Is Beckstrom tiring of his one-man world tour?

So you've got $400,000 and four months to spread global awareness of new Internet extensions. Do you...

• Hold a competition with big prizes?
• Start an online advertising campaign?
• Provide materials to the 2,000 international attendees at your meetings and get them to spread the word?
• Join up with companies already promoting the extensions?
• All of the above?

Or... do you think like a starfish, scrap all this proven marketing nonsense, and spend the money sending your lame-duck CEO on a five-star world tour so he can spend a few hours in total on stage soothing his bruised ego?

It's a no-brainer! Literally.

But, what's this? Has even this extravagant gold-lined exit started to tire ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom?

Check out the latest photo of the mighty Rodster on the ICANN site - no, not the one with him and the President of Lebanon; no, not the one with him and the Brazilians from CGI.br; no, not the one with him holding fort on stage in London; no, not the video of him talking about his, ahem, decision to leave ICANN; the one with him on stage at Gitex in Dubai. Here it is:

Look carefully... is that Beckstrom giving his audience the two-fingered salute? It certainly looks like it.

Is it possible that the man who delights in being in the spotlight so much that wherever he goes he is accompanied by two Sherpas with a fold-out mini-stage and PA system has grown tired of flying around the world, staying in five-star hotels, and providing limp pronouncements about how ICANN is a steward, not an advocate, and people shouldn't really bother applying for new gTLDs?

It hardly seems probable, but here is the evidence closer up:

Of course, we could be horribly mistaken and ICANN's Superstar is simply pointing out two things to his audience:

1. If I raise my profile sufficiently maybe someone will hire me before ICANN finds a new CEO and I have to pack up my desk
2. I should be in Los Angeles trying to get the gTLD program back on schedule but my entire comms team only knows how to promote me and so this is where we've ended up

Never fear, Rod, we hear that the gTLD comms budget has almost run out of money and the Board doesn't want to waste allocate any more funds to the One Man World Tour.

But at only $100,000 per hour on stage, you have to wonder why ICANN doesn't throw its entire $51.7m reserve fund into the mix - that would buy nearly NINE DAYS of Beckstrom insights. I think we can all agree the world would be a better place at the end of it.