 |
Teleworking |
 |
|
Selected mails from the ETW-Forum
Date: 27 Apr 97 17:01:27 +0100 As we at ETO step up our coverage for ETW97 which this year runs from November 3rd to 10th you will see an increasing amount of new material at our website. The latest is a very comprehensive report of the European Commission's ETW97 Information Day, which was held in Brussels on the 18th April. The report can be found at: The Home Page for ETW97 can be found at:
Date: 23 Apr 97 21:27:11 +0100 A new link from the side menu of the ETO home page (http://www.eto.org.uk): <<Recent Additions And Changes>> takes you to which enables any user to display a table showing those pages and/or files that have been added or changed in the past day, week or month. From the table you have the choice to link straight to any of the changed pages online, or to request that the server sends you one or more of the changed pages in a zipped and encoded email:
Date: 12 Apr 97 11:30:07 +0100 We've posted at the ETO website the full text of a European Commission press release announcing adoption of the Fifth Framework Programme, which is expected to start inviting proposals in 1998, together with some comments from the ETO site team. Matters of interest include:
The press release can be found at:
Date: 15 Jan 97 20:14:25 +0000 The Law of Electronic Commerce: EDI, E-mail and Internet, by Benjamin Wrigh: This is a comprehensive book on the legality of electronic contracts and other business transactions. Originally published in 1991, this book is regularly supplemented to keep current with technology and the law of signatures, records, evidence, liability and privacy. The revised, second edition (released September 1995) includes new material on the Internet, electronic cash, digital signatures, and recent court decisions. See the table of contents for details:
To purchase the book on a 30-day free trial, contact the publisher:
The author Benjamin Wright can be contacted via email:
Information relating to Telework, Teletrade and Telecooperation can be found at the website of European Telework Online:
Date: 9 Jan 97 11:22:16 +0000 Online Democracy in UK The UK Citizens Online Democracy initiative has launched a public online discussion of the UK Government's Green Paper <<Government.Direct>>, which proposes policies for developing online public services. The discussion is at:
The Green Paper itself is at:
Date: 11 Jan 97 13:05:54 +0000 Jobs, Labour Costs and Spending Power The UK Government's Department for Education and Employment has published an interesting little booklet summarising selected jobs and employment data for Germany, France, Italy, Spain and UK and the EU average. Three interesting aspects:
The booklet is available in English, French and German from: DFEE, London, SW1P 3BT. ETO welcomes news of similar information etc from other European countries please!
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 13:26:43 -0400 The ACTS project working on this is called TECODIS. A draft guideline showing some of their experience is online at Implementation of Telework for Multi-site Software Development The author/editor is Eduardo Arguesco of Ericsson (emeeall@madrid.ericsson.se) and the project is about teleworking among distributed software teams, but with the teams working mainly in company offices not at home. For Erik Jonason: I'm sure Eduardo would welcome an exchange of views on the available technologies, he has looked into many options. He'd also welcome constructive comments on his paper (url above) from anyone! Best wishes to all
Posted-Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 19:08:20 -0200 (GMT) ----------
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 97 11:46:49 UT Hi, perhaps a interesting information for this list:
With kind regards,
Date: 12 Oct 97 10:20:16 +0000 A new file is available from the European Telework Online home page: "Status Report on European Telework: Telework 1997" Published by the European Commission. The full URL for this file is:
Also avalable is: "Actions for stimulation of transborder telework and research cooperation in Europe: Telework 1996" Published by the European Commission
If anyone has problems either uncompressing zip files or viewing MS Word documents please see the "Tools For Teleworkers" page at the ETO site: Information relating to Telework, Teletrade and Telecooperation can be found at the website of European Telework Online: Ian Simmins
Date: 3 Nov 97 08:44:00 +0000 Today, 3rd November, is the first day of European Telework Week 1997 (ETW97). For full details of events held in European Telework Online's database and also a link to the online version of the ETW97 Newsletter please see: Ian Simmins
