>What is strange is that I wrote a lot about this on my website. I could
>take this as a personal affront, where nobody from CARDICIS has been
>interested in following my weblog at all (though I do cover regional
>cultural/ICT issues)

Taran, I thinh I know exactly what you mean ...
and yet I am not totally innocent.

I know what you mean when I see in Mistica so many people
perceiving just a discussion list and ignoring the wealth
of information in a web site which probably has taken most
of the cost. It is frustrating and sometimes, even more, one
could take it as personal affront, yes. In any case, it is
disappointing, too. And yes you are absolutely right, networking
shall start at home and grows in concentric circles from the local
to the global, not the opposite.

I have spent and I still spend a lot of time explaining to Mistica
colleagues, especially the young ones that there are many reasons
why people dont go to the web and check.

1) Because our web is not enough intuitive.

2) Because redundancy is necessary to give incitation
for people to pass the wall of communication and reach
the information.

I dont know about you; many busy people (and this is my case)
do not surf and do not go check bookmarks. We basically
go to the web hitting an URL in a mail or looking something
with Google. The only few sites I am checking directly
which are in my personal bar are : my bank, meteo
forecast (I am a fisherman, hey!), few newspapers online...
and that's it!!!!

My recommandation here is that you should newsletter your web site
even unformally adding in your signature some "what's new in my
web site motivator".

3) Because we are all too busy and this is an obstacle to the
threshold for cooperation which represent the minimum time
we should dedicate to other people information.

And here I can just say that you are right and there is
a serious problem to adress (not with you personally by the way).
I feel guilty not checking colleagues web sites

Some years ago I invented the concept of "hyperload" in an
IDRC meeting gathering many project managers to pave the
way to collaboration.

Overload is always forecast in projects to account for
administrative cost and this is fair.
Hyperload wouls be money for project managers to account
for time to dedicate to colleagues and even to expenses
for meeting with colleagues.
I still believe that project funder should add a 15% money
to the projects they fund and have project managers commit
to use it ... to read Taran's Blog and meet with Taran
(and others).

I do not pretend this is THE solution but if we do not
integrate in our daily practice a minimum slot of time
to check colleagues how would we learen to collaborate?

I received some personal reactions at your mail I wish we
can share here. I will ask permissions and come back.

Pa'lante!
Nearby lun 22 ago 2005 07:55:57 AST