UASG Colleagues: I am pleased to see UASG planning starting to embrace a longer time horizon than our current 1-year plans. The staff announced a process[1] to make a Five Year Strategic Plan[2]. However, I think that the first draft of the plan[2] is conceptually mistaken. I will try to summarise my thoughts here. Unfortunately, I cannot attend the ICANN78 session, "Five-Year Planning for Universal Acceptance (UA) and Governance of UA Steering Group (UASG)"[3], because it is in the middle of sleep in my time zone. Part of the conceptual frame of the current draft is in the section "Way Forward". It says, "The Universal Acceptance Steering Group is committed to achieving Universal Acceptance for all internet users.… UASG aims to make significant strides towards Universal Acceptance.… UASG would aim to set targets for UA adoption for the next five years…" This positions the UASG as the primary actor in achieving Universal Acceptance — not website operators like Facebook, not email services like GMail, not software vendors like Microsoft, but UASG. I think it is a big mistake for UASG to think of itself that way. We are not the primary actor in achieving Universal Acceptance. We are a small, maybe well-informed, but not very noticeable commentator on the sidelines. The primary actors are thousands upon thousands of organisations and people making economic choices about the websites, email services, and technologies which they buy or sell or develop. If we are not the primary actor for UA, what can we do? We can become the best-informed resource for Universal Acceptance information. We can become experts on those economic choices which do drive Universal Acceptance. We can learn and explain the economic and strategic factors driving Universal Acceptance. We can become experts on why actors choose Universal Acceptance, and why they do not. We can help willing customers find willing sellers of Universally-Accepting products. We can celebrate and bring attention to those actors who are driving Universal Acceptance success[4]. Another part of the conceptual frame is on the next two pages: "UASG will continue to work with its existing stakeholders….", and "For this purpose, UASG will work through its existing working groups.…". I think it is a big mistake for UASG to not have any component of self-reflection and structural improvement in the Five-Year Plan. UASG should be asking itself, how effective are we? Will more technology-focussed working group meetings, more small-scale contracts for technology evaluations, and more reports move the needle for UA? We should be evaluating which of our activities are having a big impact, and which are not. We should be reflecting on how well our current structure of Working Groups made up of a small, mostly ad-hoc group of volunteers is action performing. We should be thinking of what structural changes will make us more effective. I think UASG needs to reach beyond engineers educating engineers. What other areas of activity should UA take on? I think we should start to examine how business strategies and economic forces drive or obstruct universal acceptance. We should have business people examining economic incentives in UASG. I think UASG does not possess nor communicate a clear understanding of the strategic situation for Universal Acceptance. What are the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats for Universal Acceptance in the global market? What are the major obstacles? Part of our five-year work should be to build this understanding, then communicate it, then make our annual plans build on this understanding. For example, each working group's annual plan should explain how it is attempting to overcome the strategic obstacles which we understand to be blocking Universal Acceptance. I remain happy to be helping promote Universal Acceptance. I would like to see UASG be even more effective. I think a five year plan can help us get here. I think this draft of the five year plan is conceptually mistaken. I hope that we can use the five year plan idea to elevate our conversation to coming up with a better conceptual structure to build on. I apologise if this message is rough and poorly written. I wanted to get the ideas into circulation, and it is late here, so this is the best I can do right now. I welcome the discussion. Best regards, —Jim DeLaHunt [1] "[UA-Tech] UASG Five Year Strategic Planning FY(2025 - 2029)" <https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/ua-tech/2023-October/000679.html> [2] "Developing Five Year Strategic Plan FY (2025 - 2029) For the Universal Acceptance Steering Group" <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D2obkDSmhH-6mI5BDQT06F0ox42MCRL2h2a-e6wY...> [3] "Five-Year Planning for Universal Acceptance (UA) and Governance of UA Steering Group (UASG)" 08:30 UTC, 24 October 2023 <https://icann78.sched.com/event/1T4OU/five-year-planning-for-universal-accep...> [4] Jothan Frakes has a great idea, to recognise "Champions of UA" <https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/ua-tech/2023-October/000680.html> -- --Jim DeLaHunt, jdlh@jdlh.com http://blog.jdlh.com/ (http://jdlh.com/) multilingual websites consultant, Vancouver, Canada