From: "Jack M. Nilles" <jala@ix.netcom.com> -----Original Message----- Right on, Horace! I was even more depressed to see a similar article in the October 1997 issue of Scientific American (devoted to the future of transportation) by Pat Mokhtarian (p. 93), a transportation type who claims 15 years of studying teleworking. Pat founded the Telecommuting Advisory Council in LA in the mid- '80s but concludes: "Sizeable reductions in travel will not be among those benefits, but telecommuting is still an idea worth promoting." There are two key points to be made regarding the impact of telework on traffic reduction: 1. By far the majority of home-based teleworkers do not take offsetting trips while they are teleworking. Even more interesting is our observation that there is also some additional trip reduction in the families of teleworkers. 2. There also appears to be no other trip generation in these households; that is, they do not seem to go to other places that they wouldn't have gone BT (before teleworking, not British Telecom). Admittedly, our quantitative data come from one-week intensive surveys of teleworker and non-teleworker households; we can't find people who are willing to be watched for longer periods. However, all the anecdotal evidence I have supports these two points.So, unless I'm missing something here, telework will have *no* effect on traffic congestion only if:
I don't expect any of those to happen. Furthermore, to dwell on an abstruse factor, traffic flow is non-Newtonian. That is, traffic flows-or fails to-more like blood than water. As the 1984 Olympics in LA taught us, a small reduction in traffic volume can have major effects on increasing traffic flow. I expect that about 18% of the US workforce will be telecommuting at least one day per month by the end of 2000 AD. That should begin to have visible effects on the number of peak congestion hours in urban areas. Jack Nilles
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 05:39:38 -0500 I agree with Colin J Tierney: <<Customers of [telecentres] will not be consuming telework, but the products of teleworking operations>> and with Rene CADERIUS VAN VEEN: <<. . . we will build a team that creates a normal enterprise. That this enterprise will act as a tele-work centre is nobody's business.>> but I'm not so sure about Rene's: <<We are first investigating the labour force in the region, then we decide upon the most likely work for tele-working.>> I'd urge that the place to look is not <the labour force in the region>, but <the market for products and services that can be sold and delivered from a telecentre operation>. Experience in the Western Isles of Scotland has shown that if you can get the <work>, you can find and train local people to do it. Of course you need to take a view on what kinds of things its realistic to train for - for example, you can't train someone in a week or two to do the kind of COBOL application analysis that's needed to fix the Year 2000 problem, unless they are already competent old-style programmers. But you can train someone in a day or three to do the basic html needed to manage and update a set of existing web pages, under the supervision of someone with deeper skills and experience. It helps if the trainee is literate and can use a keyboard but they don't need to be specially computerate. The key question is can you find customers, and the most common mistake in developing telecentres (or cottages if you insist!) is to underfund the sales and marketing effort. In Rene's <team that creates a normal enterprise> the most difficult people to find, motivate and reward may well be the salespeople? Usually the main entrepreneur/champion is the salesperson, but all too frequently that person has had little or no training in marketing and selling . . . . By the way there are successful telecottages/telecentres as well as unsuccessful ones. But like most small businesses even the successful ones have to keep pushing and evolving to stay successful and their focus is on their customers and their products not at advertising their success <as telecottages> :-) Best to all, Horace Mitchell
Date: 22 Nov 97 12:10:32 +0000 European Telematics: Advancing The Information Society Conference: Wednesday 4, Thursday 5 and Friday 6 February 1998 The TELEMATICS APPLICATIONS PROGRAMME has been the driving force for the development of sociental applications of the information & communication technologies in Europe over the last 10 years. The programme has brought together users, industry and researches in shaping leading edge technologies into applications for the Information Society. Now the results and achievements of the Telematics Applications Programme and visions for the future will be featured during this important four day event in Barcelona which will be of key relevance to the programme participants, users and decision makers. This Exhibition will be open daily throughout the conference, including Saturday 7 February, when it will also be open to the general public. Visit the Telematics Applications Programme's web site, Concord: Visit the Barcelona conference's web pages: Ian Simmins
Date: 26 Nov 97 09:41:20 +0000 ETD/European Telework Online at EITC97 This week some of the European Telework Development and European Telework Online teams have been <appearing> at the European IT Conference (EITC) in Brussels. EITC is the European Commission's main annual shwocase for the ESPRIT IT research programme and this year attracted an estimated 1900 delegates. ETD was the only ACTS programme project invited to participate in the exhibition, in order to present the European Telework Online website, which we believe is the most successful online public service associated with any ACTS or ESPRIT project. The stand has been manned by Alan Husselbee, Christian Van Asbroek and Sune Wilhelmson of the ETD management team, supported by Grahame and Pam Budd of Loud-n-Clear, who provided the technology and networking services support. ETD programme director Horace Mitchell was invited to speak at the conference. In a convincing demonstration of telework and telecooperation Horace's PowerPoint presentation was uploaded from the conference site to the website using a GSM phone and a laptop computer - you will find it at: in both .htm/.gif and .ppt formats. Ian Simmins
