The Online World, Odd de Presno [simple ebook reader txt] 📗

McGraw-Hill Book Company, Time-Life Books and Walden Computer Books. On the Internet, Roswell Computer Books Ltd. (Canada) has an online bookstore with a database of over 7,000 titles (1993). Gopher to nstn.ns.ca, select "Other Gophers in Nova Scotia", and then "Roswell Electronic Computer Bookstore". Failing access to gopher, send your email requests to roswell@fox.nstn.ns.ca . The Book Review Digest (GO BOOKREVIEW) is CompuServe's database of bibliographical references and abstracts of reviews (since 1983). You can search by title, author, and keywords found in the text of book reviews. CompuServe also offers book reviews through Magazine Database Plus. "Books in print" is a North American bibliographic reference database. It is available on BRS and CompuServe. South African Bibliographic and Information Network has a gopher service at info2.sabinet.co.za. FidoNet has COMICS (The Comic Book Echo), BITNET the list Rare Book and Special Collections Catalogers (NOTRBCAT@INDYCMS). NewsNet has the COMPUTER BOOK REVIEW newsletter and on The Well you'll find the "Computer Books" conference. OCLC's WorldCat is a reference database covering books and materials in libraries worldwide. Bookworms may appreciate the BITNET discussion list DOROTHYL (LISTSERV@KENTVM.KENT.EDU), and especially if they like Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey and Dorothy L. Sayers. On Usenet, you will find alt.books.reviews, k12.library, alt.books.technical, rec.arts.books, and misc. books.technical, and more. On the Internet, there are a rapidly growing number of library online public-access catalogs (OPACs) from all over the world. Some provide users with access to additional resources, such as periodical indexes of specialized databases. More than 270 library catalogs are now online (1992). An up-to-date directory of libraries that are interactively accessible through Internet can be had by anonymous ftp from ftp.unt.edu (then: cd library). File name: LIBRARIES.TXT. Check out the end of Chapter 12 for how to get the file by email (ftpmail). You will also find full electronic versions of books. This book is one example. Many texts are courtesy of Project Gutenberg, an organization whose goal is to develop a library of 10,000 public domain electronic texts by the year 2000. Since books are often quite large, they are somewhat bulky for email transfer. If you have direct Internet access, use anonymous ftp instead. Many books are available through the /pub/almanac/etext directory at oes.orst.edu. For more about how to use the Almanac information server, send Almanac@oes.orst.edu the following email command: send guide

For a list of books, add the line

send gutenberg catalog

Among the offerings, you'll find The Complete Sherlock Holmes Mysteries, The Unabridged Works of Shakespeare, Aesop's Fables, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Holy Bible, The Love Teachings of Kama Sutra, The Holy Koran, The Oedipus Trilogy (Sophocles), Peter Pan, Roget's Thesaurus (1911), and The World Fact Book (1990 - CIA).

If quite impossible to locate a given book, try the Rare Books and Special Collections Forum at EXLIBRIS@RUTVM1.BITNET. Non-Chinese speaking people will probably classify Chinese poems as 'rare'. Many of them are impossible to read, unless your computer can handle the special characters, and you know their meaning. Still interested? If yes, subscribe to CHPOEM-L@UBVM.BITNET . Be prepared to use your Big5 and GuoBiao utilities.

Chapter 11: Getting an edge over your competitor

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We must be willing to risk change to keep apace with rapid change. The key is moderation and balance, supported by sufficient information to allow meaningful feedback. It requires adaption by management and staff in developing the necessary skills and vision.

This chapter starts with how to use the networks to manage projects. Next, it treats how to monitor competitors, prospects, suppliers, markets, technologies, and trends. It winds down with marketing and sales by modem.

Project coordination

So far we have mainly been looking at sources of information. Let us start this chapter with some words about 'online conference rooms' for project coordination.

Several services offer rental of private conference areas to businesses. Corporations have discovered them to be an efficient way of coordinating a group of people, who are far apart from each other geographically. They are also useful when team members are constantly on the move and hard to gather face to face. Many international companies use such services regularly. The applications are different. They range from tight coordination with suppliers and subcontractors, to development of company strategies and new organizational structures. Renting an online conference room has advantages over doing it in-house. The company does not have to buy software, hardware, expensive equipment for communications, and hire people for to run and maintain a conferencing system. The more international the business, the better. For ideas about how to set up and operate a coordination conference. Study how volunteer organizations do it. One place to check out is KIDPLAN, one of several coordination conferences used by KIDLINK (see Chapter 2 and 5). KIDPLAN is usually most active during April and May each year. This is when their annual projects are being closed down, and new projects are started. Read the dialog between coordinators to get an idea of how the medium is being used. Old conference messages are stored in notebook files. You can therefore have the full coordination dialogs sent you by email. Send all requests for notebook files to LISTSERV@VM1.NODAK.EDU

