Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!east!witzend!db From: db@witzend.East.Sun.COM (David Brownell) Newsgroups: comp.groupware Subject: Re: Groupware effects (was Re: Peers (ao.gw)) Message-ID: <2004@east.East.Sun.COM> Date: 6 Jun 90 12:24:29 GMT References: <1138200010@cdp> <1998@east.East.Sun.COM> Sender: news@east.East.Sun.COM Reply-To: db@witzend.East.Sun.COM (David Brownell) Organization: Sun Microsystems, Billerica MA Lines: 45 In article wex@sitting.pws.bull.com (Buckaroo Banzai) writes: > In article <1998@east.East.Sun.COM> > db@witzend.East.Sun.COM (David Brownell) writes: > I think that after information technologies are widely enough dispersed, > THEN they could begin to be used for promoting egalitarian social agendas > rather than a power/control agenda. You can see this already in > communities that have lots of computer power, and networking is an > environmental feature. > > Good luck, my friend. Nothing will fail faster than a groupware system > which fails to recognize existing social and power relationships. You deleted the explanatory paragraph here -- I pointed out that new agendas can only start succeeding AFTER the existing ones get addressed. (There IS the potential for a revolution ... but I'm not fomenting that kind of agenda now! Most organizations don't need them.) We do agree on that point: you can't successfully sell software to a group, if using it means the group must change its nature! I was philosophising on the next stage of development ... which seems to peek its nose through periodically. > Another question: how many executives at or near VP level in your company > use email? I can't even get my division manager to use it. Well, even though you're only about 1 mile away, it looks like your company culture is radically different from mine! :-) Illustrating the key point rather well: different organizations require different software. Seriously, within Sun (an extreme of the kind of "resource rich" environment I referred to) everyone up to the President uses email. VPs frequently get so much that an administrator will filter it for them (oh, for Object Lens!), but do send and read mail themselves. This was true of most of the companies I've worked for. But of course, one reason that EMAIL is effective is because it CAN reflect the various various power structures very easily. David Brownell db@east.sun.com. Sun Desktop Systems Software (508) 671-0348 "We'll get to ISO, Mars, and Pluto ... not necessarily in that order."