Kieren McCarthy has two excellent posts about the Nominating Committee and his own experience with the process (here and here).

In one of the posts, he writes:

Although I note that Bret Fausett was on the first NomCom and he says that no applicants had been decided upon or dropped before the first meeting. I understand that that process has changed in the two intervening years.

Fausett also says it is “one of those rare occasions when I can support the secrecy” - although he gives no reasons for saying why. Presumably he could tell you but then he’d have to kill you. It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that I am of the complete opposite view. We’re not talking state secrets, it’s a board position on an Internet overseeing organisation.

Kieren's right that much of the Nominating Committee process, like other ICANN processes, could be made more open and transparent. This is especially true for the statistics. For example, if we had known back in June that the Nominating Committee was having difficulty gathering names from Africa and Latin America, we -- as in the entire Internet community "we" -- could have done something about that. After the fact, we're left feeling the frustration of knowing that ICANN only received 4 Statement of Interest from Africa and 5 from Latin America.

The place I assume that Kieren and I part company is on the release of the names of all candidates. Having gone through the process as a Committee member, I can share with you the fact that candidates are selected, or not selected, for a variety of reasons. It's really a question of fit at a particular time. In my Nominating Committee, we started with a needs analysis. As simply one example, we thought ICANN needed at least one or two Board candidates with strong financial or audit backgrounds. So that was one puzzle hole to fill. Find a few puzzle holes and then lay on top of that the geographical restrictions from ICANN's bylaws, and you have a selection process that doesn't necessarily mean that the most talented people in a particular field, or the best known people, are selected.

You do want the 'most talented in a particular field, best known' people to agree to stand for selection, however, and not all of them are comfortable going through a public application process. Keeping the names confidential ensures that some public figures -- and in my year we had quite a few -- are willing to go through the process. To the best of my knowledge, each Nominating Committee has kept the identity of its applicants sacrosanct.

Here's another benefit of confidentiality: it prevents the Nominating Committee from being lobbied by special interests, or even the incumbents on the ICANN Board, wanting to ensure that "their" candidate is selected -- or "the other camp's" candidate not selected.