ENA UPDATE
by Lisa Carlson


This issue of NETWEAVER is special for two reasons. First of all, it is a tribute to the power of networking. In the midst of preparing this issue, our "home" system went down for a week because of hardware problems. But one of our intrepid editors set up camp on another system, folks found early drafts of articles stashed away on disks, and we were able to continue working with only a brief interruption. We are more appreciative than ever of Fred Dudden and Participation Systems, Inc. for giving ENA our office beyond space and time on UNISON.

The other thing that makes this a very special issue of NETWEAVER is that participants at ENA's conference in Washington, D.C., USING THE MEDIUM, will be reading it along with the people in our vast intersystem network of electronic conferences on UNISON, PARTI on The Source, The Meta Network, EIES, COM, CoSy/Guelph, Delphi, CompuServe, The WELL, and local BBS systems around the world. We've been very excited about linking networkers from different systems for the first time to share ideas and information about current and future applications of computer conferencing. Many of us will see each other for the first time in D.C., although we have been working closely together for several months. There will also be many new to ENA in D.C. whose experiences we'll get to hear about for the first time. I can't wait!

The NETWEAVER and ENA's conference are both excellent examples of how computer conferencing can be used for getting work done by distributing leadership and responsibility among people with a high quality communication system. The editorial board of NETWEAVER has never had a "meeting" in the traditional sense although our "newsroom" is usually buzzing with activity. We never had a "meeting" of the ENA Conference Planning Committee although more than 25 people worked closely together to plan the program, do the marketing, and deal with all the details and arrangements necessary to manage a conference of this size. We've been able to take up the slack when one of us is busy with something else and involve new people on the team all the way along.

All of this has been made possible by the wonders of asynchronous communication and packet switches . We are looking forward to using our face-to-face conference to collect the experience, knowledge, and vision which makes up the state- of-the-art of this medium and then using our intersystem network to disseminate it around the world. We invite those of you who are attending the conference in D.C. to explore the electronic universe with us--and those who are online to join our conference via your terminal.

The articles in this issue of NETWEAVER should give us a great place to start our discussions. They have been written by NETWEAVER authors from many different systems and include ideas about applications of computer conferencing in education, business, and social change. You can learn about networking in Sweden, a system soon opening in New England, and how to keep up online while traveling. I hope you'll add *your* ideas to "The Benefits of Computer Conferencing" which you'll find here too.

On behalf of all the editors of NETWEAVER, the fall conference team, and ENA members around the world...

Welcome to our network!