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 14:06:01 +0900 At 09:03 ΏΐΘΔ 97-11-25 GMT, you wrote: >Has anyone had any experience in producing this sort of discussion paper? Also could anyone suggest any books, aricles, web-sites etc which may be of use. >Regards, >Ian Edwards >ian.edwards@btinternet.com You might try the following :
Hope this helps. Yong-Suk Lee (Mr.) email : yslee@nca.or.kr
From: "Rob Peters" <rpeters@xs4all.nl> Dear mr Roscher, > control/supervision by management, how to maintain and change a company culture An opinion: Being involved in "culture changes" as a management trainer and "telework" as a applied researcher I should be able to answer your question with elaborate insights, but to be honest according to me it all boils down to the common sense: " hey guys, you better grow up or leave". Management control is as good as the trust invested in your teleworkers. If you don't, why not firing them at once anyway? It is also connected to the type of services you produce as an org: end-of life-cycle-products are often related to control type of companies and frightened managers, see writers like Mintzberg, Henry and others. (I thought London School of Economics wrote half of those books) 10 years ago I stopped investing time in consultancy because it took too much energy to "create culture changes". (Whatever that may be :-) Now some large companies face disaster and come running for help. It's amazing how much can be achieved in 24 hours intense confrontational "back to reality" , if they (the managers) FEEL they're in trouble. All the symtoms of a low energy org, like inflexibility, general fright and defensive views, too many chiefs, no real decisions made, etc.. cannot be fought by introducing telework and content-training. First you need to clean-up the relationships between managers and then a lot can suddenly happen. The message is something like: do not focus on abstract thinking on "resistance to change-symtoms" and it's consequences for telework. I think about 50% of organisational member's behaviour is about risk avoidance and opposing telework just becomes part of that. When they passed the point of defense, no-one cares how the employees do it as long as it produces output. Rob Peters
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 04:44:06 -0500 Hello Aaron. To assist your quest it might be better to separate out the many aspects that you have asked about: <<unemployment>>
<<traffic congestion>>
<<community information centers to alleviate urban problems>>
Let me know if you want to follow through on any of the above. Best wishes to all Horace Mitchell
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 07:52:11 -0500 I agree with Rob Peters that most of the concerns under this heading are to do with inadequate management and/or inadequate or inappropriate organisation cultures rather than the old chestnut of <resistance to change>. People resist changes they don't understand or don't feel confident about and welcome changes that make sense to them. When we hold back from replacing that old 386 with the latest Pentium II we are probably very keen to change, but somewhat afraid that the experience of making the change will be somewhat painful and we may be fighting the technology for a few weeks :-) However, I also think there are many situations where telework is inappropriate, so that resistance is appropriate, but telework fanatics who think telework is the answer to all problems blame things like <resistance to change> or organisation culture rather than recognising that telework may not be the answer in this case. As an example, if you want to set up a telemarketing or telesupport services centre that will attract business from hard nosed commercial managers in your target market, in my view you will get farther faster with a bunch of bright young enthusiastic flexible people working together under one roof than you will with a people working at home and connected only by the technology. Once the centre is well established and has a culture of success then it may be useful to have some of the people work at home some of the time, particularly to address flexible manning of peaks and unsocial hours. But if some telework enthusiast tells you it will be more productive and cheaper for the whole gang to work at home and close the centre down, tell them to go learn some simple arithmetic as well as some basic human motivation and organisation dynamics :-) Of course you put the centre in or near residential populations and make sure its easy to get there; but is that teleworking or is that just sensible location planning? Horace Mitchell
