Icann Reviews

Pros

Flexible: dress code, hours, telework.
ICANN closes down for X-mas thru New years.
Travel (if you are viewed as useful, which is tricky)
Smart colleagues
Cool industry- always something going on in the "space"

Cons

Unreasonable workload
Community can be borderline abusive with staff
Being a non-regulated industry, some business units, such as Compliance, can seem like they are drinking from a fire hydrant, given the volume of complaints versus the resources (and collaboration within ICANN) to address problems.
Perceived lack of independence of ICANN w/r/t its need to serve the global internet community, not its contracted parties.
Old timers, or legacy employees, are the circle of trust which can be difficult to penetrate.

Advice to Senior Management

Do as you preach: make ICANN less MdR-centric. Also, ICANN will never be the "Internet nation state", no matter how much leadership tries to sell that weird idea to the UN.

Pros

Smart colleagues and great benefits. The work is interesting and challenging.

Cons

A lot of smart capable people working in silo's with a lack of communication between departments. Upper management is out of touch with the everyday frustrations of hardworking employee's. There are some very capable managers that are respected by their teams and some managers who are either ineffective or incompetent in their positions.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to take a serious look at who is in management that shouldn't be and which employee's aren't in management that should be.

Pros

Great benefits
Smart people
International work on the forefront of future Internet policy
Flexible work hours
New recruits coming in from larger well established companies

Cons

Far to reactionary an organiztion.
Company needs to evolve from start up mind set to medium size mindset
Need to mature departmental roles, responsiblitilies, processes and procedures
Need to recruit talent from larger organizations that can stop the reactionary nature of current management.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire in top talent from large companies that can bring mature practices to ICANN

Pros

Exceptional health, dental and vision. Great retirement savings match.
Global organization with international travel for many employees.
Interesting and challenging work.

Cons

Work life balance is difficult with all the travel and late night or early morning conference calls.
Constant criticism from global Internet community wears people down and creates a bunker mentality.
New leadership has created a lot of uncertainty.
Little or no training and development.

Advice to Senior Management

Walk the talk when it comes to looking after employees, and stop rewarding people who bring the culture down and don't really care about the community.