From: HARRY STEVENS.parti@parti.inforum.org Reply-to: HARRY STEVENS.parti@parti.inforum.org Sender: partigate@parti.inforum.org Questions and Answers (Q & A) about CoNets as Community Nodes in Global Nets Q: What is CoNet, what are CoNets, and what is "a" CoNet? A: "Co" comes from initial letters of "citizens online" and from the first two letters in community, cooperation, collaboration, company and confederation. CoNet(s) are currently envisioned to become FULLY functional by 2020 or maybe even by the Year 2000: to involve nearly everyone anywhere! CoNets are taking form currently in Minnesota, where both a rural CoNet and a metropolitan CoNet are now being developed. CoNets incorporate existing media and make them more interactive, empowering and involving via "networking" -- the "Net" in "CoNet". CoNets are inherently pluralistic and interconnected. "A" CoNet corresponds to "a" community or "a" company or "a" confederation or other focused alliance for learning or action purposes. Learning and action alliances are fundamental in any CoNet, whose interactive media and many-to-many communications aid both in forming alliances and in carrying out their purposes online and face-to-face. An alliance of CoNets is taking form, first in Minnesota but then globally, to enrich opportunities for learning and action anywhere & eventually everywhere. Q: Can existing networks be considered already to be or soon to become CoNets? A: Yes. Since the 1960s, numerous many-to-many communication efforts have been developed -- e.g., electronic bulletin board systems, interactive features in mass media (such as radio talk shows, call-for-action services, audiotext and videotext), computer conferencing, distance learning and metropolitan FreeNets. What would make any of these be considered a CoNet would be their sharing with the two prototype CoNets being developed in Minnesota in 1994 - one in the Twin Cities and another in one or more rural regions. The essence of CoNets is to cooperate and collaborate, so no unnecessary duplication is forced by arbitrary boundaries left from pre-networking bureaucratization of learning and action. Q: How are CoNets related to Internet and to future information highways? A: CoNets are conceived as local nodes in global nets. Any node when magnified turns out to be a denser network than can be achieved globally. CoNets are the electronic villages that are coincident with real villages that are "places" on non-electronic maps and charts of organizations of the pre-networking era. CoNets, though forward looking, need to build upon solid institutions of the past and the present. Internet, with origins in the '60s, is seen in the '90s to be a prototype for future information highways and interactive mass media. Thus the Internet is tightly linked to both current and future CoNets. Within any CoNet OnLine topic/inquiry, participants can tap distant expertise through Internet. CoNets can also use Internet to mirror/link certain topics/dialogs, so distant/virtual communities can take form to support local topics/actions. Q: How do CoNet OnLine topics develop to support INQUIRY, DIALOG and ACTION? A: CoNet OnLine topics are developed from the bottom-up, consistent with a new ethic of the networking era that resists top-down bureaucratic or hierarchical manipulation. Any CoNet participant can open a topic that may attract other participants from that local CoNet or even from distant CoNets via Internet. Powerful INQUIRY networking yields valuable responses from surprising sources; thus many CoNet topics just raise questions that are quickly answered but may continue to be referenced by secondary inquirers in any CoNet's knowledgebase. Other CoNet topics may evolve into longer-term DIALOGS to help participants to learn from each other or from recruited experts, who may even offer electures (Electronic LECTURES) or online courses for credit towards degrees or diplomas. ACTION topics go beyond what can be learned in INQUIRIES or DIALOGS on CoNets. Since "action" implies "commitment", the organizers of action topics on CoNets can organize such topics to include only those who subscribe to any commitment. Q: Is "access" within CoNets "free" in the same sense it is within FreeNets? A: Yes and No. CoNets are designed to make two types of information free -- community and collaborative information. Whenever governments, charities, etc. provide community information "free", then such information will indeed be free and most conveniently accessible via CoNet OnLine -- not only from computers in homes and workplaces but also via CoNet Kiosks in convenient public places. Collaborative information within CoNets is also "free" in the sense that the collaborating participants -- within any CoNet in general or within any CoNet topic more specifically -- are involved in valuable, free give-and-take dialog. Obviously, though, some information providers are professionals whose livings depend upon being paid. Teachers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, consultants and scientists (to mention only a few examples) are expected to volunteer a great deal of free information in response to CoNet inquiries and within CoNet dialogs. Where CoNets may differ from FreeNets may occur particularly with respect to more private action topics, where such professionals will be allowed to offer online advice, instruction, and other forms of support on a fee basis. For example, colleges may offer