Getting notebook files is a two-step process. In your first message to the LISTSERV, ask for a list of available files. Do this by using the following command in your email:

INDEX KIDPLAN

The LISTSERV will return a list of files. The following part is of particular interest:

101/2/ KIDPLAN LOG9105B ALL OWN V 80 2397 91/05/14

23:40:22 Started on Wed, 8 May 91 00:11:09 CDT 102/2/ KIDPLAN LOG9105C ALL OWN V 80 3141 91/05/21 20:44:16 Started on Wed, 15 May 91 01:24:51 CDT 104/2/ KIDPLAN LOG9105D ALL OWN V 80 2685 91/05/28 22:34:31 Started on Wed, 22 May 91 17:01:21 +0200

Don't bother about the details. You just want file names, and dates. The file LOG9105B contains all messages from 8 May 1991 until 15 May.

If you want all these three files, send another message to LISTSERV with the following lines: GET KIDPLAN LOG9105B GET KIDPLAN LOG9105C GET KIDPLAN LOG9105D

The files will be forwarded to your mailbox.

Note: Some mailbox services have restrictions on the size of incoming mail. This may prevent you from receiving large notebook files. If this happens, contact your local postmaster for help. Some email systems are unable to forward your return-address correctly to LISTSERV. If you suspect that this is the reason for lack of success, try the following commands: GIVE KIDPLAN LOG9105B TO Your-Correct-Return-Address GIVE KIDPLAN LOG9105C TO Your-Correct-Return-Address GIVE KIDPLAN LOG9105D TO Your-Correct-Return-Address

Making it work

Making online conferences and task force meetings work, can be a challenge. Most of the dialog is based on the written word. The flow of information can be substantial thus causing an information overload for some participants.

To overcome this, many companies appoint moderator-organizers for their online conferences. This person:

Adds value by setting agendas; summarizing points; getting the discussion(s) back on track; moving on to the next point; mediating debate; maintaining address and member lists; acting as general sparkplug/motivator to keep things flowing by making sure that contributions are acknowledged, relevant points are noted, new members are welcomed, silent "Read-Only Members" are encouraged to participate, and the general atmosphere is kept appropriate to the goals of the conference/task force meeting.

Great online conferences don't just happen. Hard work is required. A few people must be responsible for getting the meetings fired up and keep the discussion rolling.

The meeting's organization may depend on the number of participants, where they come from, the exclusivity of the forum, and the purpose of the "meeting." In large meetings, with free access for outsiders, the best strategy may be to appoint a Moderator-Editor. This person

Filters contributions, gathers new information, summarizes scattered contributions, does background research.

Filtering may be needed in conferences that are open to customers and media. The main purpose, however, is to help participants cope with the absolute flow of information.

A conference can have an educational purpose. If so, you may bring in someone who can add value by bringing experience and expertise to the group. You will also need someone to do all the dirty jobs everyone expects to be done - but never notices until they are not done. This person must keep the show running by serving as a benevolent tyrant, sheriff, judge, mediator, general scapegoat, and by playing a role in setting the general policy and atmosphere of the meeting. Now, back to the 'normal' applications of the online resource.

Monitoring what others do

The best business opportunities are outside your company, in the external world. We need to monitor customers and markets, find technologies to help develop and build products, research new business actions, find new subcontractors and suppliers, people to hire, and persons to influence to boost sales.

In this marketing age, where sales calls cost hundreds of dollars and business-to-business marketers use the telephone or the mails to reach prospects, complete and accurate market lists are most valuable commodities. There are many other questions: What are our most important customers and their key people doing? What new products are they promoting? Who are their joint-venture partners? What else may influence their willingness to buy from us? What prices are our major suppliers offering other buyers? Should we get other sources for supplies? What major contracts have they received recently? Will these influence their ability to serve our needs? What new technologies are available now and how are they being used by others? Threats are the reverse side of opportunities. What are our competitors doing? What products and services have they launched recently? Are they successful? What are our competitors' weaknesses and strengths? What relationships do they maintain with our most important customers? How is their customer support functioning, and what methods are they using in their quality assurance? Each company has its own priorities when it comes to watching the external environment. The information needs are different from company to company, depending on what products and services that are offered, the technological level of the company, the markets that they address, and more. Needs and priorities also differ by department and person, for example depending on whether a user is the president, a marketing manager, product manager, sales man, or has a position in finance or production. Remember your priorities when going online to search. You cannot possibly capture and digest all information that is there. Your basic problem remains to find the right information in the right form at the right time.

Build your own, local 'database'

It does not take much effort to check one hundred different topics from multiple online sources on a daily basis. The computer will do it for you.

Also, you do not have to read all stories as carefully as you would with printed material. Most experienced users just read what is important now, and save selected parts of the retrieved texts on their hard disks for later reference. We handle printed material differently.