The first lesson, simple as it is, is that whatever court we're in, whatever we are doing, at the end of our task some human being is going to be affected. Some human life is going to be changed by what we do. And so we had better use every power of our minds and our hearts and our beings to get those rulings right.

The concept of the "information society" is both vague and all-embracing. Different participants meant different things by it. In practice, though, World Summit on the Information Society only dealt with a small number of issues: ICTs and human rights (to some extent), ICTs and development (to some extent), infrastructure finance and Internet governance. Very large aspects of what might have been included in the "information society" were not really discussed.

The main drawback, of course, was cost. Participating effectively in World Summit on the Information Society was very expensive for both developing countries and (especially) civil society.

It is much easier to modify an opinion if one has not already persuasively declared it.

Kofi Annan described World Summit on the Information Society as the first summit to deal primarily with an opportunity. The range of issues and potential opportunities that might be included in the Information Society is enormous. Compromise texts are very poor at addressing these in any meaningful way, and many governments see little point in trying.

I don't think that developing countries gained from a two-stage process. A single phase summit (which is, after all, a two year process, not a three day event) would have built awareness, and would probably have led to more substantive conclusions at the end of the first summit meeting. Civil society may have gained a bit more from the networking experience, but it was less effective at networking in the second phase.

Summits [World Summit on the Information Society] are meant to help governments reach a global consensus on major issues which has proved elusive in established fora. They do so through the embarrassment associated with failing to sign a summit's final agreement.