Seth Reiss didn't go to Mexico City for margaritas. He went to attend the 34th ICANN conference in early March. ICANN ("eye-can") is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. He's an IP lawyer, one of those out-of-the-box people who likes to network in far-away places.

ICANN is the international organization that manages the assignment of domain names and numerical addresses as well as the competition among domain registrars, all with a view to preserving the reliability of the Internet. ICANN hosted Seth as a representative. It seeks to attract a global constituency and develop policies by grassroots consensus.

Although ICANN was organized as a California nonprofit, it has become less associated with the U.S. It has offices in many countries, and is staffed by many nationalities. It's bent on becoming increasingly international. With the expiration of its agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce this year, ICANN will become more and more like a nongovernmental organization.

ICANN is a good model for an NGO. It's not unlike our own Pacific Telecommunications Council, which began in Hawai'i but evolved into a collaboration from all around the Pacific.

ICANN meets three times a year. It rotates its meetings among continents to encourage global participation and demonstrate its international character. Some argue that it's wasteful to meet in places with lower Internet use. Others say ICANN must be worldwide to build that use.

So what can we learn from ICANN?

WHAT SETH FOUND

About a thousand people attended the conference. See mex.icann.org. The Web site is replete with transcripts of the proceedings and videos in multiple languages.

Seth met a participant from Hawai'i, a UH communications professor who represented the South Korean government's telecommmunications agency. He also met an ICANN board member from Leipzig who was instrumental in bringing down the Berlin Wall, a techie from Trinidad, a gentleman from France who helped establish the Palestinian domain name extension, representatives from China's domain name authority, and representatives from the dot "me" extension, which has turned out to be very popular.

Seth found, as so many people do, that what you learn in the corridors of conferences like this (or in his case, at Mexico City restaurants or atop Aztec pyramids) is at least as valuable as what you learn in the formal meetings.

GOOD PROCESS

ICANN is becoming more transparent, and seeks global input on every issue. Seth noticed that at any given committee meeting, participants used laptops to follow the discussion. People from all time zones would be online to participate in chat rooms and bulletin boards and follow various simultaneous conversations in various languages.

Participation was more challenging in the plenary meetings. So they used sheets of colored paper. Everyone got sheets of red, green and white paper. After a speaker made a point, the facilitator asked participants to comment. If you agreed, you held up the green sheet. If you disagreed, you held up the red sheet. If you didn't understand, you held up the white sheet. The facilitator guided the discussion around these responses. In that way, everyone can be "heard."

WHAT'S IN A NAME

In the 1990s, people didn't realize the value of a domain name, but now a domain name is like a global trademark. For $10, you can register it and get a certain level of global protection that may be worth millions. A multinational wanted to enter the U.S. market, but had not registered its name here. A small American company was using that name and had registered it as the domain for its Web site. The multinational wound up paying $10 million to buy the name, a huge windfall. There are many stories like that.

There are also stories about domain name rip-offs. ICANN must address these to preserve confidence in the system. It has also developed an arbitration system, one that operates by submissions over the Web itself with a remarkable record for efficient low-cost resolution of domain name disputes. Who knows, perhaps the ICANN arbitration system can be a global model for resolution of other disputes, too. The law of unintended consequences.

BRINGING IT HOME

We should care what ICANN does because we need to be a tech state to keep our place in the world. But even if we disagree and don't care about that, we should care about bringing ICANN here for tourism.

Before Mexico City, there was Cairo. The next will be Sydney in June. Why can't it be Honolulu, which has a $350 million Convention Center that needs the business. If we're serious about tech or tourism, then why doesn't someone try to set up an ICANN meeting here? Be bold — call June Matsumoto, director of international development at the convention center, and negotiate something. We have a lot to contribute, and it's a natural for our diversity.

By the same token, why don't more of us attend ICANN and other global tech conferences? If we want to be a tech state, travel is always broadening and can be profitable.

GETTING OUT MORE

The Internet has become both ubiquitous and empowering. That was clear from the remarks of Michael Jones, chief technology advocate of Google, who spoke at the State of the Web 2009 program last week. Jones feels that our Act 221 is very farsighted and "has created an amazingly good home for technology, and that with the Internet Hawai'i is directly across the street from everyone on the planet."

But Hawai'i has not yet achieved a common vision about keeping up with tech, due largely to the lack of top-down leadership. The long and short of it is that to take heart we need every icon of tech progress we can lay our hands on. Getting ICANN and other tech conferences to meet here would help us get connected.

ICANN also teaches us the importance and value of public participation. Has Hawai'i's tech community reached out for grassroots participation? Just as ICANN arranges public conferences around the planet, our tech industry would do well to develop public conferences around the state.

I hope Seth keeps on going to these conferences, both overseas and locally, and I hope lots of other people go along with him.

Thanks to Seth. See www.thinktechhawaii.com for the video.

Jay Fidell is a business lawyer practicing in Honolulu. He has followed tech and tech policy closely and is a founder of ThinkTech Hawaii. Check out his blog at www.HonoluluAdvertiser.com/Blogs