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Checking In
Emissions Reduction Focus
WebCast Demo
Last Weeks
Week of 16-22 March 1998Registrations: Over this last week both this track and the overall conference came to life. Formal registrations opened on Friday the 13th, and by Monday the first four dozen participants had already taken contact. One of the most interesting things about this first set was the fact that they already represent more than a dozen countries, including a few welcome surprises. A quick visit to the Participants List to your immediate left will help to clarify this for yourself.
Pros and Cons: The first handful of papers has now been added to the Pros and Cons section, and you will see that there is considerable variety of opinion on the themes and points of view set out in the Null Hypothesis. If you look carefully however, you may observe some patterns emerging. We remain optimistic that the conference will lead to some useful insights and guides for policy makers and researchers.
WebBoard: As expected discussions have begun to pick up under the WebBoard, to which you are also referred. Since most people have become accustomed to more passive uses of the Web in cases similar to this ("email is for communicating, the Web is for consulting?"), we anticipate that it is going to take a bit of time for our visitors to get use to the facility and potential usefulness of the same kinds of two way flow that make physical meetings as effective as they are. We can, however, already go at least part way in this direction, for those who are willing to try.
TeleTools: In this same respect, we intend to make a special effort over the next weeks to draw to your attention and introduce a certain number of new communications that can also be useful in this regard. The first of these is the ICQ utility which we mentioned to you last week (see below), but we understand that these need to be more clearly explained. This we hope will now happen. At the same time, you are invited to draw our attention to utilities and tools that you think have a place in a good teleconference such as this.
Teleconferencing Realities: Planning, Funding, Managing: You will find some informative exchanges on this subject in the telework track in the WebBoard. You will also find a few interesting examples there of other conferences and approaches. Recommended reading for anyone who may be thinking of doing somethign along these lines themselves.
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Over this period we suggest that you may wish to check the site at least once a week, not only to view the new content and results of the discussions, but also to add in your own materials, suggestions and comments. We look forward to hearing from you.
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Week of 1-8 March 1998 What's New in the Telework Track this week is the track itself. Incoming participants are invited to move right on over to the Track Bar to the left and move down it, starting if you wish with the moderator's proposed Null Hypothesis, which is the strong, some may say argumentative or even opinionated statement which is intended to set off the discussions. Once you have had a look there (and perhaps already lodged your reactions, protests or support), you may then wish to work your way right down the remaining sessions in the order shown. At each stop along the way, you may have thoughts, reactions and comments that you wish to share with the meeting. The means for doing this (think of this as grabbing the microphone) have been plentifully supplied. Since this has been designed as an interactive exercise, we are counting on your inputs, suggestions and guiding remarks. You will note that there are several venues for discussion and exchange. You will find these amply introduced in the Help Desk. The main instrument for this is the Go to Discussions link, which is conveniently located over to your left and available to you at all times throughout the conference. There is also a direct email option which you can use to get our attention. We will be interested to have your views concerning which of these feedback mechanisms work best for you. This component of the conference is intended to serve not only an information function - something that is valuable but certainly not unique, since there are some other telework oriented sites out there that are already doing quite a good job in this regard, albeit each from its own particular perspective and interest - but also hopefully a more activist role. The place for these ideas for concrete initiatives, follow up and next steps is the closing session in this track, Next Steps. We are hopeful that from very early on suggestions, ideas and invitations will start appearing here which will build on our common understanding of what is, and of what is important, in this fast growing and not always perfectly understood area of activity. It will be the content - and eventually the impact - of what occurs here that will in our view be one of the main justifications of the conference. Week of 9-15 March 1998You may have noted that the overall conference site was totally overhauled since last Monday, with the result that the materials in the various tracks -- ours included -- are being logged in and extended at something of a delay. Likewise the various lists (of participants, papers) will take a few days to be updated. That said, the basic structure of our meeting of minds is now fully in place, and the main argument that we wish to discuss over the next month is there for you to see and argue (the Null Hypothesis). At this point our main interest is in gathering papers that address the basic issue of telework and its environmental impacts, positive, negative and neutral, and in getting the discussion going on our new WebBoard facility. Also, if you can lend a hand in informing news groups, listservers and the like concerning our meeting, this will help us attain the critical mass to make this a productive and possibly significant exercise in putting telework to work. Back to topGo to The Null Hypothesis |
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