SELLING COMPUTER CONFERENCING TO BUSINESSES:
AN INTERVIEW WITH SUSANNA OPPER
by Hank Mishkoff


This interview with Susanna Opper, the first independent
computer conferencing consultant specializing in business
applications of electronic networking and co-founder and
president of the Electronic Networking Association, was
conducted in Parti on NWI in June and July of 1986.


Q: In business settings, computer conferencing seems to take
root in some organizations, but not in others. When you go
into an organization as a consultant, are you able to predict
with any degree of certainty whether or not conferencing might
take hold in that organization? What do you look for?

In other words: Are there any reliable predictors of the
success of computer conferencing in a particular business
environment? If so, what are they?

SO: I wish I had a scientific answer to your question. In
fact, I wish I had even a *good* answer to your question. It
strikes right at the heart of the matter for the industry
right now, I believe.

Some factors do appear to be "necessary," but they don't
appear to be "sufficient." The three factors at the top of my
list are:

* Wide proliferation of PC's (with or without modems). If
people are at home with PC's and use them regularly, they seem
to be more easily able to include conferencing in their daily
work routines.

* Active, enthusiastic sponsorship by a senior member of the
group, who will actually use the system.

* Important things to communicate about.


Q: Your final point seems the most critical: that is, if they
don't have important things to communicate about, it seems
unlikely that a business organization would buy and use a
conferencing system.

But given an acknowledged and urgent need to communicate, is it
possible to overcome the absence of either or both of the other
two factors?

For example, if they don't have a lot of PC's (or are not
comfortable using them), what are the odds that they might
acquire them (or learn how to use them) just so that they can
initiate a conferencing system?

SO: It's not only possible, it can be *probable*; if lack of
equipment is the *only* stumbling block, motivated users may
indeed purchase equipment just for this purpose. I'm aware of
several cases in which that's happened--including one that I'm
working on right now at Exxon. The trouble is that the users
who start with no equipment take a long time to get up to
speed-- and, in that time, the rest of the group can get tired
of waiting.


Q: And what if there is no enthusiastic senior member--might a
groundswell of support from the "troops" be enough to bring a
computer conferencing project to fruition?

I ask this because it seems to me that many executives and/or
managers are considerably less computer literate than the
people who work for them. I can envision situations in which
the people actually doing the work--the people with the need
to communicate--are familiar with computers and use them, but
the head honcho doesn't have any strong feelings about the
system due to lack of exposure to (or fear of) computers.

Isn't it possible to get something going in this kind of
situation? Or is the lack of high-level sponsorship too big a
hurdle to overcome?

SO: I wish I could say that "bottom-up" is a likely scenario--
but in my experience... it just isn't.

I know of a few systems sponsored by lower-level employees.
When they did, in fact, succeed it was because they were
"sold" to a senior manager. In my experience, if a senior
"advocate" hasn't bought in, it won't work.

It's simply a matter of priorities and influence. If the boss
says, "I write notes on this system; I expect others in the
department to respond" (this is a real quote, by the way), the
folks will use it. And that's that. But if some lowly worker
says, "I'm sending notes to my boss on this system, and I
expect him to read them and respond to me in kind"--well, you
see what I mean. That just doesn't hold much weight.


Q: You're saying that a computer conferencing system initiated
by low-level people may not work because there's no way that
they can insist that the boss join them (as opposed to the
other way around). But can't it succeed as a continuing effort
among the low-level people? And even keep expanding
horizontally?

SO: Sure it can. I've just never seen it happen.

Maybe that's how NOTES grew at DEC--but, of course, they
developed the system themselves. Otherwise, I just don't know
of an example.

In other words, as far as I can tell, it's a good theory; I
just don't know that it has actually ever happened that way.
But maybe other people have had different experiences.


Q: I understand that there are two different approaches to
selling computer conferencing into a business organization:
the bottom-up (work-group) approach vs. the top-down
(management) approach. I was under the impression that you
favored the work- group approach, yet your comments about the
necessity of high- level support lead me to suspect I may have
misunderstood you. Can you elaborate?

SO: This question first came up years ago. I had an answer
then, and I still have the same one. The answer to, "Should
you introduce computer conferencing top-down or bottom-up?"
is: YES. I think you should introduce it any way that you can.

But the bottom-up approach needs to have *some* clout. For
example, Bill Paul used the bottom-up approach in developing
EXNET at Exxon. But although Bill was only a manager, he was
the "top dog" in his area; he had his own budget, and he was
in a position in which he could exert influence over people.

That's what I mean when I say that some management support is
necessary. It doesn't have to be the CEO.


Q: In your article [PC Week, April 21, 1987], you cited
several reasons for the failure of computer conferencing to
live up to expectations in the business community, and you
cited short- and long-term prospects for its success. In the
long run, do you think that computer conferencing will ever
become a pervasive business tool? Will it ever become as common
as spreadsheets or word processing--or even electronic mail?

SO: The answer to your question is: yes and no.

I do think that computer conferencing will one day be as
essential to business as the telephone is today--but not in its
present form. In fact, when it becomes that ubiquitous, only
online pioneers (like the readers of NETWEAVER) may recognize
it as what we call computer conferencing today.

In fact, I expect a whole new category of software--at the
level of word processing, spreadsheets, and database
managers--to emerge over the next few years. I don't know what
to call it, and I don't know who will create the name that
will stick. But it will be a kind of "workmate" software. It
will include calendaring and project and commitment
management, as well as mail and group- or topic-centered
discussions (i.e., computer conferencing).

I expect that the only such product on the market today--The
Coordinator, from Action Technologies--will start to see some
competition in the first half of 1988.

(By the way, this week's PC Week [June 23, 1987] carries a
piece about The Coordinator. Esther Dyson describes it as "an
aggressive E-mail system with a real-time project monitor and
a self-building calendar," if that means anything. I would
describe it as the first in a new category of software that is
"activity-based." By that I mean that the developers looked at
what people actually do in a business day and then built a
software system to support that process.)


Q: Are there any short-term developments that you consider to
be particularly encouraging?

SO: I've long said that conferencing would get on the map only
when the "big guys" got into the game. And they *are* finally
beginning to show interest. DEC is selling NOTES. (I hesitate
to say "marketing," because I don't think they are really
devoting any *effort* to selling the product.) And IBM is
beginning to take Grand (one of their conferencing contenders)
seriously; I know of several potential beta-test sites.

This tells me to expect to see some activity in conferencing
in some of leading-edge companies and organizations within the
next few years.