UK Citizens Online Democracy
Online Seminar: Should Britain Join the EMU?

Report on the Seminar:
The need for leaders in politics, business and the community to be "effectively connected"

This appendix has been contributed by the European Telework Development Initiative.
At the end of 1996 the UK Citizens Online Democracy Initiative (UK COD) staged an online seminar on European Monetary Union, with support from The European Parliament, UK Office, and the Scarman Trust. Two outcomes of the seminar provide important lessons relating to the preparedness of Europe's political, community and business leaders and institutions for participation in the Information Society:
  1. A high proportion of the invited participants, though willing or even enthusiastic, did not in the end succeed in participating, despite the provision of significant support from UK COD to assist them in overcoming technical, operational or skills barriers;

  2. Of those who did participate, only a minority succeeded in effectively "joining in" the online discussion - again this was despite willingness or even enthusiasm and the support "behind the scenes" of a dedicated team of skilled and experienced "helpers".
The UK COD "helpers" team tracked the development of the seminar and pooled their observations regarding the issues and barriers that prevented effective participation. This note records some key conclusions and lessons learned, and suggests requirements for the more rapid and successful evolution of online participation by Europe's institutions, organisations and political, community and business leaders.

The gap between being "connected" and being "effectively connected"

A key requirement for participation was that each participant had "access to email". Although all intending participants confirmed that they had such access, it turned out that a high proportion had either not yet used it, or were not regular users, or had significant technical problems that inhibited effective use.

The lessons emerging from this are:

  1. There is often a significant gap between "having access to email" and "having effective access";

  2. The fact that an organisation has installed email and is connected to the Internet cannot be assumed to mean that individuals (even senior individuals) have effective access to open email networks (ie across the Internet);

  3. Even the fact that an individual has effective access cannot be assumed to mean the individual is able to use email as a working method (for a definition of "effective access" see below).

Requirements for "effective connection"

  1. Experience in this seminar confirms that the following requirements must be met for an individual to be regarded as effectively connected:

  2. There must be access "close to hand" at the times and places where the individual is most likely to wish to connect;

  3. The access device (typically a personal computer) must be connected to the Internet with a robust connection that works first time on each occasion the user seeks to establish connection;

  4. The individual must have continuing access to facilities for reading and replying to email that has been received ("downloaded") in a previous connection session;

  5. The individual needs to have built up a sufficiently large pool of personal correspondents using email such that email has become a routine and regular communications mechanism;

  6. The individuals needs to have access to at least one discussion forum that is relevant to the individual's interests.
The evidence from the UK COD EMU seminar confirms that if any one of these requirements is substantially deficient the individual concerned is unlikely to be able to participate effectively in online discussion. The evidence suggests that a very high proportion of people who are connected in theory are not effectively connected in practice - they may be able to access the Internet but they cannot use it effectively.

Each of the requirements is explored in a little more detail below.

Access "close to hand"

Before a user can build email into his or her daily routine as part of their communications pattern it has to be readily available in the routing course of events. For example if someone works at an office but only has email available at home, then this constrains its use. Similarly if someone usually works at home but has to go to an office to use email, its unlikely to become regularly used. If someone travels intensively but email is only available at one location its not very useful.

Connections that "work first time, every time"

In the UK COD seminar many potential participants found when they tried to use the email facility they thought was available to them that the system was either unreliable or in some cases didn't actually work at all. No user will build into their communications patter a tool that doesn't work all the time. An experienced user who has come to rely on email will take all necessary steps to sort out any technical problems that may arise, just as a householder will escalate any problem with the telephone if it isn't repaired quickly. But a user who is in the early stages of using email is very quickly put off from making further efforts if he or she encounters failures and unreliability.

The UK COD team were surprised at the very high incidence of organisations where email had been installed but where users are encountering serious difficulties in using it. Investigation often revealed a Catch 22 situation: because the system isn't working reliably users have not built email into their communications pattern; because users haven't built a reliance on email, there is no pressure on the system provider or maintainer to address and resolve the problems. Market studies in UK and Europe often report that a high proportion of organisations are "connected to the Internet". This experience confirms that there is a big gap between the claim that an organisation is connected and the reality of individuals in that organisation being able to use Internet facilities as a practical part of their daily work. More research is needed to establish the size of this gap and the detailed reasons for the difficulties encountered by individuals and organisations.

