European Telework Week 1996:
Planning and Preparation Workshop - Brussels, 22 March 1996
Minutes of the Meeting
Note: This is a copy of the minutes circulated by the Commission. Currently (as at 19 April 1996) the responsibility for initiatives within ETW96 rests primarily with market actors (suppliers and their associations, telework associations, employer associations, unions, telework specialists etc). Possibly there may be some future central support emerging from the ACTS Telework Chain, which meets on April 23-24.
Objective of the meeting
The meeting was set up with the individuals and organisations that applied for participation in
the kick off meeting of European Telework Week 1996, following a Call for Interest which
was sent out early March to the people involved with European Telework Week 1995 and
was made available on Compuserve and the Internet. Goal was:
- to inform interested parties about the ETW95 initiative outcomes, and the ETW96 plans
- to establish which events are already planned and/or are likely to happen
- to establish which (kind of) events were missing
- to receive contributions to the action plan
Welcome
Following the agenda Peter JOHNSTON opened the meeting, reminding people of the first
European Telework Week, and assuring that the European Commission will support another
European Telework Week in 1996 and in 1997.
ETW: outcomes of 95, plans for 96
After an introduction round Maarten BOTTERMAN presented the ETW 95 Aims,
Achievements and Lessons Learned. The first European Telework Week (ETW95) was held
November 9-16, 1995, with Mr BANGEMANN as patron, sponsored by private sector and
national and regional authorities, and achieved a very high public level of recognition, with 32
registered events in 12 member states, ranging from road shows and exhibitions to
conferences and media events. During that period there was a boost of attention in national
and international press (Wall Street Journal, Times), and radio and TV coverage in at least 6
member states and on EuroNews. Key lessons learned were:
- Difficult to keep track of events
- Difficult to keep track of media attention
- Involvement of major players as early as possible
- Publicity of events to start well in advance
- Low budget events should try to latch on to bigger events of a similar nature
- publicity in local language, on local issues
- have pictures ready for TV
- national committee approach (Belgium, Spain) is advantageous
- telework awards (Netherlands) can draw a lot of attention
- bus tour (Sweden, France, Germany) can reach out to many of a target group
Goals of the European Telework Week Initiative
The goals were and are:
- To raise awareness within industry, administrations and the individual, of the potential
benefits of teleworking.
- To promote constructive debate on working and living in the information age. This covers
issues surrounding telework like the potential impact on: competitiveness of European
business, the social implications, the quality of life . . .
- To promote the uptake of actual projects/demonstrations/pilots by showing that telework is
already widely accepted and practised.
Ian CULPIN explained the suggested focus of this year's initiative. After last year there is still
a need to refine the perception of telework. Still too many people are prejudiced, or have a
very limited view.
Telework should be positioned in the context of:
- the information society
- the global electronic marketplace
Special attention should be given to:
- awareness in SMEs (focused specially on small to medium enterprises of 20 to 250 employees)
- implementation: in business as well as in the community, for mobile work as well as for work at home or in an office nearer to home
It is important to target audiences with measure made messages*, and in time information. In
general one should try to avoid a too-restrictive definition of telework.
(*"Measure made messages intends to say that the message should be changed or "tuned" for each audience to be in the right kind of language for the audience and also to be of specific interest to that audience.)
Plans for events in 96
As the organisers of each event explained, major events are already planned in:
- Vienna, 4-6 November 1996, 3rd European Assembly of Telework and New Ways of Working
- London, 5-7 November 1996, Telework 96 Conference
- Bonn, 6-8 November 1996, Telework Deutschland 96
Contact persons for these events are:
Vienna -
Josef HOCHGERNER
; London -
Peter THOMSON
, and: Bonn -
Rainer POLLMANN
,
Werner KORTE
(Note: Whatever information and links are available for the events will be found in relevant pages at this website, see main ETW96 page
for index.)
In the Netherlands the National Telework Award, which was considered a great success in
1995 with more than 2 hours television broadcast, will be repeated (contact:
Kitty DE BRUIN
,
Marc VAN DER STEEG
).
For a European Telework Award initiative plans are ready and
most of the sponsoring money is already secured (contact:
Alan HUSSELBEE
).
Suggestions made at the meeting:
- look at best cases/product categories for business to business, business x school, school x business
- the most unusual place to telework
- include in the European Telework Award national telework awards.
Feed-back to sponsors is very important: how many people are visiting the seminars, watching the braodcasting, requests from internet etc
Bring FUN to this competition. Be aware of endusers, and bring awareness to television,
newspapers etc
The positive experiences with promotional buses in Sweden (visiting youth at schools,
contact:
Sebastian CEDERSCHIOLD
), in Germany (visiting businesses), and in France
(visiting the European Parliament in Strasbourg, contact:
Alan HUSSELBEE
) are expected to
lead to more road shows this year.
