It's Time for Paul Twomey to Step Down as CEO of ICANN

Those of you who follow the activity (and recent inactivity) on this blog will know that I have been moving. 

I am a regular working class guy who is relocating into what I consider a palace.  I guess I should have known what I was getting myself into .. I've been writing checks on this place for 3 years now.

My wife Michele is the least materialistic person you will ever meet but she sure loves her "nest", so when I said "build whatever you want honey", she really went big.  I didn't even know what my own office would look like and fellas, I suggest we all let our wives design our offices.

I'd never paid attention to so much as a color-swatch, but I feel surprisingly at home here.  This is the kind of office that Angelina Jolie would design for Brad Pitt. It's ridiculous actually..  I love it!!

For the last 10 days our cleaning lady (she makes three times her peers salary) and a team of other girls has been tidying up dust, dirt and debris. Tonight I couldn't stand stepping on another piece of moving-related gunk so I went to the Fosters Food Fair and loaded up on Swiffer pads.  All their Swiffer pads actually ... Then I spent the next three hours Swiffering. The floor they couldn't get clean in 10 days, is now clean.

It's a humbling experience Swiffering. I'm out there replacing moist towel after moist towel on the Swiffer head, rolling up my sleeves and getting dirty in the trenches. It's real. There is no "assistant" at 11pm on Saturday night.  It's just me and the Swiffer, "Mano a Mano". The nooks and crannys that my cleaning lady has overlooked, have been re-discovered by a fresh set of eyes, somebody willing to reach that Swiffer wand out of the same old pattern..  Me..

Come Monday, my cleaning lady and I are going to have a 'little chat'.  There is no way I'm paying three times the going rate if I can pick up "this much" dirt after 10 days straight of her (and her assistants) work.

After coming in and cleaning my feet in the office bathroom sink, I glanced at my email and saw this link sent by my colleague Sahar . In it, Paul Twomey seems to pontificate about what the Internet is/does, broadcasting his "vision" for the benefit of the uninformed on Main Street (who likely have little clue about what ICANN does or how the Internet works). Reading this, I couldn't help but be struck that Paul has so insulated himself from the reality of the Internet that he's drwaing on a whisp of 'virtual reality' to describe the direction it's going.

I began to reflect on Paul Twomey's tenure as CEO of ICANN..  Has he done that great a job?  Could the organization have done just as well without him?  Should we be satisfied with this level of public service?

Don't get me wrong,  Paul looks and talks the part .. He has been a fine bureaucrat, but ICANN needs a leader who can do better than simply react and fill the vacuum. The organization needs more of a MacArthur or a Mulholland and less of a Gerald Ford.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on Dr. Twomey, but reading the leader of ICANN use his moment in the spotlight to hypothesize about the future of the virtual world as "virtual", struck me as odd and brought back a flood of unpleasant ICANN memories which may not have "come to be" under better management.

I suggest it's time to elevate the status of the man with the mop (figurative of course,  I'm not stumping) or to place the mop firmly in Dr. Twomey's hands so he can get re-acquainted with how the real "non-virtual", virtual world works.

I am not a "burning bush" of answers but believe ICANN can do better. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has plenty of capable bureaucrats. I suggest it's time for Paul Twomey to step down and allow a fresh face to re-invigorate the organization. We need less "virtual reality" and healthy dose of "reality" at ICANN..

Let's start at the top.

Comments

[Blog de Magia]

Frank, check TechCrunch, is Paul himself (or a good impersonator) engaged in the comments:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/08/virtual-worlds-are-the-future-of-global-commerce-icann-ceo/

[Andy]

I vote for Frank as the new CEO of ICANN...what do you guys think???

[Andrew Johnson]

Without actually hearing the keynote speech I can't pass any judgment. Was Techcruch just being sensational and using a misleading headline to grab attention?

His comment on Techcrunch, which I am inclined to believe is real, sounds modest and in line with reality to me.

As for the RegisterFly debacle, you'll get my full agreement on that. I was suggesting a class action lawsuit back in February.. if I kept friends with lawyers it may have happened.