From: "Janet Leatham" <janet@btinternet.com> My apologies for going back to an old subject (Teleworking and traffic reduction) but recently I read the following article (North Devon Journal - 11/12/97) which might be of interest. Has anyone seen this wonderful report? It presents some very definite figures apparently. ---------------------------------------- MOTORS OR MODEMS? "Virtual journeys by computer will help save parts of the South West (of England) from gridlock, confirms a new report from the RAC. Nightmare traffic congestion could be avoided as drivers travel by modem as well as motor, the study reveals. The RAC report is the first study into the impact of information technology on travel, traffic and congestion. The report shows that within 10 years:
Government traffic forecasts predict that congestion in 2007 will be 46% worse than today. Virtual travel will cut that figure to 15%. "Virtual travel will help prevent our traffic nightmare becoming a reality," said RAC spokesman Rob Maynard. "It means that out of all the car journeys we make, at least one on 10 will be replaced". The RAC has presented the conclusions of the new report to the government as part of the consultation on Integrated Transport. The RAC has recommended the introduction of integrated tax breaks for businesses which use technology to cut road travel. The government's increase in traffic forecast is:
The RAC report reveals:
---------------------- Now there speaks a committed teleworker. Let's hope it gets started before the total eclipse in Cornwall next summer! Has anyone seen this RAC report? I particularly liked the bit about the tax breaks :-) Janet Leatham
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 06:43:58 -0500 Hi from Germany, http://www.iig.uni-freiburg.de/modell/Tele-Bericht/Tele9.1.html (from Volker Wulf and Britta Schinzel) The Report is about Readings, being held at 5 German Universities as Tele-Readings. Positive as well as some negative experiences have been made. I will ask the originaters, whether they are planing to post an english transaltion... Thomas "Tutti" Tuttenuj
Date: 24 Dec 97 12:47:11 +0000 "How to benefit from the Information Society" This is the title of a new publication just published by DG XIII of the European Commission. The booklet has been prepared for Europeans who would like to explore what the Information Society and its new tools will bring about in practice and how they themselves could benefit from this process. The brochure contains a selection of case studies. The booklet is presently available in English only. French and German editions will follow shortly. Copies are available, free of charge, from:
Information relating to Telework, Teletrade and Telecooperation can be found at the web site of European Telework Online: Ian Simmins
Date: 7 Jan 98 07:18:10 +0000 Community Networking Conference - Australia 27-28 February 1998 at the Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia is the Third Community Networking / Networking Communities Conference. Details at http://www.vicnet.net.au/~vacab/comunet3.htm Information relating to Telework, Teletrade and Telecooperation can be found at the web site of European Telework Online: Ian Simmins
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 08:26:07 -0500 Hello Frank Seidel: >Telework in rural areas< Is highly topical, maybe when you have completed your thesis you will put it on the web for others to see? Three publications that I think would be useful for you to obtain are:
You should find references to each of these at the European Telework Online website: if you can't find the references by searching there send an email to eto-info@eto.org.uk If you find useful information in your research that's not already listed at the website please let us know at the same address. Best wishes for the success of your research. Horace Mitchell
Date: 11 Jan 98 18:17:15 +0000 "Questions and Answers About Telecommuting Regarding Persons with Disabilities: A GUIDE FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES," The Independent Living Research Utilization Program, The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, Houston, Texas, and James Jarrett, Graduate School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, April 1996. This guide is for persons with disabilities who want more information about telecommuting. The guide is based mainly on a national mail survey of approximately 500 employers conducted in 1995. Additional information came from telephone interviews, reviews of materials submitted by corporations and by departments of federal, state, and local governments, and analysis of prior telecommuting studies. Prepared in a question-and-answer format, the guide was designed to present information that employees and potential employees with disabilities should consider when thinking about telecommuting. A companion guide addresses related issues from an employer's perspective. One appendix provides examples of useful materials which could serve as resources for employees: guides and handbooks, agreements and forms, reports, training offerings, electronic sources of information, and videotapes. A second appendix contains comments from employers about telecommuting by people with disabilities. There is no cost for an e-mail version of the guide. Contact James Jarrett at: The cost of a hard copy of the guide is $5. Order from the ILRU by telephone (713-520-0232), or by mail: ILRU Ian Simmins
