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This issue of Netweaver was distributed in March 1986
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Volume 2, Number 3 ---CONTENTS--- March 1, 1986
1 Masthead and Index
2 ENA UPDATE
by Lisa Kimball
3 UNDERSTANDING RESISTANCE TO COMPUTER CONFERENCING, Part 1
by Martin E.H. Lee-Gosselin and Helene Lee-Gosselin
4 UNDERSTANDING RESISTANCE TO COMPUTER CONFERENCING, Part 2
by Martin E.H. Lee-Gosselin and Helene Lee-Gosselin
5 COMPUTER CONFERENCING AND DESKTOP PUBLISHING
by George Por
6 BATCH READ AND BLINK, Part 1
by Al Martin
7 BATCH READ AND BLINK, Part 2
by Al Martin
8 ENA UPDATE: Summaries of Activity in Communications Clusters
9 ENA UPDATE: Summaries from the ETHICS Cluster and the BUSINESS Cluster
10 BOOK REVIEW
by Lisa Kimball
BOOK REVIEW
by Lisa Kimball
BRAVE NEW WORKPLACE: America's Corporate Utopias--How They Create New Inequalities and Social Conflict in Our Working Lives, by Robert Howard. Viking Penguin, Inc., New York, 1985.
In the introduction to this thought provoking book, Robert Howard points out the irony of the use of a Chaplinesque image to market IBM PCs. Chaplin, the first media figure to depict the alienation of the assembly line, is now delivered from boring, dirty, alienating work by the computer. Many of us have embraced that image of new technology ushering in a new era of flexibility, satisfaction, and personal power at work. But Howard cautions us against assuming that new technology will necessarily take us in that direction:
When technology is linked to the imperatives of
corporate control, work often becomes the antithesis
to the realm of freedom that the image of Charlie
Chaplin before the personal computer suggests.
If we want technology to move us in the more positive direction, Howard asserts that we will need to create and support new institutions dedicated to social control of technology and work.
Howard provides many anecdotal examples of the role of managerial control in supporting the negative outcomes of new technology. He believes that,
How workers acquire skills, what opportunities they
have to exercise them, the very quality of the skills
they learn and use are at the center of the
contradictions of control in the brave new workplace.
In many of his examples, workers whose jobs have changed as a result of new technology are NOT the ones benefiting from the elimination of its boring aspects. Instead, new layers of specialization have been created BETWEEN the worker and his/her tools, sometimes having the effect of eliminating the parts of the job which require judgment and creativity. This often reduces rather than increases productivity.
The mission of the Electronic Networking Association (ENA) reflects a belief that the medium of computer conferencing can make a positive contribution to the development of individuals and organizations. Articles about this medium have stressed its "democratic" structure, participatory process, and potential to loosen up the traditional communication patterns within organizations. But as use of the medium increases, we are beginning to see examples of its dark side (see Catharine Vinson's article in NETWEAVER Vol. 2, no. 2 and the article in this issue by Martin and Helene Lee-Gosselin). Howard suggests some specific problems with the introduction of technology to the workplace which we can be mindful of as this medium develops:
1. Managerial assumptions and values motivating the use of new computer
technology in the workplace which may be confused and contradictory.
2. Flawed attempts to "humanize" the workplace which talk of new
participatory management styles in organizations but continue to create
occupational health and safety hazards for workers using new technology.
3. Inequalities of power which continue to shape working life and may make
the introduction of new technology just another example of workers' lack
of control over their working environment.
Howard's thesis is that we make a mistake if we view technological development as "purely" technological rather than as the "sometimes messy act of social construction, built upon a foundation of myriad interests and goals."
He specifically cites new technologies of computer and advanced telecommunications as the "central nervous system of the brave new workplace" and describes decisions determining their use as intimately affecting "work organization, corporate investment, products and markets, even industrial efficiency itself." The process of its introduction to the workplace is, therefore, critical to the relationship of technology and work overall.
