Since the term "electronic workspace" - as used here- is one of my constructions, I would like to follow the comments by Nora DeJohn <[log in to unmask]> posted under the Subject: Re: Establishing Electronic Workplaces & Communities. In that Nora writes the following: >...I agree employees are as always sacrificed, but I'm trying to understand if we are >really teaching people to prefer machines and faceless contact... > and quotes the following: >> I wonder if the creation of the electronic workplace has more to do with >>how organizations are already faring with regard to their employees...for >>example we hear of workplaces that have downsized in terms of employees only >>to put their resources into technology. Which are the assets? - people or >>the technology? The "electronic workspace" is not the same an "an electronic workplace". The term is tied to a model of social process (including work but also including all the processes of civil society - social, political, cultural, etc.) in which the traditional literal venue (physical space, literal time) is joined by an electronic venue (constructed from information technologies linked by electronic networks.) The old (traditional) venue is quickly being joined by a new (electronic venue) and social processes are starting to take place across both domains. There are a number of important issues with regard to how the institutions of society (capitalist firms, democratic governments, etc.) use the technology to make fewer/more worse/better jobs, and how individuals (you and I) and groups (my and your community of profession) deal with the technology. There are tonnes of interesting questions. Can this venue be used to make government more accountable. Can science be more connected and responsible (as science)? Etc. etc.... As well, as Harold Innis argues, every new venue for communications changes how people deal with each other across time and space. The book devalues the work of oral history and the oral tradition. The telephone allows one to "be there" without "being" there. Our phone company used the motto "Reach out and touch some one". A financial trust company is currently pushing its online service with "Put your Money where your Mouse is". New tools prompt new behaviour. The electronic networks can be thought of as a new tool kit. The term "electronic workspace" suggests that they are more. Collectively they produce a new venue for all aspects of social process. Some will take them to replace labour with machines. Others will use them to 'reach out and touch somebody" for better or worse. The issue here, for CLICK4HP, is what does this new venue mean for health promotion, for population health strategies, for sustainiable health approaches. Someone recently said, it would be a good idea to extend the use of CLICK4HP to more than just posting notices (or posting opinions I might add). That was the original purpose of CLICK4HP. It was/is not just using email to share ideas about health promotion. It was more than that. It was to ask WHAT DOES THIS SPACE MEAN FOR HEALTH PROMOTION. To only use it to share information is a bit like saying that once North America had been discovered by Europe, its main role would be to facilitate sending and receiving things from the far east. In fact, it was treated as a territory. Unfortunately, it was treated as a territory in which to do great evil as Europeans distroyed or dominated the existing peoples and cultures. Think of the electronic venue as a territory (a virtual workspace) with certain features and tendencies, but no people, in which we can do good or bad things in the pursuit of health promotion, population health, etc. The challenge (and focus for this CLICK4HP space) is to ask - how can we use this space to do better what we do. This goes well beyond the efficiency of using E-mail over FAX, Phone or postage stamps. It is always bad to end a long posting with an idea, but I will return to this idea in a month, when the first public site is up and running - but not in the health promotion area. Let me describe what we are about to do in another funding area. W e will start posting on a web site the full project proposes as submitted to a funding agency from those seeking funding. Eveyone will know who has applied, what they have applied for, who their collaborators are, what they intend to do, and whether they got funded or didn't get funded. Sitting along side the on-line database of proposals will be a public discussion site (browser netnews linked to a listserv like this for those with only email) to discuss the area, the process, the funding, etc. Ask yourself, how would the local social process around funding for health promotion change, where you live and work, if anyone with access to a browser could examine all the details of all the proposals submitted to your funding authorities. Also, what sort of dialogues would you expect to take place in the public site, between the various stakeholders, funders, etc. We think that bringing this level of transparancy to the process will increase accountability and promote collaboration. We are going to test this with a real process in which real funds are being allocated to real projects, on a global scale. This is not a test site (i.e., it doesn't stop at some point), but we will adjust the approach as we learn what works and what doesn't. We are committed to using this virtual workspace as a vehicle for increased transparancy and accountability for funding and to increase the chances of collaboration. The same could be done within health promotion funding. As I say, ask yourself how this would work in the funding activities you are familiar with. It is hard to believe that the answer is: "No Change". This is an example of what we mean by the use of the virtual workspace. Sam Lanfranco <[log in to unmask]> =<or>= <[log in to unmask]>