Date: 11 Jan 98 18:16:22 +0000 "Questions and Answers About Telecommuting Regarding Persons with Disabilities: A GUIDE FOR EMPLOYERS," The Independent Living Research Utilization Program, The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, Houston, Texas, and James Jarrett, Graduate School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, April 1996. This guide is for human resource staffs and supervisors in private and public organizations on issues related to telecommuting by employees and job seekers with disabilities. The 20-page guide is based mainly on a national mail survey of approximately 500 employers conducted in 1995. Additional information came from telephone interviews, reviews of materials submitted by corporations and by departments of federal, state and local governments, and analysis of prior telecommuting studies. Prepared in a question-and-answer format, the guide was designed to address issues from an employer's perspective. Acompanion guide looks at issues from the perspective of employees and job applicants with disabilities. One appendix provides examples of useful materials which could serve as resources for employers: guides and handbooks, agreements and forms, reports, training offerings, electronic sources of information, and videotapes. A second appendix contains comments from employers about telecommuting by people with disabilities. There is no cost for an electronic mail version of the guide. Order from the author via e-mail: The cost for a hard copy is $7.50, pre-paid, to cover shipping and handling. Order via electronic mail or by writing the author at: Dr. James Jarrett Ian Simmins
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 02:35:08 -0500 Hello Frank Seidel: >Telework in rural areas< To add to Horace's list, you might like to look at a report I produced at the end of 1995 entitled "Good practice in the use of telematics for rural development - a handbook for sponsoring, setting-up and implementing projects" (ANAGO project, part of the ORA Programme). If you're interested, let me know. I can send you a word for windows version or a paper copy. Best wishes
Date: 22 Jan 98 16:10:47 +0000 Telework in focus at Brussels The 1997 European Telework Awards and Europe's telework developments make up the main front page feature in the latest edition of the EC's Information Society News, pushing the European IT Prize onto page two. The European Telework Online web site is given as the main reference point for news of teleworking initiatives. ISPO News is available on paper and on the web (http://www.ispo.cec.be) Ian Simmins
Date: 22 Jan 98 16:33:07 +0000 Congratulations to the UK TCA (national telework association) on the second edition of their <Teleworking Handbook>, 337 pages of useful information and insights into the world of telework, with a lot of material relevant to people outside as well as inside the UK. Lots of new material compared with edition number one. With support from European Telework Development, there is now also an Italian Telework Handbook and editions are planned in several other countries. Details at http://www.tca.org.uk or from teleworker@compuserve.com Ian Simmins
Date: 23 Jan 98 19:38:00 +0000 The European Commission has published a notice saying that for the time being Internet telephony (using the Internet for voice calls) should not be subject to licensing or regulation in Europe. It reserves the possibility that Internet telephony may be subject to regulation if and when a regular public service is offered, for details see: Information relating to Telework, Teletrade and Telecooperation can be found at the web site of European Telework Online: Ian Simmins
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 08:15:24 -0500 Peter Wooton asks about these and similar issues for an organisation that is introducing telework: > a. no longer being part of the organisation Yes indeed Peter all these and more have been raised and addressed many times. You might want to look at http://www.eto.org.uk/FAQ/faq03.htm Telework (Telecommuting): the Benefits and particularly the section headed <Are there any drawbacks?> Each of your <issues> deserves a specific answer, but in general the answer is that it very much depends on: (a) the motivation of the enterprise in introducing telework - if the motivation is mainly to save costs then there will be more issues, if the motivation is to become a more effective organisation including being a better employer, then there could be very few real issues (b) how committed the organisation is to adopting flexible work methods as its modus operandi - if this is just seen as a minor matter for a few people then naturally the few involved will be concerned that they will be out of the mainstream etc etc, if its the whole future direction of the organisatio then the organisation will make sure to get it right. A simple way to pre-empt all these issues is to make sure the chief executive is among the first teleworkers and the rules and mechanisms that apply to the chief executive are the same as those for all other teleworkers. On the other hand if its not realistic for the chief executive why should it work for anyone else? A simple way to get it wrong is to see it as something that makes sense for junior workers but not for the top management, if its a good thing the top management will want to do it as well . . . On the question of management style, if you really do in 1998 emply managers whose evaluation of staff is based on monitoring attendance rather than on results, it would be better to get a new set of managers first, then start the telework scheme second :-) Best wishes, Horace Mitchell