Howard suggests that we have a responsibility to take an active role in this process and that *all* the social and institutional groups affected by the changes in working life brought by technology be represented in the decisions and choices made about these changes. These groups should include: the workers who use the technology, the unions who represent them, the designers, citizens who must live with technology's impacts, and government officials who approve public spending on research and development and who should also represent the "public good."
Were even a small minority of concerned computer
professionals to begin to speak out on the "social
responsibility of the systems designer" and, as in
Scandinavia, even join together informally and
formally with unions and other "user representative
groups" in order to create alternative approaches to
planning technology and work, then the project to
enlarge people's realm of choice in the brave new
workplace would take a giant step.
BRAVE NEW WORKPLACE is a challenging book. I found Howard's view of management somewhat stereotypical in terms of lack of sensitivity to organizational culture and worker satisfaction and his view of the traditional role of unions somewhat utopian. But the questions he raises are important ones for us all to address and I very much appreciated his assertion that WE are ultimately responsible for the how the new workplace turns out.
ENA UPDATE
Summaries of Activity in Communications Clusters
ENA has several Clusters which are focused on communication. Some projects are focused on communicating information about ENA itself and others are focused on reaching out to disseminate information about computer conferencing and related issues.
PUBLICATIONS CLUSTER by Catharine Vinson
"PUBLICATIONS" is a *working*, as well as a discussion-focused Cluster. It concerns itself with current ENA publications, i.e. "NETWEAVER" (Lisa Kimball, Managing Editor), special publishing projects, and future publications.
Expanding distribution of ENA publications is a prime goal, as is generation of revenues to fund the organization's current and future publishing efforts. Defining ENA's primary markets also is of prime consideration, since ENA's publications must serve these markets, as well as ENA's membership.
As the publishing arm of ENA, the Publication's Cluster has spent the first two and one-half months of it's life discussing and taking action on the following needs/goals:
1. Increase distribution of "NETWEAVER", ENA's intersystem online newsletter currently published on a monthly basis. Define target audience for NETWEAVER.
2. Produce and distribute a hardcopy edition of "NETWEAVER" as a tool to assist/compliment the Public Relations Cluster's efforts to increase awareness of ENA and benefits of membership. Hardcopy edition of NETWEAVER also is needed to meet requirements of various "electronic journalism" competitions and to have a tangible product for the Publication Cluster's efforts to increase distribution outlets for NETWEAVER and other publication efforts.
3. ENA Participation in publication of a NETGUIDE as a for- profit venture. The publication--proposed by George Por--is defined as: "a printed publication that reaches beyond the circle of converted...a market-driven, commercial publication addressing current and prospective professional and business users...the most appropriate structure for NetGuide would be a for-profit subsidiary of our non-profit association."
4. ENA TOOLBOX: Catharine Vinson suggested ENA produce a PC- DOS/MS-DOS diskette of public domain utilities of particular use to networkers. She has assembled the programs and "WRITERS TOOLBOX" has been organized as the sub-conference to *produce* the disk. Revenues from distribution/sale would revert to ENA to be used to fund/underwrite the Publication Cluster's ongoing work and projects. The Public Relations Cluster has expressed interest/support in attracting corporate funding/support for producing the disk.
INTERNETWORKING CLUSTER by Lisa Kimball
The Internetworking Cluster is involved in 3 main areas so far:
1. MAPPING: We have several ideas about different ways to map the electronic universe and have discussed:
a. creating a map of where ENA material can be found on different systems, including guidelines about porting to and from those systems
b. developing a Global Net Guide which would provide information about signing on from around the world, and the various problems, solutions, and system contacts needed to do it
2. PORTING: developing strategies for facilitating human gateways among systems, discussing policies about quoting permission and other issues, maintaining communication with ENA's porters, and finding ways to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of porting efforts. We're also concerned with funding this role and particularly with finding ways to support our international porters who have special expenses.
