Taran Rampersad writes
>But you see, people are slow to adopt things.<
Perhaps this is one of those enduring fictions, helped along as it is by Ev
Rogers' taxonmy of "early adopters" and the like. The speed with which
people all over the world are adopting the new technologies is astounding.
The digital divide is caused more by poverty than by "resistance to change."
People are indeed reluctant to disrupt styles of work and play that offer
them important satisfactions because an outsider--often a marketer of some
new product--tries to convince them that if they throw out the baby as well
as the bathwater they will be happier in the long run.
<<This is why we're
using listservs for most of the communication here on the DDN, because
many are simply not comfortable unless they can use Microsoft Outlook to
inform us when they are out of town (perhaps so that someone can
burglarize them and they can make insurance claims? I do not know).
Perhaps on a busy day, such as when you sent this, I would not respond
because I'm up to my neck in other listservs.>>
I am one of those who prefers to use Outlook and remain comfortable. (I
don't quite get the point of the burglarize reference.) I don't choose to
get uncomfortable unless there are important benefits --benefits that appeal
to me--offered to me in exchange for my discomfort. I don't yet see the
benefits--to me--in what you are proposing.
<<There are forms which are not as self limiting. As you say, all forms
are self limiting - but the degree to which they are self limiting
varies. For broad communication with large groups, websites are less
self limiting - and are decreasing even further over time. Email hasn't
really changed in the last 10 years that much... however, website
technology has changed quite a bit, and has shown itself to be more
adaptive to the demands we place on this medium. It even uses email as a
tool at times.>>
The hand-held hammer is not more limited than the jackhammer or the
piledriver: indeed, for certain purposes the more powerful tools are almost
useless.
I, for one, don't want to have use shortcuts or insert URLs into a brower to
conduct email eschanges: I much prefer the speed and simplicity of the
listserv. I may be fooling myself, but I don't believe that preference is
because I resist change.
Steve E said:
>The online medium needs designs that don't begin by limiting themselves to
>mimicking a face-to-face form. A face to face form like the "conference.">>
And Taran said:
>
>
I don't necessarily agree with this. We must not forget our roots
either. Man is a social creature, and as such the senses play an
important part. Face to face conferences are social gatherings - maybe
some things are discussed, maybe not. But they are social gatherings, in
the hopes of attaining some purpose that the attendees wish to achieve.
How odd for me to defend face to face conferences - and yet, if web
conferences incorporate audio and video, what is missing from the
conference? >>
I think here we are indeed talking past each other.
My point is that although we call both forms "conferences," they really have
little in common with each other. Better: they ought not to resemble each
other, since they are using different technologies with different strengths
and weaknesses. The fac-to-face conference ought to improve by understanding
and exploiting the virtues of assembling people together what you are
calling "proximity." The online form ought to exploit the lack of
proximity--the overcoming of time and space restrictions at the expense of
proximity.
When forms like email and listservs and newsgroups continue to flourish and
multiply despite the appearance of "better" forms like web sites, perhaps
the explanation is not the rather tired one of "resistance to change," but
the continuing strength and vitality of a form that is maintaining its
usefulness.
Steve Eskow
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