Date: 15 Feb 98 15:57:20 +0000 The key events and activities in telework at European level have been compiled into a European Telework Agenda which is online at: http://www.eto.org.uk/agenda/telework Each of the activities listed is linked to a short description and, where available, to the activity's own web site or other contact points. Anyone interested in European policy and programmes with respect to telework is encouraged to keep an eye on the <Agenda>, which will be updated as new events are announced or additional information about events becomes available. The Agenda is being maintained through the European Telework Online calendar service - event organisers can add their own events (or amend details) directly online, please see: http://www.eto.org.uk/events/service.htm Ian Simmins
Date: 17 Feb 98 15:23:24 +0000 The web site of the EITC 97 workshop "Tomorrow's Multimedia Content - Today" has recently been updated, please see: The workshop was presented by the European Commission DGXIII/E-4 and focused on the future of European Electronic Publishing. You can view the speakers abstracts and download their presentations. Views of the Future What's in it for the user? Digital Online Publishing with Agents Generation of Personalised Content Please send any comments concerning the web site to content@ip.lu Ian Simmins
Date: 23 Feb 98 11:58:52 +0000 Europe's Fifth Framework Programme The budget and direction for Europe's research and related efforts during 1998-2002 were agreed by the Research Council on behalf of the Member States on 12 February 1998, under the title Fifth Framework Programme. With support from European Telework Online, the European Telework Development initiative aims to provide some summary and interpretation of the programme as it develops, especially with respect to:
The home page for this is at http://www.eto.org.uk/fp5/ where there is also an initial overview of the programme. We hope these pages will be helpful to people and organisations interested in these aspects of Europe's plans and perhaps as a focal point for developing useful ideas and proposals. The Commission's CORDIS service has established a web site for the programme - see: - and the Commission directorates concerned have or will have their own pages covering the programme. Anyone with a serious interest should watch for and read the Commission's official publications. The ETD/eto pages are intended to complement these. As new information is added to the ETD/eto pages, we will announce it in the discussion and announcement lists (http://www.eto.org.uk/discuss/discuss.htm). Contributions to the pages will be very welcome, as will offers of support to developing and maintaining them, please write to: Ian Simmins
Date: 3 Mar 98 09:43:29 +0000 The European IT Observatory (EITO) is Europe's most authoritative and comprehensive source for market data about the Information Society. Each year the EITO annual report provides current and forecast data and trends about Europe's use of computers and telecommunications, together with new material about different aspects of the market. This year's EITO report will be launched at a Brussels press conference on 5th March 1998, with presentations from European Commission officials and members of the EITO Board, including Dr. Bruno Lamborghini, Chairman of EITO and President of Eurobit and Mr. Jφrn Keck, Deputy Director General DG III, of the European Commission. For the first time the EITO launch this year will be web cast by arrangement with European Telework Development and the TeleworkEuropa Forum. For details please see: http://www.eto.org.uk/eito/webcast.htm Ian Simmins
Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 15:01:24 +0000 To carry on this week's web casting theme and for those of you who can't be at the Euro-Med '98 conference in Nicosia, Cyprus, please see: http://www.cytanet.com.cy/euromednet.ram NOTE: You will need a copy of the free RealPlayer software to view this web cast. If you need to download a copy, you can do so from: http://www.real.com/products/player/index.html Ian Simmins
Date: 15 Mar 98 09:19:07 +0000 A new report is available on IT development in Central & Eastern Europe - "Information Technology and Telecommunications Services/Products in CEE" prepared in Nov. 97, there is a link to it from the Central & Eastern European Online web page at: http://www.eto.org.uk/nat/eec/index.htm The report in question is a 30k zip file, the direct link is: ftp://ftp.d3group.com/etd/eec-rep1.zip Information relating to Telework, Teletrade and Telecooperation can be found at the web site of European Telework Online: Ian Simmins
Date: 18 Mar 98 18:41:41 +0000 The European Commission's Green Paper on the Convergence of Telecommunications, Media and Information Technology Sectors, published on 3 December 1997, is the most requested document on the Commission's ISPO (Information Society Project Office) Web server. The convergence site has registered 43,000 hits since publication. The Green Paper asks questions such as how fast is convergence happening and how far will it go. It also asks questions on the likely impact of convergence on current activities and strategies and how this will affect future regulation. Copies of comments received electronically will be posted on the Commission's IPSO Web Site from mid-March Further information is available on the ISPO Web server, at: http://www.ispo.cec.be/convergencegp/ or by sending an email to: Ian Simmins
