From 3-10
November 1997, telework events, both real and virtual, took place all over Europe.
Particular aims of this third Telework Week were to:
European Telework Week is the focal point of many activities that go on throughout the year promoting the understanding of Telework and its considered implementation. There are many other activities that seek to attract the attention of the public and the media alike, and a focusing of telework actions into a single week enables participants to reinforce their message at several levels. It was to support industry, administrations, and other interested organisations in their activities that DGXIII launched the first European Telework Week in 1995.
From 3-10
November 1997, telework events, both real and virtual, took place all over Europe.
Particular aims of this third Telework Week were to:
As well as its usual support from the European Commission, DGXIII, European Telework Week 1997 received European level sponsorship from Siemens and Toshiba. Ian Culpin, coordinator of European Telework Week, expressed general satisfaction with the results:
"There can be no doubt that European Telework Week in 1997 represented a major increase in telework activity and awareness across Europe, and even spilling well beyond its borders. Whilst it would be unfair to highlight any one country’s contribution to ETW ’97, we can observe from the table below substantial activity in terms of events across Europe.
We also observed a broadening of the nature of events: internal seminars by companies, showing a growing maturity of the approach to telework; large scale national conferences with several hundred attendees; demonstrations of telework witnessed by millions of listeners on the radio; as well as hands on demonstrations of practical teleworking, and the appreciation of best practice demonstrated in local and international telework awards.
Work has already begun on European Telework Week 1998, with a focus on gaining even more attention from the media, and persuading them to focus on the real implications of telework, highlighting best practice and even those areas where telework does not fit the business or the individual concerned."
With about 30 events in Europe during its first year, 1995, ETW had over 60 events occurring across Europe in 1996, with interest generated in local, regional and national media. International focus enabled the events to benefit from additional public and media awareness, and thus reach broad audiences. In 1997 the numbers soared to 146 registered events and to 345 reported events which took place throughout Europe. All this activity directly brought together well over 10,000 citizens, as well as millions indirectly due to an even wider media coverage in most member states, through regional and national newspapers, commercial and internal magazines, TV shows, etc.
The numbers of events registered per country (excluding additional events later reported) |
|||||||||
Austria |
10 |
Finland |
20 |
Ireland |
5 |
Netherlands |
3 |
UK |
4 |
Belgium |
5 |
France |
9 |
Italy |
32 |
Spain |
2 |
||
Denmark |
7 |
Germany |
15 |
Luxembourg |
5 |
Sweden |
29 |
Total |
146 |
Three pan-European activities are worthy of particular mention:
A full report on ETW’97 can be found on http://www.etw.org/. For country reports, see Annex 1.
These took place in Brussels on 7th November 1997. Three nominees per category presented their cases during exciting five minute presentations to a live audience of about 100 people, as well as four sites elsewhere in Europe via video conference. The award winners were:
European competitiveness - IBM, Belgium/Luxembourg. The award recognises the significant penetration of new working practices, ensuring that telework is now the norm for 60% of their workforce. In addition they had documented and evaluated the project so that others could benefit from their experience43.
Runners up in this category were Interpolis, a Dutch Insurance company practising a flexible office concept in combination with teleworking for all its staff; and OTTO Versand, with a Call Centre employing teleworkers in Breda.
Sustainability - Rijkswaterstaat, (the Dutch Ministry of Transport), for their internal telework programme. The judges considered that this example, if followed elsewhere, would have a profound impact on environmental and social sustainability. Productivity and quality of service had improved and 26 employees were saving 3,500 km in commuting travel each week44.
Runners up in this category were the Prison Telecentre project, in existence since 1993 (the aim of the Telework Programme is to provide work and work experience for the female inmates in an office-like environment, within the prison, which contains computer and telecommunications equipment); and the KITE project, which consists of a telecentre that has provided work through teleworking since 1993, with a clear focus on developing teleworking alongside adequate social support structures.
Most original telework scheme - ISdAC (the Information Society disAbilities Challenge). ISdAC are a pan European group of disabled people launching an initiative that could bring many of Europe’s millions of disabled into a more productive activity45.
Runners up in this category were Chaos in action, an art project realised in Paris, Köln, Aachen, Helsinki, Cambridge, Skopje, Belgrade, Sofia, Bucharest, Istanbul, Athens, Graz and Rome, aiming to open a discussion between people in different professions and of different nationalities, and thus to stimulate the variety of art; and Televillages, a network of tele-offices (telecottages) which has been operational since 1 October 1997 and has resulted in four telecottages in each Flemish province in Belgium.
Best technological contribution - Siemens, Austria. The judges recognised the diverse application of telephony - flexible call routing and following, network independent "one number services", that are key to the successful implementation of ad hoc, periodic, and mobile telework46.
Runners up in this category were TLC, nominated for it’s ‘intelligent suitcase’, a suitcase containing everything needed for a person to work and the integration with the company’s system through well structured information management provisions facilitating the exchange of data between laptop and main computer with a simple click of the button.; and BinTec with VICAS, which combines a remote access router with hardfax functionality and TAPI compatibility.
Best media coverage - Teleworx magazine, Germany. Teleworx gained this award despite being new to the telework arena. It narrowly defeated its UK counterpart (The Teleworker) by virtue of its broader circulation, and a slight edge in portraying best practice. It reaches 25,000 - 35,000 readers and is produced by freelancers using the telework technologies of email, Internet and videoconferencing47.
Runners up in this category were Teleworker Magazine, the bi-monthly magazine of the TeleCottage Association; and a Web published case study by the ACTS48 project, Infowin, describing the activities of Wuestenrot Insurance.
A full report can be found at http://www.etw.org 49.
Next section
Previous
section
Return
to Status Report contents page
Return to European Telework Online home page
This html version of the European Commission report is provided and maintained by Marco
Colonna, Telework Specialist in the European Telework Online website team.
Please address comments, suggestions and corrections for the status report to editors-tw98@eto.org.uk
This page address: http://www.eto.org.uk/twork/tw98/htmpages/tw98-3.17.4.htm
Page last updated: 12 October 1998