3. INTERNETWORKING DEVELOPMENT: identification of software and other tools which would facilitate communication among multiple systems and making our needs known to systems, software developers, and related industries (like packet switchers).
INTERMEDIA SYNERGY by George Por
In the last two months we've been discussing intermedia synergy in terms of: 1. our values; 2. definition; 3. objectives; 4. dimensions; and 5. events.
1. We began our discussion by noting that we are talking about VALUES as well as about efficiency of communication. As we get a better grasp on what it IS, we'll probably have a second look at the values on which we build the cluster.
2. We don't have yet a clear-cut DEFINITION of what *is* intermedia synergy. Approaches to define it include: "the use of online medium for the creation of off line media"; "viable, purposeful new forms of human interaction"; "combining the SPEED and INTERACTIVITY of electronic communications with the VISUAL IMPACT and BROAD OUTREACH [of other media]"; and "info about CC in other media".
3. Some expressed OBJECTIVES of the members are: "put active citizen groups in touch with each other--and with their newsletters"; "keeping up to date"; "action research"; and "learn about experiments now being conducted".
4. So far, we've been discussing the following dimensions of intermedia synergy: "[online generated] Netweaver [distributed] on IBM PC floppies"; "electronic text communications with electronic imaging, interactive video, and face-to-face workshops' with a mixture of senses and mind stimulating representations"; "combine computer messages with images and voice"; "electronic communications with print and video"; and "combining CC with computer-based education".
5. By intermedia synergy events I mean all the actual manifestations of intermedia synergy we know of. These include: "mailing printouts of a conference on EIES"; and "[plans to] link-up educational video field consultants via CC". Some other intermedia synergy examples not yet discussed in the cluster include: the use of e-mail in conjunction of video courses at the the National Technological university; High^Lights from The Meta Network, the first print newsletter based entirely on excerpts form online conferences; and the Metasystems' members experience of using CC in conjunction of collectively writing a book during a face-to-face meeting (at the Delta Force in 1982, the Organizational Transformation Conference, and the Federal Training Excellence Network in 1985).
At this point, I think we have many more questions than answers, which is the normal state of this nascent field of investigation we're calling intermedia synergy. Please spread the word on the nets: we need information on ALL the uses of CC in *any* combination with *any* other media, and of course, we need further input, questions and comments from anybody interested in intermedia synergy.
ETHICS CLUSTER by Stefanie Kott
"ENA Ethics" is dealing primarily with the creation of a standard related to the use of other people's words, online, throughout the systems and offline. We want to come to some conclusions about appropriate ethics related to this (and conceivably other issues) that can be adopted by ENA and supported by its members, with the hope that the ethic will become as a standard throughout the systems. Further, the hope is that the standard will become stronger than law (there being no real law in this Brave New World) through the self-policing efforts of people who believe in the standard.
We have so far agreed that it is important to acknowledge other people's words AND ideas. We have hashed through the concepts of ownership/acknowledgment of words, and concluded that the person who generates the words or ideas that are worthy of being used in any context outside that in which it was written deserves to be considered the owner of those words/ideas, in the biblical sense of the word "ownership"--that connotes acknowledgment, and this person should be cited as the originator of the words/ideas.
How to enforce this ethic is an area that we have touched upon but that remains an area needy of resolution. Peer pressure on the order of "shunning" in the Amish tradition is one possibility, but there is the real concern that this ethic is not strong enough in any medium to withstand the test.
BUSINESS CLUSTER by Susanna Opper
We seem to be generally agreed that we have two main interests:
1) Expanding the use of electronic networking in business and business-related organizations
2) Creating and growing entrepreneurial ventures that use electronic networking in one way or another either as the main thrust of the business (e.g. consulting in the use of cc) or as an important ancillary process of doing the business (such as electronic publishing).