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 01:05:57 +0000 I just came across an interesting article that originally appeared in the Information Technology Journal from Gartner Interactive in February. The article considers the propositions of having teleworking employees use their own equipment vs the company providing equipment. It concludes that it is in the interest of the company to provide equipment for the employee to use. The artilce can be seen at: http://advisor.gartner.com/inbox/articles/iheadline5.html Craig Pickup
From: Michael Saunby <mike@chook.demon.co.uk> > It concludes that it is in the interest of the company to provide equipment for the employee to use. And at first glance you would think that the employee might benefit too! My own experience is as follows: Software Licenses - Some licenses are for "the site" and as such don't automatically allow use at another site (esp. since the other site is not owned by the company!) even on company equipment. Maintenance - Company wide support agreements, even those that cover multiple sites, may not include teleworkers, or the arrangements can be difficult. Insurance - The arrangements for home insurance when you have a lot of high value equipment in your home that doesn't belong to you can get messy. I expect a claim would be even more complicated. Space - Since the company provided equipment probably cannot be used for any other purpose you have a desk with the company system (I'm sitting there at the moment) and another for your own system. Lots of space needed! Overall I'd say it is an area to negotiate with your employer over. It might not suit everyone to use a company provided system. The future - I can foresee an arrangement where telecoms providers will have systems they sell/lease/rent to companies or individuals for teleworking. These companies already have teams of engineers covering their territories who could be trained to carry out repairs. This is another area in which teleworking could help to bring work to rural areas. At present there are not enough teleworkers for large scale telework support infrastructure to exist, but it can't be too far away now. --
Date: 4 Jun 98 06:42:59 +0100
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 15:29:57 +0100 GMT IMPLEMENTING TELEWORK PRESS RELEASE A major new publication, 'Implementing Telework', is to be published on August 16th, in CD-ROM format. The publication offers detailed information and resources for companies, public sector organisations and individuals interested in teleworking. (Teleworking means working at a distance by making use of information & communication technologies). The CD-ROM brings together in one place a bank of telework case studies and collective agreements from several different regions of Europe. For the first time it will be possible to consult the full text of almost thirty actual collective agreements which have been negotiated recently between employers and workers' representatives. Users will also be able to access summaries of these agreements, identifying common themes (and differences of approach) on particular key issues of importance. 'Implementing Telework' also includes fourteen detailed case studies, exploring the introduction of teleworking in large companies, smaller enterprises and local government, as well as the development of community-based telecentre initiatives. Also on the CD-ROM are a series of extended articles exploring the advantages and disadvantages of this way of working. Individual articles consider the steps to be followed for successful teleworking by companies, employees, self-employed freelances and public sector organisations. Also included is a Telework A-Z glossary of terms, and a list of other telework related resources (including web sites). 'Implementing Telework' takes full advantage of the hypertext medium. Users can follow one of six paths (employees, larger companies, small/medium sized enterprises, freelancers, local initiatives, local authorities & public bodies) to identify quickly the material of direct interest to them. It is also possible to access the material on the CD-ROM as if it were a conventional book. This publication has been produced by the MIRTI (Models of Industrial Relations in Telework Implementation) Consortium. MIRTI, which has been researching ways of encouraging best practice in the introduction of teleworking, brings together partners and associates in Italy, Austria, Germany, Belgium and the UK. It has received partial financial support from the European Union under the Telematics Applications Programme (Telematics Engineering Sector). 'Implementing Telework' is available price 10 ECU or equivalent from national distribution centres (see e-mail addresses below) or from the MIRTI co-ordination office, IESS-AE, via Po 22, Roma 00198. National contacts:
Web site: http://www.telework-mirti.org Note for editors: Review copies of 'Implementing Telework' are available on request. Please e-mail your national contact or write to the IESS-AE address in Rome (above).
Last modified: 13 August, 2002, by MVS |