Continuing access to offline facilities

To understand this requirement its necessary to discuss some background to different uses of email.

There are differences in the pattern of use of email between company internal mail and the kind of external mail needed for open electronic networking and online discussion. Within a company setting email is sometimes used as a method "immediate communications". There's an expectation that if a user is in the office and at his or her desk they will see and respond to an email message on a same day or even same hour basis. Some users even have their systems set up so that new messages are brought to attention immediately by being "flashed" on the screen, though in most circumstances this is disruptive rather than helpful. However, in external use of email, patterns differ. One user may "download" new mail from the system several times a day; another may do so twice a day,; others may do so only once a day or even less frequently than this - though people who have built email into their normal communications routines tend to use it at least once a day.

What is equally important to users of both internal and external email, is continuing access to the ability to read email that has already been downloaded at an earlier time (from the "in basket" or "file cabinet", and to write email messages at any time and put them in an "out basket" for later sending (or "uploading" to the system. This is exactly analagous to the methods used with paper mail - we may create a letter or a memo at any time and put it in the out basket, confident that it will go from there into the postal system. We can at any time pick up a letter or memo received earlier, when we are ready to deal with it, taking it from the in basket if its a new item or from a file if its an older one. Email provides identical facilities and the user needs continuing access to these facilities in order to start making the switch from paper to electronic methods.

This means that the user has to have email facilities "at the desk top", rather than (for example) through a "walk up" shared facility or through a secretary or other assistant. Email that is properly implemented and is accessible at the desk top on a continuing basis is much quicker and easier to use than paper correspondence. If the use of email entails moving to the device or asking another person to do something, its main benefits are lost. As discussed above (Access close to hand), people need access to offline email facilities at the places where they routinely work, whether that be the office, the home, or while travelling. And they need access to an online connection frequently enough to ensure that there isn't a long delay between mail creation and mail distribution.

Critical mass of correspondents

This requirement may appear so obvious as not to need stating, but it links closely to the next requirement - access to relevant discussion places. Imagine a situation where email has just been invented and only you and one other person have access to it. Even if you have regular dealings with this person you cannot build email effectively into your work pattern as a routine working tool, since the overwhelming mass of your communications come in other forms and you have to respond using these other forms - letters and memos on paper, faxes, phone calls. At the other end of the scale, consider people who have developed a wide circle of connections with other people whose preferred means of communication is email. Now, a high proportion of communications come in this form, and responding to them in the same form is both the easiest way to work and also provides what the other party prefers.

Somewhere between these two extremes is the point where an individual's use of email reaches critical mass - with a sufficiently high proportion of contacts to make email a natural and preferred mechanism, comparable with and in balance with the phone and paper and faxes.

In the context of online discussion, the person who has already reached critical mass in his or her routine use of email will find the addition of some extra messages from an online conference easy to handle, will readily be able to decide how and when to respond, and will find responding and participating has only a modest impact on the daily workload. In contrast to this, the person who as yet receives very few email messages - or even none - has to "make special space" in his or her daily routine for the special and novel effort required to participate. As well as the effort and learning curve of the online conference format, they have to carry the effort and learning curve of email.

There is also an important motivational aspect. For the person who doesn't yet use email as a routine working method, online discussion presents a complete unknown - both the medium and the discussion environment are foreign to his or her experience. Faced with this, its all too easy for the slightest technical, time pressure or other barrier to become a reason for not making the extra effort.

Access to relevant discussion places

Even for the person who has already reached critical mass in the daily use of email, there is a further learning curve associated with email-based online conferencing. This medium like others has its own conventions and norms. Consider the differences between different forms of conventional group communications. We behave differently in one to one private discussion compared with a group discussion involving (say) a dozen people. We behave differently in a group of a dozen friends meeting for dinner compared with a dozen people at a weekly business meeting, and differently again when a dozen people meet as representatives on a quarterly committee. In a group of a hundred people we behave differently according to whether we are there as a platform speaker or as a member of the audience. Even in written communications, we differentiate between the styles appropriate for a personal letter to a relation or close friend, a business memo to close colleagues, a letter to a customer or a supplier, a formal letter that may form part of a contract.

Underlying the differences in face to face meeting behaviours and skills there are of course some basic skills of verbal communications and interpersonal relations. Underlying the different forms of written correspondence are some basic skills of reading and writing and clear expression.

