COMPUTER CONFERENCING AND DESKTOP PUBLISHING
A Revolutionary Combination
by George Por


When I first discovered the joy of "zapping" a page of text and graphics over an ordinary phone line, having it laserprinted at the other end, and beating an "impossible" deadline, my mind started racing.

Questions begat questions: What other useful applications could we create by combining computer conferencing with the new desktop publishing tools? What kinds of products and services will develop around that combination? What are the necessary ingredients of "really good" intermedia synergy?

Let's start with the last question. By "really good," I mean that combination of the new media which pulls together the best of both worlds: the speed, interactivity, distance-independence, and time-independence of computer conferencing combined with the visual impact and broad outreach of print.

I think that corporate, public, and private electronic networks will be supplemented by print publications. Why? I feel that, if the impact of a document is important, texts that may have been passed back and forth electronically between multiple authors will finally be laserprinted on one of the new desktop models.

I have come to a growing understanding that the computer screen is not a reading device; it was never meant to be. Scrolling and scanning, yes (although not at 2400 baud); but for reading long documents, who wouldn't trade a screen for print? Why should we refuse our eyes the treat of reading a well laid-out page on which every design element serves to facilitate our absorption of the message?

Microcomputer-based desktop publishing systems actually revive interest in age-old typographical values. Many desktop publishers are every bit as fanatical about excellence as were the guild masters in the very first typography associations.


APPLICATIONS EXAMPLES

Corporations and large organizations with in-house publishing capabilities will probably witness the evolution of entirely new patterns of interdepartmental communications. The sharp drop in the cost of laserprinting will increase the communications power of divisional and departmental managers. Until recently, their publication choices were limited: either get on the publishing department's waiting list, or limit the visual impact of your message to the dull look of word-processed pages. Not any more.

Now, the new page-makeup software packages give real control over the look (and, therefore, the impact) of written communications to the groups that create documents such as messages, reports, and business plans. Pre-press production functions will shift from the corporate to the departmental level; central publishing organizations will increasingly receive camera-ready documents from their in-house clients.

Synergistic applications of communications media will find their way into associations with geographically dispersed membership. Think of the Electronic Networking Association, for example. We have members in Japan and Europe as well as in the United States, but international communications charges inhibit many of our overseas members from regularly participating in our ongoing online conferences. In certain cases, print supplements to online conferences may offer the most cost-effective way to keep our members up to date.

Another example would be an ENA decision to step up our efforts in educating the public about the medium. I can't wait for the day that ENA chapters in major regional centers will be able to download documents from our home network, to format and publish them, and to send them to the editors of major local press outlets.

The most obvious applications of the computer conferencing/ desktop publishing combo will probably emerge in education. The example closest to me is an online class for which I'm currently developing course materials. I know that I won't be able to resist the temptation to fuel the class discussion by sending my students some thought-provoking text-and-graphics documents on paper.

The combination of computer conferencing and desktop publishing will cause significant changes in writer/editor relationships at many publishing houses. Writers who are inclined to learn what's beyond word processing will soon discover that they can exert much more control over the quality of the final output if they design their own books--and use a publisher primarily to help with volume production and distribution.

Politics is another area in which the marriage of computer conferencing with desktop publishing will be fruitful. When a new political generation with new ideas arrives at the top, it will need a new communications structure--both so that it can learn about valuable social innovations, and so that it can disseminate that knowledge. The last decade of this millennium will see a number of new products and services that are designed to generate and disseminate new ideas quickly.


TESTING MY HUNCHES

One mind-amplifying way of using the networks is to test your hunches. For example, if you have a hot idea that you want to validate, take it to the networks. If any of them grasp the "sparkle" of your idea, you'll find that notes, comments, and messages will come to you from different quarters; the input will focus on, explore, and nurture your idea--and question its implementation and implications.

Last summer, to test my own hunches about the emerging inter- media scene, I started to discuss them. Currently, the ENA has an Intermedia Synergy Cluster with an ongoing meeting on Unison; you are invited to join us there.

Other electronic spaces in which intermedia applications are being discussed include: "Groupminds and Online Communities" and "Inventing a Multiplayer, Multimind Game"--topics 7 and 19, respectively, of the MIND conference on the WELL; "Game of Games" on Unison; and item 486 in Meta:Net, the central conference of The Meta Network. Drop into any of these discussions, or attach your comments and questions about our work to this issue of Netweaver.


A COMMUNICATIONS REVOLUTION

In THE NETWORK NATION (Addison-Wesley, 1978), Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff list futurist Gordon Thompson's three criteria of what constitutes a communications revolution.

1) "It will ease the access to stored human experiences."

That means that if we don't want to contribute to the creation of "have-access" and "have-no-access" classes, we'd better develop new ways to combine computer conferencing with other media so as to increase its accessibility.

2) "It will increase the size of the common
communications space shared by the communicants, and
therefore increase the amount of shared information
and interaction among them."

I think that one of the main functions of combining several previously unrelated communications vehicles is just that: to increase the size of the shared communications space. What kind of intermedia applications can you picture that would further enlarge our communications space?

3) "It will increase the ease with which new ideas can be
developed and spread throughout a society."

What kind of societal or organizational experimentation can you envision that would allow you to test how easily new ideas can be developed and disseminated by using a computer conferencing system in conjunction with a desktop publishing system?

If you want to see an actual intermedia product, ask for the first two issues of "High^Lights from The Meta Network," a hardcopy newsletter based exclusively on materials selected and reprinted from the network's online conferences. Please send $1 to defray mailing costs.

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Author's Note: George Por is the director of HIGH^LIGHTS Research &
Publishing Co. and a co-founder of the Electronic Networking Association.
Address correspondence to HIGH^LIGHTS, 3051 Adeline St., Suite E,
Berkeley, CA 94703; phone: (415) 548- 8213. You can contact George online
at The Source (BDB404), Unison (George Por), The WELL (george), and The
Meta Network (George Por).