Contribution from Horace Mitchell - MTA/ETD

1. The network's participants will have differing needs, so the network should provide a portfolio of activities, members will participate in those that meet their needs.

2. Face-to-face meetings are a core activity, with the purposes of:
   (a) exchange of knowledge and experience at a level that cannot yet be attained across distance
   (b) reducing the learning curve for each participant by providing access to the experience of others
   (c) carrying back to countries and audiences the important lessons learned
   (d) developing common understanding of issues, opportunities and challenges
   (e) evolving well articulated inputs to policy and programme activities at EU and other levels

3. In order to facilitate effective exchange and active participation the main meetings need to be restricted in attendance, by:
   (a) constraining the numbers attending any particular meeting, so that all can question and speak
   (b) establishing some kind of qualification such that participants have an approximately equivalent level of pre-existing competence, experience and focus, so as to avoid consuming time in discussion and explanation of basic matters already known to most participants

   This approach distinguishes and characterises the network as being for centres of competence as opposed to being for "anyone who wants to learn about electronic commerce".

4. Meetings will need significant effort to plan and organise so that:
   (a) each meeting has substantive new content
   (b) there is effective progress from meeting to meeting, building competence for the network as a whole
   (c) the value of each meeting is optimised by building on what has gone before rather than each being treated as a new and stand alone activity

   The budget for the network needs to include funding so that in addition to the efforts of members and others to host effective meetings there is professional paid effort in place responsible for the overall programme and it's success. To make sense of such professional support and ensure continuity requires a minimum critical mass of meetings and an appropriate frequency of meetings, the figure of 5 meetings a year was suggested, possibly with the addition of an annual assembly open to all members. In general we should, in bidding for EC funds, budget for what we might want to do, since it is easier to switch an existing budget to alternative uses than to secure additional budget for unanticipated needs.

5. In order to ensure appropriate attendance at meetings the total number of network participants needs to be significantly higher than the planned number of people attending particular meetings. It is assumed that most members will send representatives to perhaps two or three meetings a year. Different meetings will have different capacities for attendance depending on hosting and content. More thought is needed on numbers but limits such as 25 people per meeting and 50 or 60 network member organisations seem appropriate.

6. An important element will be capturing the material and lessons learned from each meeting and making them available to the membership as a whole, and through network members to their audiences, policy makers etc. The budget needs to include funding for focused effort to capture, re-format and re-present meeting contents and outcomes.

7. Based on experience to date, especially that from Lille, at least some meetings should include inputs from enterprises actually engaged in electronic commerce, as well as from centres of competence. Location of meetings should vary so that the variety of national cultural and market settings becomes visible to participants and to ensure that the opportunities and challenges of Europe-wide and global electronic commerce are explored and understood.

8. To optimise the value to members and to increase the likelihood that outputs will be used quickly and effectively, there is a perceived need for at least some translation of materials for ease of access by members and their audiences. Two possible approaches might be:
   (a) Translate all materials into a cluster of main languages: this would make materials and outputs readily accessible to the widest possible number of users in the shortest possible time
   (b) Provide links and descriptions of materials in a cluster of main languages, so that audiences including members can readily know what is available and decide for themselves whether to obtain an automatic (machine) translation, arrange and pay for full translation for their own purposes, or access the original materials in their original language(s)

   It is thought unlikely that a Call within the Commission's programmes will provide sufficient budget to allow all materials to be translated into all EU languages and even (a) above may be outwith the scope of a call budget - we need to wait and see. Meanwhile participants who are national or international centres of competence should please consider whether complementary funding might be obtained from national sources to fund translation of network materials into their own national languages, or contribute towards the cost of this. If three or four network participants in different languages/countries could organise this then we would have gone a long way towards solving the problem.

9. The network should be open to participation by centres of competence from Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean region and possibly can gain from links with centres of competence in other regions, so long as the focus remains clearly on understanding and responding to issues and opportunities from the perspective of companies based within the EU and neighbouring economies. Differences are known to be as imortant to learning as commonalities; linage between EC, CEE and Med companies can make an important contribution to productivity, reach and resilience in an electronic commerce context.

10. Any funding from the EC will be dependent on proposals that promise and deliver good linkage with the main thrusts of EC/EU electronic commerce planning, policies and programmes. Discussion at Lille with 3 Suisses strongly confirmed the need to provide coherent input to the policy and regulatory process. This will best be achieved through links with other networks and projects rather than making it a primary internal focus of our network. This will also have the benefit of providing participants with a readily accessible flow of information about developments and avoiding duplication of work that is already going on elsewhere. Effort for this needs to be budgeted and suitable resources and skills identified so that any such activity adds value for network participants rather than diluting our focus.

11. The Commission will also want to use the network as a sounding board for issues, policies and planning; we should consider having a standing invitation to the Commission to nominate one or two participants for each network meeting, but with a strict limit placed on the extent and scope of EC-oriented discussion as opposed to policy etc matters that the members as a whole decide are an important focus.

12. The World Wide Web and email are seen as the primary means of information sharing and communication across the network outside of the meetings activity. As better technologies become more widely available consideration should be given to enhanced communications (for example webcasting of elements of meetings, videoconferencing etc) but the watchword should be to "keep it simple", since the network seeks to be an effective user of existing technologies not a showcase for novelties. Budget will be needed to sustain an effective www based interchange, manage the induction of new participants and handle technical and usage queries. Decisions as to a web url etc need to be taken when we have a clearer idea of the purposes of the website. The immediate perception is that it would be mainly a central link point to materials that would be largely held elsewhere at participants sites etc. Further thought is needed on this.

13. The main cost of participation in the network should be the resource-time invested by members in hosting and attending meetings and generally contributing to the network's success. We anticipate that matching funds from the EC will cover the primary costs of network management and administration and provide a budget to assist or fund travel to meetings.

14. In responding to a Call for Proposals and structuring the network, attention must be paid to minimising bureacracy and the administrative overhead of participation in the relevant Commission programme. Accordingly, it may be appropriate for a small sub group of participants to form whatever formal consortium is needed to comply with EC programme rules, and for the rest of the network to join as associates, thereby minimising the number of organisations that have to join in a contract directly with the Commission. Based on prior programmes it might be anticipated that we will need some Centres of Competence to be directly contracted as partners in a consortium, but that network administration and support could be subcontracted. A small steering group of members will be needed.

15. Subject to comments on the above and suggestions regarding missing or superfluous ingredients, the next step should be work to develop an outline budget showing the costs of network administration, meetings programme, travel etc as mentioned above, and the creation of a model showing how the proposed Commission contribution will be matched by costs borne by members.

Please post comments to the network list (ecom-centres@eto.org.uk). If you are not already subscribed to the network list and wish to participate please see:

Horace Mitchell
European Telework Online
Newbury, 15 September 1998