ENA UPDATE
by Lisa Kimball

We usually review ENA's activities for the past month in this column. But this month it seems fitting to review ENA's accomplishments of 1985 as well. It's been quite a year!


PORTING
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"Porting"--the process of downloading material from one conferencing system and uploading it to another--really took off when we began discussing issues related to moderating online discussions and managing computer networks in a set of conferences on multiple networks which began last January. Large amounts of material became part of our common knowledge base, and we got excited about the experience we could share and the possibility of influencing the development of this medium through collective action. Porting has now become a familiar feature of the electronic universe and ENA has taken the lead to develop ethical norms and technical strategies for this process.

SYMPOSIUM
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Fifty networkers from many different systems met in April in New York City for the First Intersystem Electronic Networking Symposium. We developed the mission statement for a new organization--ENA. Mike Greenly's online coverage of this event was ported to many systems and helped develop a broader base of interest in ENA and its goals. Many who attended the Symposium agreed to take on leadership roles to get the organization started. The concept that there is a lot more to computer conferencing than hardware and software was firmly established, and we recognized many management and social concerns held in common by vendors, researchers, users, and designers on all the different systems.

ELECTRONIC OFFICE
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At the April Symposium, Fred Dudden and Harry Stevens contributed the use of the Participate system on the UNISON network as a meeting place for ENA to use during its early development. The use of this resource--and the wonderful support from Fred and his staff during 1985--has made it possible for ENA to use the medium to build an organization. This has enabled us to experiment and learn from our own experience about how to conduct business online. We are currently working on a strategy to fund this resource for ENA in 1986, and we send heartfelt thanks to Fred and UNISON for making it possible for us to exist in 1985!

NETWEAVER
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In August, we published the first issue of NETWEAVER--our intersystem newsletter. NETWEAVER is now published simultaneously every month on many conferencing systems and bulletin boards around the world thanks to our ENA Porters, who have mastered the process of downloading and uploading into and out of all kinds of systems. It contains a wide range of articles about computer conferencing which are written by authors from our intersystem network. NETWEAVER's editors meet in an electronic newsroom on UNISON and have made significant advances in the application of this medium to electronic publication.

CONFERENCE
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ENA's conference, USING THE MEDIUM, drew almost 200 networkers to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. in November. In addition to providing a forum for the discussion of key topics and issues related to computer conferencing, the conference gave us an opportunity to get to know each other in a new way. It was particularly exciting to have many of ENA's international members at the conference, and we really began to take on a more global perspective as a result. We also began to show how powerful me might become as a group when participants in the session on Telelaw convinced a key legislative aide to rethink some aspects of a proposed law. The conference was planned and managed by a team of more than 25 people who never met in person prior to the conference and, since several key people weren't able to attend, have never been all in the same place at the same time! This was truly an example of the ability to get significant things done via a network. We are now developing plans for conferences in the future, and we are starting by exploring the possibilities of Springtime in Denver '86 and a European conference in 1987.

BECOMING KNOWN
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Many members of ENA have been concerned about communicating the benefits
of the medium beyond the online community. Articles about the Symposium, the organization, and the conference have appeared in a number of publications in the computer industry. Several of our members have published articles which feature a wider range of applications of the medium than previously reported in the computer press. In November, we made the breakthrough to the general interest news media when ENA's mission statement appeared in a TIME magazine article called "Here Come the Networkers" (November 25, 1985, p100). We are currently discussing a number of projects related to providing information and ideas about computer conferencing to people who have not yet discovered the medium.

ORGANIZATION
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Probably our most significant accomplishment in 1985 was the development of a plan for the organization and governance of ENA which we worked on for several months online and adopted at the conference in November. We are currently in the process of setting up an innovative organizational structure to take advantage of the unique qualities the online environment can provide, e.g. a network rather than hierarchical form of organization, a meeting place which allows participation by people who are distributed geographically, and asynchronous communication, which allows us to work together on focused activities outside of the usual constraint of having to find a time convenient to everyone. We have struggled with issues of decision making and leadership online. One of ENA's major contributions may be the extent to which we can serve as a model of the electronic organization.

This issue of NETWEAVER reflects many of the concerns ENA addressed in 1985. We have focused on *using* the medium, and you will find articles on the use of conferencing by a large church organization and for a series of personal support groups. There are also articles related to the management of networks, including a report from the management session at ENA's conference, a discussion about personal productivity, and ideas about teaching online. Characteristics of the medium itself are addressed in articles on desirable features for future CC systems and the potential health hazards of CRTs.

1985 ended on a sad note when ENA founding member David Rodale died on December 23rd. David was an early and enthusiastic supporter of ENA and a pioneer in the medium. He was also a very dear friend--online and off--to many of us, and he will be sorely missed. This issue contains a tribute to David by providing a reprise of "Weekend", one of the touchstone conferences in the history of the medium, created by David in March, 1984.

We're looking forward to an exciting and productive year in ENA and we hope you'll JOIN us in shaping the future of electronic networking!