The ultra-secret ICANN Nominating Committee meets this weekend to select new members of the Board, GNSO Council, ccNSO Council, and At Large Advisory Committee.  I served on the first ICANN NomComm, and this is one of those rare occasions when I can support the secrecy. It's nice to know the timing of the meetings though, even if we won't be aware of the results for several more weeks.

In my year, the weekend retreat in Boston -- this year's Committee is meeting in Frankfurt -- was really where all of the important decisions were made. The weeks leading up to the in-person meeting were spent recruiting candidates, soliciting references, and reading the applications and referrals.  No one had been "cut," and no one had been "appointed," before we arrived. Each Nominating Committee sets its own procedural rules for candidate evaluation, but I'm assuming that this committee generally will follow the same sort of process.

My name in not among those up for consideration, so I'm free to say, without looking like I'm sucking up, good luck to everyone who will be locked in a conference room this weekend in a Frankfurt hotel. It's a really hard, time-consuming, and often painful job. The pain comes in having innumerable qualified candidates and a limited number of spaces. I'm sure this year's committee will face the same tough choices that mine did. I don't envy them.