(Another lurker joins in - Craig Silva from VicHealth - a non-Luddite)

This particular subject is very close to my heart or should I say job
specification (my job title is Electronic Outreach Program Officer).

Here at VicHealth we are starting the journey into an
electronic workplace as internet e-mail has only just been extended
right across our LAN (Local Area Network),  we have also been busy
developing our web site. Therefore we can expect that there will be
similar responses to that of Nora's - a response that asks us to
evaluate what in the hell it is that we are doing.

I could lead off with a listing of the various objectives that we
have established but we've heard them all before. I could also
suggest that the reason for most of the discussions of Computer
Mediated Communications (CMC)  is because we are all faced with the
same dilemna - we've just spent all this money  playing technology
catch-up with each other and now we have to justify it :-> (I should
acknowledge that I am benefiting personally from this expenditure).

In response to Nora's comments however,  I would like to offer the
experience of someone who has watched the growth of the electronic
workplace over a period of time and suggest that once we have
overcome the novelty (and the expense of implementing it), the
strength of our responses dissipates markedly (as does our
participation in these discussions :->).

I was a LAN administrator  at a Student organisation that was
dispersed over 3 campuses and was responsible for implementing
e-mail and the Internet for the organisation. People's responses
ranged from extreme enthusiasm, to wariness, to outright rejection.
At the end of the day (say a period of three years), different people
had integrated e-mail (and the Internet) into their work practices in
many different ways and with different levels of use.

With the creativity one associates with human organisms, the
organisation accomodated the technology and adapted it in the ways
that it found useful (and of course reverted back to fax, telephone
and written and spoken forms of communication as was most convenient,
non-threatening and efficient i.e when the LAN was down).

What eventuated was that e-mail was used for those things it was most
suited for, when it was most suitable. E-mail DID impact on travel
between campuses.  It meant that we used it to avoid the boring
and meaningless trip, but when there was a free lunch involved it
didn't stop us from travelling. There were times when we couldn't
avoid travelling as well, we actually did have to meet face to face
occasionally.

It was however only towards the end of that period that requests
started to be made as to whether we could do this or whether we could
do that with the technology. In other words, it took quite a bit of
time for it to be accepted into the organisation and for non-tech
people to start to come to grips with its uses and its potential. But
when that time comes, people will look for creative, useful and human
ways to use it.

My prognosis is that those of us who need to communicate in
specialised areas will spend the time needed to keep up and
participate.  We will take the time to overcome the barriers to
participation because it is worth our while.

There will also be those who resist the introduction of this
technology and they cannot be forced to use it (neither should they
be).

HOWEVER, people ARE using it in ever increasing numbers because
it IS human communication. ( Some people even go so far as to
suggest that it has peculiar advantages - such as avoiding issues of
beauty and/or physical ability that can impact adversely on human
communication. )

(Putting devil's advocate hat on)

I suppose my bottom line is that its here and its use is expanding
and that the economic system has annointed it as good (i.e
cost-efficient).

Therefore what we really need to be doing is to focus on better ways
of using it and and better ways of transferring the experience gained
by early-adopters to ease the way for newcomers.

Regards

Craig

PS: you might like to check out the following to get a better idea of my
face:
http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/craig.htm




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Craig Silva, Electronic Outreach Program Officer
Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, Melbourne Australia
e-mail: [log in to unmask], Tel: 61 3 9345 3211
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