We've also been talking about our process. We're eager to maximize the efficiency of this medium and are seeking ways to be certain that work actually gets done, rather than just talking about getting done.
Here are some of our observations on how to get things done:
1) List and discuss options; establish priorities; and narrow focus to a few tasks at a time.
2) Use cut-off dates and stick to them.
3) Have one person take responsibility for seeing that the task is done on time. (This doesn't mean they must do it; it does mean they see it gets done.)
4) Keep enough order on the system so that discussion of one topic takes place in only one place. This requires discipline from all members, but it makes a difference.
In a late-breaking development, we're planning a special business issue of Netweaver which will be published in May.
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.
-----
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).
UNDERSTANDING RESISTANCE TO COMPUTER CONFERENCING
Where Next?
by Martin E.H. Lee-Gosselin and Helene Lee-Gosselin
Efforts to understand sources of resistance to computer conferencing (cc) are woven into more than a decade of thoughtful exchanges among moderators, facilitators, and designers of online systems. It seems to us that this is the right moment in the history of the medium to try to build some new heuristics around resistance.
Before going further, let us admit that this will inevitably overlap with other efforts to research the "people" side of cc, but we see nothing wrong in this. (After all, isn't the medium allowing us to experiment with ways of belonging in several planes at once?)
What of the current point in cc's history? Excellent cc software has been around since the early '70s, but only in 1985 did the level of interest and activity give rise to an ENA. We subscribe to the view that this has much to do with the diffusion of common-or-garden microcomputers: We do what we do now in this field because suddenly there are a lot of terminals out there.
A major implication of being where we are on the adoption curve is that our learning thus far about what works may be based on the behavior of atypical users--at first, some of the minority who had computer terminals around for other reasons, and more recently, a great diversity of innovative microcomputer users and "netties." We understand that trailblazing is for some its own reward, but we sometimes forget that those who follow do not necessarily want or need the same toolkit to overcome difficulties as was devised by the pioneers, and that they are perfectly capable of thinking up entirely new forms of resistance.
In this article, we want to concentrate on our view of the sources of resistance themselves, with a minimal use of the protest "it all depends" which must accompany the evaluation of tools. At the "Managing Computer Conferences" session of the November 1985 ENA Meeting in Washington DC, we discussed an evolving typology of resistance in the context of the session's cc-creation scenario exercises. We paid particular attention to resistance of a personal versus an organizational nature. Since then, we have added to that some notions about what is peculiarly difficult about cc within and between three broad categories of resistance:
1. resistance to the process of cc itself
2. resistance associated with a user's personal motivation
3. resistance associated with organizational contexts
Below, we say some more about these categories, and discuss ten types of resistance which they contain. But first, we are compelled to admit that much of what we see amounts to problems with unfamiliar, unclear, and emergent NORMS for the use of cc.
A PERVASIVE PROBLEM: UNFAMILIAR, UNCLEAR, AND EMERGENT NORMS
Rather than squeeze the question of norms into one of the above categories, we want to agree with Peter Vaill (the keynote speaker at ENA's conference in November and Professor of Management at George Washington University) that the "meta:difference" between cc and f-t-f is the lack of "cultural grounding" (1985 Online Symposium on Facilitation). High on the list of things we think the culture needs to communicate for many "early adopters" to feel comfortable are:
- how flexible is the membership of "in" groups?
- who is empowered to judge that the cc content has reached success or closure?
- what "leadership" or "in charge" means in a cc environment?
- the ground rules, and expectations laid on users, for participating in defining the norms where few yet exist
As several people have already observed, ENA is probably now playing the most significant role in the achievement of self- awareness by any emergent cc cultures. It would be educational for us to reflect more on differences in cultural grounding between at least the "global community" and "enhanced organization" purposes we espouse.
