As a seasoned, and occasionally roasted, list moderator I hope I am
forgiven for what came to mind when people started fishing around for a
"proper" place to post the output of CLICK4HP. I am reminded of when the
British philosopher (and more) Bertrand Russell ran a school for children
in the UK (I believe it was at Telegraph House). The students were mainly
the troublesome and poor performance students of progressive intellectuals
much like Russell himself. They were mainly difficult and 'disturbed'
students who did things like 'give the finger' to the members of the
school certification review board.

The school was a success but was forced to close. Why? In part these
progressive parents frequently forgot' to pay their fees But in large part
as soon as a student got over the behavioural problems and became a good
student, the parents took the student away to put him/her into a
respectable school!!

I see a bit of a parallel here. Click4HP is a modest success by any
standards. It is a more than modest success in that it has a budget of
ZERO and aside from the labour of Liz, Alison and I, its only support is
York University supplying this L-Soft (Listserv) facility. Click4HP was
set up to do several things - (a) to provide an electronic venue for
discussing how the internet can be used for health promotion (b) to act as
an electronic site for posting related health promotion information, and
(c) to operate as a virtual workspace for various aspects of health
promotion. The recent discussion thread on the scope, focus and modalities
of health promotion hits all three bases.

There was a fourth intent however. That was to challenge all of us to
think about how we already deploy health promotion funds (at all levels
from research through to education, training and program delivery) and
what this new electronic space - progressively accessible by all - means
for how we conduct health promotion. How much of what we know can be
better shared in this space and how much of what we know becomes obsolete
as a result of this space?

For example, there are lots of us who feel that the hospital sector gets
too much of the health care dollar. This does not stem from a hostility
against hospitals. - I served on the board of one and know how damn hard
it is to run a hospital, to work in a hospital, and on many days to be a
patient in a hospital. The trick-and-task then becomes keeping people out
of hospitals. While hospitals, governments, insurance companies and others
may be looking at information technology and communications ICT) to cut
the costs of hospital care, the health promotion sector is looking at ICT
to reduce the needed levels of hospital care.

Back to Bertrand Russell (and his wife an equal partner in the school - I
would be remiss if I didn't record that fact). One difference between the
literal school and the virtual space is that n the virtual space things
can be here and there at the same time and with little cost - and groups
can cooperate in four directions (inward among ourselves, outward to
similar groups, downward to those who give us our foundations (support us
with resources) and upward to those to whom we serve (the public).

Looking at what the corporate sector will be rolling out in the next 8
months it is clear that the initial stage of mass consumer access to the
internet is less than a year away. The Television add-on boards (one goes
in your TV to get internet, the other goes in your computer to get TV) are
on the retail market for less than $150US. The TV one gives you access to
a data flow (usually on the 'blanking line' between 'frames'). The
computer version feeds a TV signal to the screen and has more options.
This means that the first cut "internet ready TV" will require components
that cost the manufacturer less than $50 and will add less than $100 to
the cost of the set. The consumer will be confronted with a full continum
of options from the $100 add on to the $3000 computer with TV capacity.
Two manufactures (AST and Compaq) plan to ship TV ready computers to
retail outlets in time for the Christmas buying season.

All this means a rapid growth in the ability of the public to access
information on line. Even if they have "narrow band" access capacity it is
clear that they will want access to four types of services: sports,
movies, finance and health. The additional sleeper will be their demand
for just-in-time on-demand learning venues. Most universities are under
estimating how fast the sleeper will wake up.

While today CLICK4HP is our use of the electronic venue as a public space
for thinking about health promotion, in a very short time it the venue not
CLICK4HP) will be a major venue where health promotion takes place. I
would hope that in that small window of opportunity we can collaborate not
to 'move the kids to more respectable schools' but help those sites find
their place in this virtual playing field. There is evidence of new
regional CLICK4HP-like groupings forming to deal with regional level
issues. The hope is that the existing institutions will not try for a
'land grab' but will ask themselves what complementary things they can
cultivate in this space.

This is a vast territory and the new expertise will draw on traditional
domains of knowledge, but within the context of this domain. There will be
more, there will be informed communities bringing their knowledge and
wisdom to the table as well in the pursuit of population and personal
health. There are wonderful challenges here. As we continue to range
around in this virtual venue (remembering -when we ocassionally
placing our virtual foot in our virtual mouth that we are a forgiving
community)I hope we see the development of a whole rainbow of internet
based health promotion initiatives.

Nuf said in this time and this space (thanks to Kant for those ideas!)

Sam Lanfranco <[log in to unmask]> Distributed Knowledge Project (DJProj)