The appropriate behaviours and styles for online conferencing also differ according to the context - private or public, business-like or "anything goes", purposive or purely for pleasure/leisure. Underlying these differences there are again some basic skills, in particular clarity and brevity are central in most situations. The appropriate behaviours and styles and skills can be learned, but like most communication skills they are "learned by doing", and practice is essential. This means there is a further requirement before an individual can become "effectively connected": he or she needs to have access to online discussion environments that cover topics of interest to them personally and will motivate them to get involved and "learn by doing".

Note that it doesn't matter whether the relevance of such online discussion environments is to do with work or leisure, business or private life. What is essential is that the new user has access to at least some well orchestrated and interesting (preferably useful!) discussion. All too often the new user early encounters with online discussion are in a "free-for-all" environment inhabited by the online equivalent of the saloon bar bore or the lager lout!

Getting Europe "effectively connected"

Its increasingly clear that the skills associated with being effectively connected are now essential to future success in the emerging networked economy. A problem for Europe is that we are slipping well behind in the race to get connected and to lead the development of the networked economy and the information society. In particular the USA has established a strong and determined national strategy to lead in this respect and is already benefiting from the fruits of that strategy. A report (Note 1) commissioned by the Netherlands Government and published early in the Netherlands Presidency of the European Union (February 1997) confirms the findings of earlier UK reports (Note 2), that the USA is clearly emerging as the dominant force in building a global networked economy and that the gap between Europe and the USA is widening not narrowing. If Europe is to avoid becoming a mere customer of the networked economy, we need to provide citizens at all levels, but especially leaders in politics, business and communities, with the motivation to get connected and with help in learning the new skills. Only then will they make the right decisions for Europe's path to success in the information society and the networked economy.

Importance of UK COD and similar initiatives

Initiatives like UK Citizens Online Democracy are an essential ingredient in the motivation for leaders to "get effectively connected". In the next UK COD project immediately following from the EMU seminar (Note 3), no less than 14 political parties have contributed statements for online discussion, and this has served to reinforce with party leaders the need to be visible on the Internet as well as on radio and television and in the newspapers. This doesn't yet mean that political leaders have understood this new medium or learned the appropriate skills, but its an important step in the right direction - persuading leaders and decision makers to take the new medium seriously and start the learning curve.

Today, the move to an information society and a networked economy is being led by citizens not by the established leaders of yesterday's world. In schools, many children are ahead of their teachers in understanding and using computers and the Internet. In industry, young, junior professionals are getting actively involved in open electronic networking while many in top management rely on consultancy reports and other third party sources rather than first hand experience. In politics, the best exemplars of web presence and online activity tend to be found in minority parties and back bench politicians rather than among the mainstream parties and cabinet ministers.

Some of the reports and papers produced by the great and the good of the old society reveal the gap between hands on experience and received opinion. A medium that active users find friendly, rewarding and sociable "could lead towards isolation"; methods that enable individuals to choose their information sources rather than be spoon-fed by the media are said to threaten "stress associated with information and perceptual overload" - something that active Internet users seem to thrive on rather than find threatening (Note 4).

If we are to develop the Information Society in a positive way and enjoy the full fruits of the anticipated period of sustained growth in world trade, its essential that leaders in the political, business and community spheres should become skilled hands on users and able to base their decisions on first hand experience. Projects such as UK Citizens Online Democracy have a key role to play in this.

Notes

  1. Enabling the Information Society: Supporting Market-led Developments; Key findings and policy ideas from a global benchmarking of the Information and Communication Technology Industries. Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs (study commissioned from Booz-Allen & Hamilton), presented to the Informal Council of Industry Ministers, 31 January - 2 February 1997.

  2. The Development of the Information Society: an International Analysis, UK Department of Trade and Industry (ISBN 0 11 515424 8), online at http://www.isi.gov.uk/isi/dotis/execsumm.htm

  3. In February 1997, UK Citizens Online Democracy launched two online discussions on aspects of UK policy, see http://www.democracy.org.uk/.

  4. Social and Societal Implications of an Information Society: An Interim Report from the European Commission's "High Level Group of Experts", Building an Information Society For Us All (January 1996), online at http://www.ispo.cec.be/hleg/hleg.html (Note: this is online as a very large file, the paper edition from the EC DG V is easier to use!).
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Last Updated: 07 March 1997
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