in place for how to conduct a consultation of Chapters on a policy issue. This was highlighted in the recent discussion about JPA leading up to the ICANN meeting. Also it appears that there is no clear protocol for how a chapter may consult with ISOC Global about an impending event or development in it’s region	Devise a draft set of protocols for the conduct of policy consultations between ISOC Global and Chapters and between Chapters and ISOC Global
5	Protocols to increase the effectiveness of interaction on the Chapter Delegates list?	The list is active and some participants are forthright whilst the majority hold back. Useful information is shared. There is evidence of multiple bidders “to be king of the dung heap.”	Devise a set of simple protocols recommending how delegates can function on the list more effectively.
6	ISOC: An Integrated Picture: Titles Labels Images	A number of different labels and titles are used to describe different elements of ISOC. The term ISOC Global has come into common parlance to represent what otherwise might be known at ISOC Headquarters, ISOC Secretariat, ISOC World or similar.	What are the most effective titles for the different constituent elements of ISOC? How can the relationships between these elements be graphically depicted? Create an image or diagram that depicts the elements in a well integrated format.
7	Corporate, Civil Societies and other sub-groups in ISOC	Recently a delegate referred to the tensions between the corporate tendency within ISOC and the civil society tendency?	Articulate the tension between the corporate, civil society and other sub-groups in ISOC. What are the world-views of these different sub-groups? How do the sub-groups view each other? What are the effects and implications of the tension between these worldviews on the functioning of ISOC? Beyond understanding this dilemma more clearly and openly do any progressive steps need to be made? (If appropriate) What are the suggested progressive steps?
8	Web Design and Domain Structure?	There is not agreement about the application of naming conventions to chapter websites if they are within the isoc.org domain or hosted on the ISOC website. The ISOC website is predominantly web 1.0 whereas many sites are now 2.0 or 2.5.	Resolve the lack of agreement about the application of the naming conventions.
9	INET 2011	This is a self formed group to look about the idea of re-doing global INETs.There are many challenges to restart global INET but there is a strong need in the community and to identify a path post IGF	Resolve all the hindrance to do a global INET and provide a framework to ISOC

Sign up for a Project

Please indicate up to 3 Project preferences by entering your name into the table below. When your enter the 'edit' mode, simply remove the dots in the table below and add your name. Do not remove the vertical column as this has a special meaning in the table. Separate names with commas. If you have problems to edit the table, please email your preferences to Anne and Sabrina at <chapters@isoc.org>. As this is a public page, email addresses for participants are not displayed in this table. If you want to contact a potential team member and you do not have their email address, please contact Anne and Sabrina.

Project Number	Project Title	1st Preference	2nd Preference	3rd Preference
1	Chapter Multi Criteria Analysis	Daniel Karrenberg, Jean Philemon Kissangou, Sebastian Ricciardi, Hans Peter Dittler, Eduardo Diaz	Sabrina Wilmot	.....
2	Chapter Sociogram	Cheryl Langdon-Orr , Sabrina Wilmot	Sebastian Ricciardi	Jean Philemon Kissangou
3	Language and Translation	Louis Houle	Dawit Bekele	Sabrina Wilmot, Edwin Liava'a
4	Two way consultation between Chapters and ISOC Global	Rudi Vansnick, Mike Todd, Frederic Donck	Fred Baker, Jean Philemon Kissangou, Holly Raiche, Eduardo Diaz	Sivasubramanian Muthusamy, Krithika Desaraju, Satyadhyan Chickerur, Daniel Karrenberg, Hans Peter Dittler
5	Protocols to increase the effectiveness of interaction on the Chapter Delegates list?	Cheryl Langdon-Orr	Rudi Vansnick , Mike Todd, Edwin Liava'a	Holly Raiche
6	ISOC: An Integrated Picture: Titles, Labels, Images	Sivasubramanian Muthusamy, Krithika Desaraju, Satyadhyan Chickerur, Edwin Liava'a	Daniel Karrenberg, Frederic Donck	Louis Houle, Sebastian Ricciardi, Dawit Bekele, Eduardo Diaz
7	Corporate, Civil Societies and other sub-groups in ISOC	Alan Levin, Fred Baker, Holly Raiche	Louis Houle	Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Mike Todd, Frederic Donck
8	Web Design and Domain Structure?	Dawit Bekele	Sivasubramanian Muthusamy,Krithika Desaraju, Satyadhyan Chickerur, Hans Peter Dittler	Rudi Vansnick

Project Teams and Project Web pages

Four out of eight project teams were launched in the initial phase. Although not everyone's first preferences could be accommodated, we tried our best to allocate as per choices indicated. The principle followed is that of self-organisation. People are therefore free to move between projects and are encouraged to invite others (including individual and organisational members) to join projects.

A preliminary description how to get started with Sphere is available as well as the suggested interaction guidelines.

Sphere project pages have been created for each project which participants are invited to update and use as a work space.

You can see Meeting schedules on the Calendar. Events are displayed in the timezone you set in your Preferences.

Mailing list

The sphere-project mailing list is run on the ISOC mailing list server. Only list members can post to the list. To subscribe, go to the subscription page.

The mailing list archive is available only to the list members. Please use a mailing list password to access the archive. In case you do not know your mailing list password, please navigate to the mailing list page, enter your email address in the last box, select the Unsubscribe or edit options and then, on the next page, choose Remind. You will receive a password that can be used to access the archive.

Mailing list page (to subscribe/unsubscribe)	http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/sphere-project
List archive	http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/sphere-project

Reports

Sphere Project Update - September 8, 2008

Sphere Project Article for ASAE - April, 2009 In English and Spanish

Face to face meetings

Past meetings

• Paris Sphere Meeting: Paris, France, alongside the 32nd International ICANN Meeting? and ISOC BoT meeting? on Friday June 27th. 8.30am-12.30pm
• Chapters Workshop, Mexico: Mexico City alongside the ICANN meeting. Friday February 27th 2009. Details of the agenda are here: http://www.isoc.org/isoc/chapters/meetings/20090227.php

Upcoming meeting

• Not a formal meeting but anyone interested in Sphere project meetings alongside the ICANN meeting in Sydney from 21-26 June is invited to contact <chapter-support@isoc.org> or Robin Loan who will be at the meeting.

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