RESISTANCE TO THE PROCESS OF CC ITSELF
We find it useful to identify here those resistances, peculiar to cc, which may be stumbling blocks even in reaching the point where cc is evaluated from a more specific personal or organizational perspective. Two aspects of the written-language basis of cc seem to be "up front" in this way; we have placed fears about the consequences of the written record in the third (organizational) category. Obviously, these "up front" types of resistance will often manifest themselves (first or again) in connection with overriding personal or organizational considerations.
Incomplete social presence
--------------------------
Highly related to the pervasive cultural issue, this amounts to new users experiencing a sort of sensory deprivation. It is often much worse than, say, a similar experience with an Expert System, because here is a knowledge system in which minds switch in and out at will. Interestingly, comprehensive cc systems, such as Meta:Net and Unison, allow access to many different styles of social presence at the sub-conference or item/topic level, as well as having a system-level presence.
Substituting "eyes/fingers" for "ears/mouth"
--------------------------------------------
This transition is a formidable barrier to people who are not accustomed to "putting it in writing." It seems such an irony to do business in the newest medium using skills which have gone out of style. But there is much more here than the problem of expressing oneself succinctly and then getting it typed into the system. In particular, the much-discussed paucity of affective clues hampers the development of relationships, and thus makes it harder to get comfortable with whatever social presence is perceived. We have been interested to observe that some totally new users spontaneously interject affective asides after the pattern of Lisa Kimball's famous
Frustration with editing/correcting input
-----------------------------------------
We refer here only to the desire to polish spelling and grammar. This is a good example of the impact of microcomputers, because we now have a large number of potential users who know visual (screen) editing, but who have never experienced line editing. Such people may be very intolerant of what most current cc systems offer online, and may not have patience to get to where they can upload input they have edited offline. It takes effort to maintain, and courage to abandon, habitual standards of thyped communications (sic).
RESISTANCE ASSOCIATED WITH A USER'S PERSONAL MOTIVATION
Here are grouped a number of sources of resistance that are encountered as an individual evaluates the personal meaning of the cc opportunity. These are in order of their peculiar pertinence to cc; all three would apply in some form to the adoption of any technology which is an agent of social change. These resistances deal with individual needs and motivation, and Murray Turoff (who among other things is the founder of the EIES network and co-author with Roxanne Hiltz of THE NETWORK NATION) encourages us to recognize that messaging systems have tried to address these with designs that are not necessarily optimal for group activity.
If we try to understand these types of resistance using familiar models of individual motivation, such as utility theory, we must remember that one possibility for the user is to opt out of the many-to-many applications.
Inadequate map-reading
----------------------
This refers both to: (a) failing to develop a good picture of the system design; and (b) losing track of the cumulative content. Specific examples of (a) are poor images of the methods of branching, linking, parallel activity, searching and summarization, and even of the function of different subsystems (messaging, BBSs, real-time discussions, conferencing). Included in (b) are confusions over index maintenance, keywords, closure and archiving conventions, and the function of commands to opt out/forget/ignore previous content.
Mismatched expectations about participation
-------------------------------------------
We hear a lot of guilt expressed from users about the level of absorption they have chosen. It is almost as if, in the absence of "cultural grounding," some users develop unusually rigid default assumptions about how to participate. It works in both directions: Users wanting only to "lurk" or seek information fear being asked to be more visible, while others seeking group activity feel cheated when everyone else is fading into the woodwork.
Individual payoff inapparent or irrelevant
------------------------------------------
This is the most obvious type of personal resistance, often related to how an individual organizes his/her work and his/her willingness to take time to learn new tools.
RESISTANCE ASSOCIATED WITH ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXTS
This category mostly concerns how cc affects the user's roles within the organization. The first two are peculiar to the "written trail" left in a cc system. The remaining two are more general sources of resistance to change in organizations.
