The electronic environment is the principal means of notation, connection, exchange, and concertation of The Commons . It is not only our main means of communications and collaboration (our medium, and hence at least part of our message), but it also has the advantage, potentially, of being a medium with a memory. And that, we think, is going to be very important! Although it will be understandable that most people who get to know the electronic environment by entering it on the World Wide Web, there is considerably more to it than that. The overall e/e structure offers not one but several main interlocking elements and building blocks:
The electronic environment is a dedicated WWW Site within The Commons which is being developed to provide a lively and easily accessible international forum where private individuals can get to exchange views and materials, and to try to hammer out some consensus positions and initiatives on the difficult issues of technology and society which are not currently being met properly by either governments or other institutions. The Commons has its own ethical and intellectual terms, which may rule it out for some, though we would not be pleased to think that the targeted combination of open curiosity, careful thinking, prudent activism, commitment to democratic process, energy, individual responsibility, and sense of community will put off too many of those whom we might wish to have on board and contributing to the problem solving process that is so much needed.
Invisible Colleges:
An on-site Event Support System:
Event Linkages and Extension:
Second, the electronic environment provides a splendid means for those who are responsible for organizing that event -- IF they are capable of learning from others, and in this new environment -- to gain additional insight, information and inputs from the outside world. It has been our observation that one of the main limitations of many past attempted remedial projects is that they area all too often conceived and carried out in a certain ‘splendid isolation’. There are almost always excellent justifications given to explain why wider public knowledge is “not appropriate at this particular point”. The sad truth, however, is that these justifications are almost always wrong and, indeed, never in the long run interest of the public. These second prong of the electronic environment is therefore to provide a two-way link between events and the “outside world”, and is almost certain to emerge and among its most important justifications. But it will also doubtless emerge as one of the reasons why such sharing will be resisted in many places. One really has to be quite self-confident in both ethical and overall technical terms in order to take this unfamiliar step of opening up your plan or project for the world to look at and comment on. (A quick look at the Access - Sustainable Transport Forum will give you one idea of how this can work.)
The electronic environment is intended not only as a medium to support exceptional undertakings or “events” such as conferences, demonstrations, etc., but also as a cost-effective, environmentally benign support system for daily work at many levels. (Think of it as “beyond phone, fax and diskettes.) In addition to using computers, phone access (the faster the better), etc., for videoconferencing -- itself now an inexpensive option for many -- it includes the practical use of available state of the arts such as high speeds modems, ISDN, etc., in association with the above in order to carry out useful tasks such as “whiteboarding” (i.e., the capability of working directly on each other’s computers in order to challenge or exchange ideas, information, resolve differences, etc.), high speed data transfers, more varied uses of email type transfers, etc., as well as more, more integrated, and more effective use of various modes (i.e., multi-modality) each day. The point we wish to register here is that this is a rich and enormously fast evolving universe of technology and practice, and within the electronic environment we are spending both time and resources not only in proselytizing for these new tools, but also in putting them to use to get important tasks accomplished in our daily work. (We also are tying to build in the use of these technologies into our various conference and event projects on the electronic environment.
Thus, in the Vancouver meeting, several speakers and panelists will be able thereby to address the meeting from their desks without having to travel to Vancouver, and to respond realtime to questions. Likewise in the MIRTI program, the various principal team members in Italy, France, Austria and Germany are installing full electronic environment communications packages in order to take best advantage of the team work potential which normally is so hard to achieve in most international project of this sort.)
This last use of the electronic environment combines several of the above. The idea is to make use of these technologies to link distant sites, and otherwise encourage and facilitate teleexchanges in support of any given meeting or event. The goal is to use the best of these available technologies in order to permit meetings and the like in the future to be more timeless and place-less than they ever have been in the past, and thereby overcome many of their historic and structural limitations. Thus, for example, instead of scheduling the 1997 European Telework Assembly in Stockholm, as was originally planned, it should now be possible both (a) to let the meeting start many months in advance of its formal opening and (b) be simultaneously held in a number of different Swedish locations (with different levels of electronic interface, depending on...). The logical extension of that, of course, will be to organize the 1998 meeting, wherever the ‘core get together’ might be held, as a parallel meeting with on-line electronic connections of many sorts, not only in that country but in any other place that might care to ‘share the agenda’ on that particular date. (For those who may wish a first run-up, we propose you have a look at the plans in progress for the 1996 European Telework Assembly in Vienna, where the first vestiges of this approach can already be discerned.)
Here briefly are the six layers or sets of communications tools available to us for international collaborative work of the sort addressed under The Commons. It begins at the very simplest level (email) and takes it from there. All but the last can be accessed and put to work by anyone with nothing more elaborate than a computer, modem and phone line.
Once one begins to use email as a somewhat broader pipe for exchanging different forms of information, including fully formatted documents, spreadsheets and graphics, an entirely different environment emerges: one which requires different work and thought patterns than what might be thought of as "email 1" or "barebones" or "primitive" email. The latter still have their role, but the kind of message that comes through now begins to define both the medium and the process for reception, digestion and response. It is in this more developed communications context that the present project is proposed.
The basic tools of "email 2" or the full function version which we propose to harness for the task ahead include (a) file zipping or compression (which cuts transmission times and costs considerably) and (b) encoding (which permits the transmission of more complex formatted files via the otherwise-ASCII only email pipe). The third horse for the email troika is the so-called ftp (file transfer protocol) which is useful for document sharing and access. (In this way, you can use the net in order to store and access files with a level of convenience and costs that is not far from that of having another, and infinitely large, disk drive). For those who are not currently users of these three small and low cost (or even free) utilities, the following may be useful.
