you might have noticed that i do not talk too much about what is actually going on here in berlin.

the reason is that - notwithstanding the appreciable efforts by the task force and the organizers - i find this kind of meetings almost useless (if not for the informal networking during breaks). there is no exchange of opinions going on, no new ideas coming up, and especially, no particular focus or defined issue. for three minutes someone talks about venture capital funding in ICT, and then someone else talks about human rights, and then another person tells of pros and cons of governmental cooperation efforts in the southern pacific area, until the chair cuts the comments from the floor due to lack of time, and then spends five minutes telling the audience some funny anecdotes of his personal life.

even the breakout session, which in new york was quite interesting, here ended up in a long series of wishful thinking interventions that mostly repeated what looked to me as plain common sense, such as "you have to consider different solutions in different environments" or "stimulating the supply side is useless if you do not also educate and stimulate the demand side of the market". notwithstanding this, my breakout session ended up 45 minutes late, without any kind of effort by the moderator to keep the discussion timely and focused - actually, the moderator used a fraction between one third and one half of the overall time for his eloquent personal comments and summarizations.

of course things are not simple, and of course trying to be excessively quick and up to the point often means excluding the less aggressive participants from the discussion, and preventing diversity from emerging. and it is also true that this meeting is meant to be informative to the members of the task force, which will be meeting in a closed room later today, and which are the ones that should have the actual discussions. but still, i think that it does not make much sense to fly 200 persons from all over the world without ensuring that you can let them discuss and make some progress.

so, now for the less serious accounts...

...which include my surprise for the not-so-german organization of the practical part of this meeting. i mean, yesterday they managed to have a coffee break without any coffee - which, i guess, might be a world record. security here is more than relaxed - waving an orange badge with an un sign printed on it to the policemen at the entrance is enough to get you in. the "working lunch" was a bunch of (quite good, anyway) paninis, that not only were plainly insufficient for the number of people - thus giving place to some indecorous rushes, fights and black market redistributions among distinguished delegates - but were also served in a different room from the one in which ambassador karklins was supposed to give his lunchtime speech - thus forcing the poor un staff to go and collect some audience for him all around the place. and, this morning, the waiters at the coffee table looked even more sleepy, lazy and unwilling to act than ourselves.

ok, ok: being an engineer and also a world renowned buffet plunderer, i tend to be quite demanding on meeting organization and practicalities - by the way, i´ve been meeting some of the un staff people here for the first time, and they are really nice people. but the more i attend these meetings, the more i appreciate the informal and effective (though, sometimes, way too frenzy) environment of icann meetings.