Fears about the style of the written record
-------------------------------------------
It may not be enough to make the transition to "eyes/fingers" if there is fear about how rational, reasonable or consistent the user may appear to the organization, based on the cumulative written trace. Potentially, this is resistance to the openness of discussion without which a conference may deteriorate to mere posturing. (We know of at least one constellation of cc's which cannot function across more than three vertical levels of the sponsoring organization's hierarchy because of this.) Trial balloons and intentional ambiguity are examples of styles which often demand guarantees of perishability.
Fears about monitoring of content
---------------------------------
The written trace may also be feared on the grounds that its content may fall into the wrong hands. The resistance is stronger than for the "for your eyes only" type of memorandum because of the accumulation of organized content, and the instantaneous nature of its broad transmission.
Fears about a hidden agenda
for making cc resources available
---------------------------------
Beyond fears of the style and content of the written trace is the idea that working habits and patterns of interaction may be observed. Accounting devices in systems (and who is paying the bills) may or may not make this a realistic concern, but the model of continuous monitoring of VDT operators is well known, and the analogy may be too close for comfort.
Trashing the unknown
--------------------
The Luddites (people who are anti-technology on principle) are getting more subtle: They accuse cc of being a "technological solution in search of a problem." This probably feeds more on misguided or inappropriate applications than on suspicion of something new.
WHERE NEXT?
These seem to us to be the most important sources of resistance to which we should pay attention at the upswing of the cc adoption curve. There are clearly other types of resistance, and others will emerge. We want later to discuss solutions, but we are rather sure that we should look for patterns of answers, not a list of "fixes," one for each type of resistance. Drawing on our collective experience to date, we should look for prototype solutions. This amounts to seeking variety, not consensus, remembering again that the distribution of motivations among early users is not likely to be typical of the majority.
We are sticking our necks out with a purpose in mind. Where we would like to go next is to analyze resistance across up-to-date case examples. Catharine Vinson's article "The Other Side of the Business Culture" (Netweaver, Volume 2, Number 2), is the kind of incisive commentary we need. Her thoughts on "information resentation and overload" and "pecking order," for example, tell us that our "fear about the style of the written record" may need splitting into two points.
We would like to expand our compendium of examples of resistance, and invite you to tell us what you are are seeing as the most important. Have we really identified the "top ten"? We invite you to join us in "RESISTANCE TO CC" off "TOWN SQUARE" in UNISON, to comment in "Netweaver Talk", or to contact us via your porter.
-----
Authors' note: Both authors are principals of Lee-Gosselin Associes
Limitee, a consulting firm based in Quebec City, which has been applying
cc to many of its projects in social research, policy planning, evaluation
and organizational development. Martin Lee-Gosselin is a behavioral
scientist and planner, working mostly in the fields of transport,
telecommunications and energy. He was formerly Director of Research for
the Michigan Dept. of State. Helene Lee- Gosselin is an organizational
psychologist, and is Director of the Dept. of Management at Universite
Laval's business school, where she is also active in researching personnel
management and the problems of women in organizations.
ENA UPDATE
by Lisa Kimball
This Month in ENA
The biggest news this month is the rich array of activities going on in ENA's working groups--our Clusters. We are including summaries of some of the Cluster activities in this issue of NETWEAVER. We are publishing these to keep you up to date on what we're doing, to invite you to participate in activities which interest you, and to ask for your feedback about what we're doing *and* your suggestions about what new things we might plan for ENA.
We have also started working in our RING conference on several key issues for the organization. We are currently planning our budget for the next quarter and figuring out how to support our online office on UNISON. Other *hot* topics this month include plans for future f-t-f meetings and developing a strategy for recruiting new members for ENA.
This Month in NETWEAVER
Online bills making you
Most ENA members are enthusiastic about the medium. Last month, we published an article about one corporation where computer conferencing bombed. This month, we have a two-part follow up article on sources of resistance to computer conferencing which may help you anticipate implementation problems, so you can work on solving them.
You'll also find an article on desktop publishing and a review of a book which warns us about assuming that new technology will support more democratic structures in the workplace.
ENJOY!