Typical usage in order to send a binary file via e-mail would be:
Easiest of all, you can just tap HERE to go to the ftp site we have set up in support of this project where you will find ready for downloading a number of good shareware ad freeware programs that will execute these important and useful function.
Netiquette = Do Not Abuse! A final word on use protocols or what sometimes hovers under the simpering term "netiquette" will be appropriate here. Email and the Net are two devices which are born and bred in facility. In actual practice, however, this very facility can work against real communications and effective group work. We know that information-overload = communications failure, so both in general and in this particular set of exchanges we must guard carefully against the facile tendency to overload. (If you have any doubts about this, may I suggest that you check into a handful of discussion groups on the net and attempt to follow and participate in what happens there in almost all cases. You will find trivial communication, loquaciousness, and very other forms of abuse of your time and concentration will quickly spoil the fun and usefulness in almost all cases.)
In our future contacts we here at EcoPlan will try hard to respect your time and energies, and ask that we all be very very careful in ensuring that only well thought out and germane materials are communicated by these means. (As you will see, I have a close to paranoid attitude about information overload, and I hope that you will find it one of the better sins.)
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updated by WebMeister/100336.2154@compuserve.com
on 14 August 1996How Does it Work?
The electronic environment (e/e) on the World Wide Web :
The purpose of an “invisible college” under the electronic environment is to harness the Web and Internet as a means for allowing concerned individuals and groups around the world to join forces to examine specific targeted issues of technology and society in a relatively free-form way over a period of years. The idea here is to take on some of the obvious limitations of the usual conference, closed research project, or print publication -- and open the event up to new sources of ideas and insight, as well as to a continuity of effort and attention which is closer to being commensurate with the challenges than the usual short periods of time that are allotted to these older approaches. (There are a number of “invisible college” projects currently getting under way, and if you are searching for a reasonable prototype you might consider beginning by having a look at the New Work site.)
The electronic environment offers a practical and cost-effective support system for those directly involved in a specific planned event, such as a meeting, research program, demonstration project, etc. This is in a way the most banal face of the e/e, to the extent that it is the most straight forward and, thus, easily understandable. This relative familiarity does not, however, render it any the less important or potentially useful. In the context of a meeting, for example, a good Web site can permit those who assemble in that physical place at the allotted time to, as the expression goes, “hit the ground running”. By using the Web site as, at the very least, an electronic bulletin broad, those who attend the meeting can thereby already have had prior access to the various papers, have read the Vitae of the other participants, follow agenda changes, etc. The e/e also provides them with a means for continuing their exchanges and eventual collaboration well after the physical meeting has been adjourned. (The best example of this thus far is the work that has been done in support of the OECD Vancouver Conference, which can be usefully examined for a first idea of some of the detail and ways in which such an electronic support system can be organized and deployed).
A properly organized Web site can also serve as an efficient link between the event and anybody anywhere else in the world who may either wish to follow it as it occurs, or possibly to participate as actively as possible (in the case of a meeting, for example, these are the so-called External or Distance Participants). These parallel activities can be useful in two quite different ways.
First, the electronic environment provides a means whereby those who cannot travel to that place, get into that particular meeting hall or facility, or afford to participate, can nevertheless follow the various happenings and accomplishments of that event. (Among the categories whom we are particularly trying to favor in such supporting deployments are students, unemployed people and others who may not be able to afford the price of admission, which often can be quite high, as well as those who either live too far away or who have mobility limitations which prevent them from gaining direct access to the event site.)
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A State-of-the-Art Telework Interface.
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An Electronic Support Structure Available to Facilitate Parallel Events.
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Communications Routines for International Collaborative Work
Email - Basic User Notes:
There is more to email than may at first strike the eye, even that of the frequent user. For most of us it is a convenient means for brief exchanges and fast turn arounds; indeed it is often typical that when we are busy, an email message will get either an immediate response or alternatively none at all. This gives them a certain hasty and reactive character – which is of course not exactly what we are aiming for in this particular case.
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Software Acquisition:
There are many programs that can execute these important and useful communications functions. They are available as freeware, shareware of commercially, and can be obtained separately or as part of a package. One way you can get these is through your local computer supplier or store. Another is via the software forums on CompuServe, Genie, Prodigy, America on Line. Alternatively a search through AltaVista, Lycos or some other server will turn up many available programs. A quick trip to http://town.hall.org/Harvest/brokers/pcindex/query.html will turn up a large number of freeware and share-ware versions of each.
A good all-purpose (zipping + uuencoding) package is WinPack. More on their shareware product is available through: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/RetroSpect or 71540,1240 CIS or snow@retrospect.com
For those who use Windows 95, as convenient a way as any is by purchasing Norton Navigator which handles all three of these useful utilities in an easy to learn and use package. (This package can be purchased locally in most places or you can contact the Symantec Corp at 1-800-441-7243, 1-541-334-6054 or http://www.symantec.com.)
For ftp software, the following sites are useful:
ftp://winftp.cica.indiana.edu/pub/pc/win3/winsock/
THE MESSAGE IS THE MEDIUM:
Some of us receive so much email that we no longer pay any attention to it. I know people who receive 300 or more messages a day, which of course is getting close to zero communications. I mention this because we want to make sure in this case that we have a mailbox that you will want to give attention to. If you have several, hopefully you will chose to give us the one that you access most often and most carefully.Final cautionary note:
Documents or communications of more than one or two screenfuls often can benefit greatly from being printed out. That small screen on our terminals is handy as a frame for certain lev-els of information intake, but years of experience shows that it needs that for the kinds of more complex mate-rials that are being developed within this group effort, the paper complement is close to indispensable. So, with a call for prudence and apologies to the forests… MODEST USE OF YOUR PRINTER IS RESPECTFULLY SUGGESTED.
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