Advocates anxious to shed their geek image

Keith Davidson, executive director of InternetNZ, doesn't want his internet advocacy group to be considered square anymore.

"To everyone but the geek community, we're perceived as being geeks. And to the geeks, well, we're something else," said Davidson, who was appointed last week.

Many of the issues InternetNZ deals with concern the public at large, so "perhaps it's time to project ourselves into that general consumer market".

He said the group would expand its presence by commenting to the Government and the media on concerns that might be outside the realm of traditional information technology.

"If there's an issue with the latest fishing scheme, or something like that, we might have something to say and have a position on it," he said.

A move toward the mainstream is only one of Davidson's goals. He also plans to continue with InternetNZ's strategic plan, which includes management of the .nz domain space, government lobbying, and establishing best-practice codes. Enum, or the mapping of phone numbers to the domain name system, will also be a major concern.

Davidson, 51, has been InternetNZ's longest-serving councillor since joining in 1998. He served as treasurer from 1999 to 2001, when he became president, a role he resigned from when appointed to his new position. He begins as executive director designate on June 20, and fully takes over from outgoing director Peter Macaulay on August 1.

Davidson brings an accounting background with him, and was publisher of the Wairarapa Times-Age. While at the paper, he developed the internet service provider Wisenet, which he then sold a year and a half ago. 

He said one of the areas the group needed to work at was its ability to juggle different projects. For the past few months, the group has been focused on establishing a code of practice for ISPs, and had perhaps let other issues fall through the cracks.

"Because something changes and we need to focus on a particular issue, we might take our eye off another particular issue in order to accomplish it," he said. Davidson is particularly excited about Enum, the goal of which is to establish a standard to provide a single number to replace the multiple numbers and addresses for an individual's home phone, business phone, fax, cellphone, and email.

"For the industry, it provides the most significant point of convergence between traditional telephony and internet protocol to date."

InternetNZ would also work to strengthen its international ties.

The organisation is hosting a meeting in March of its global counterpart, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), in Wellington.

Despite his goal to move InternetNZ into the mainstream, however, Davidson said the ICANN meeting was likely to consist of "500 uber-geeks in Wellington".

InternetNZ also opened nominations on Friday for the positions of president, vice-president and five councillors. The deadline for nominations is July 8.