There is a
Website (note this is the website referred to)
to list (and link to) all ETW96 European events and significant national
events, with an
online discussion list
to facilitate exchange of ideas and mutual support,
online announcements list
to keep everyone informed and some space at Website for
national telework pages as a stepping stone to national websites (website address:
http://www.eto.org.uk
(this site), Contact:
Horace MITCHELL
). (Summary joining instructions were also attached to the minutes)
As ETW96 approaches, it will be promoted at other relevant occasions including the
conference Telework: Chance or Challenge?, to be held in Luxembourg on 26-28 June,
under the patronage of Mr Jacques SANTER and with the participation of the Directorate
Generals III, V, XIII and XXII (contact: Alice STERN,
Farid MEINKOEHN
).
Plans to be developed
The national committee initiative in Belgium achieved commitment from the Prime Minister, minister of labour, the regional Presidents and 40 prominent academics and leaders of industry (contact:
Xavier DARMSTAEDTER
). In Spain the very late uptake of a comparable initiative was nevertheless successful in engaging the support of 39 leaders from industry, government and politics, including the presidents of the two main labour unions (contact:
Michel ICKX
).
Meeting participants agreed to endeavour to establish such groups in all participating member states, as well as on the European level.
Participation should be broadened, with a specific targeting per event. At a European Level it is a necessity to involve social partners, European Consultative Institutions, Telework
Associations and others in order to stimulate relevant participation from the following key areas:
- environment protection
- work migration/international division of labour
- workers fundamental rights & protection
- business engineering/management
- training/competence development
- external models (Canada, Australia)
The establishment of videolinks between the main events, and the possibility to link in from elsewhere was one of the hot topics. At this stage
Josef HOCHGERNER
volunteered to arrange a videoconference facility in Vienna during the entire ETW96. Also the Commission announced to be willing to link in to events through video link during the whole week.
It is suggested that the week should start with a good kick off show on the 4th (in the first morning session of the Vienna event?), and an open day of all telework cottages/centers, satelite offices, business offices etc at the 11th.
Other suggestions for actions, that will be put on the action list as soon as we have volunteers, are:
a programme to gather case studies with positive messages and learning messages, monthly prizes for good cases
a video that can be used in TV programmes, with clips from cases plus talking heads for simulated interviews, including pre-recorded clips of keynote speakers at main events
a video to sell the idea which can be presented at any telework related event.
audio tape for same purposes for radio use
get at general public via soap operas
develop and use the transport substitution message (for teleworkers and governments, local administrations, politicians)
develop an "Islands Of Europe" region of telework focus and excellence, embracing all Islands
announce a "Telework Today" day, when every employer allows any worker whose physical presence isn't needed for explicit reasons (eg health and safety, or manning critical posts) to work at home for the day; back this with a campaign that asks "what was good, what was bad, how can these be used and improved?".
(Note: We understand that "volunteers" means that those proposing such initiatives are responsible for bringing them about, there is no central fund or management effort except to assist in making introductions, providing advice etc.)
ETW Coordination
Important points for ETW coordination are:
- to have a central list of all events, presented in a matrix to have a clear overview of seminars/conferences per target group
- to have a central database with problems and solutions
- the establishment of a marketingplan to convince sponsors on european level (companies that gain benefit from telework such as: telecom industry, content providers, hard/software suppliers, transport/traffic ministries, economic affairs etc). Look for champions to establish a good sponsorship.
- define country coordinators, and define events per country and targetgroups, because each country is in a different phase of awareness.
- stimulate connection of the European events to local events through videoconferencing and/or television to create maximum impact.
The WEB site will provide a proper infrastructure for coordination. For coordination to be successful, however, it is important all participants take an active role!
Contributions to the Action Plan
From the suggestions made during the kick off meeting a lot of good ideas were extracted. However, it will be the task for volunteers to undertake the actions in the action plan.
Therefore not every idea will be put in the action plan, from the start. The action plan will be a dynamic list of actions and commitments.
| Action |
Who |
When |
| ETW96 Logo - competition for better design |
open |
by 27 Apr 96 |
| Design and print of ETW96 glossy folder |
Commission |
by 15 May 96 |
| Preparation of background document |
Commission |
by 15 May 96 |
| WWW site
and
discussion/announcement lists
|
Horace Mitchell |
in place |
| Registration on mailing list
|
open to all |
in place |
| Investigate possible contributions, registering events, sponsors etc for inclusion in ETW96 glossy |
all |
by 27 Apr 96 |
| Registration of events, sponsors etc |
all |
ongoing |
| Progress reporting on main events |
Hochgerner, Thomson, Pollman/Korte |
ongoing |
| Reporting media attention/activitys |
all |
ongoing |
| Coordination of video links for ETW96 |
Hochgerner |
ongoing |
| Checklist "how to do videoconferencing |
? |
for 3 May 96 |
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