online courses for which they charge tuition. Even some forms of government information may entail fees, if tax support is not sufficient to make data available in the form or timeliness needed online. Government satellites now make current geographic positioning data available but not in forms that could prove most valuable to farmers in managing crops. Q: How will disadvantaged citizens gain "equal" access to CoNets? A: Public-Access CoNet Kiosks in libraries (where those exist), at town halls, even at rural grain elevators or fire stations -- and potentially at malls and within businesses that commit to CoNet openness requirements -- will make CoNet OnLine accessible to those without personal computers and modems in their homes or offices. Those Kiosks will come to include visual and audio aids for those who are handicapped, illiterate, or literate in languages other than English. In fact, CoNet Kiosks may become prototypes for future interactive digital TV. So, to some extent, public CoNet Kiosks may become more advanced than most home and office means of access to CoNet. "Equality" is impossible, but wide access will be fully achieved, especially through CoNet InMedia (not OnLine). Q: What is CoNets InMedia and why is it important to success of CoNets OnLine? A: Nearly everyone has access to mass media -- TV, radio, newspapers, magazines -- while the basis for CoNets OnLine is likely to be seen as available only to an elite minority, even when home modems and CoNet Kiosks become widely available. The same focus on inquiry, dialog and action and on supporting learning and action alliances, as described above for CoNets Online, can be achieved even more extensively through interactive mass media programming and formats, called CoNets InMedia in order to emphasize InMedia complementarity to CoNets OnLine. For example, a live 90-minute TV show invited phone-in, mail-in and studio audience electronic voting responses to ten dialog-stimulating questions about local education. A panel of experts on that "INQUIRY Show" were directed by home and studio audiences to explain only the most important of those questions -- with "importance" being determined from the bottom-up by the "audience." A week later, members of viewing and coordinated newspaper balloting "audiences" became fuller-fledge "participants" in a taped "DIALOG Show", in which three peer groups -- students alone, teachers alone, and then others (parents, etc.) -- first "voted" electronically on the the three "most important" questions and then discussed their opinions on tapes interspersed to show similarities as well as contrasts among the three peer groups. Then, another week later, a live "ACTION Show" had one community on-camera combine those three peer groups -- students, teachers, and parents/taxpayers -- to develop their courses of action for improving local education. They again used electronic voting, but this time to develop a discussion tree that took them from considering general goals, more specific objectives, obstacles for meeting those objectives, and finally actions to overcome those obstacles. The discussion tree was printed on a studio wall and seen on home screens as well. The ideas were generated by the citizen participants, from the bottom-up, and the actions specified were as much personal as public policy in nature. The priorities were also set by them to determine just which goals, objectives, obstacles and actions they could take time to consider. This was a "talk show" that really went somewhere -- from the generalities to specifics, from goals to actions. Nobody was excluded since nearly everyone had access to the interactive mass media participating. Again, mass media are among the principal sponsors who will develop both the metro and rural prototypes for CoNets OnLine in 1994. By 1995, CoNets InMedia is expected to also be launched -- so that OnLine the issue questions to launch InMedia dialogs can be formulated from the bottom-up, and then CoNets InMedia participants will have options to followthrough by getting into CoNets OnLine. Q: How will CoNets relate to "virtual communities" not tied to any place(s)? A: CoNets are place-oriented primarily, in that actions to be taken, following CoNet inquiries and dialogs, usually require physical proximity of the sort achieved only within real communities, rather than just in electronic "virtual communities". However, both CoNets InMedia and CoNets OnLine will involve well-linked "physically-based communities" who will benefit from understanding both similarities and differences in their circumstances, as those relate to varied "community" education and inquiry/dialog/action discussions in CoNets. Q: If CoNets succeed in helping to revitalize Greater Minnesota (meaning the whole state, beyond just the Twin Cities metropolitan area) through networking OnLine, InMedia and InPerson, how can CoNets spread in the U.S. and globally? A: The purposes of proposed grants from the Minnesota Board of Government Innovation and Cooperation and from the National Science Foundation (NSF) are to develop replicable models of a first CoNet and a CoNet Center of Excellence for training information highway builders beginning in high schools, especially in community colleges and technical colleges, and in major universities as well. Those information highway builders of tomorrow will help build networks within downsized and de-bureaucratized big businesses as well as within and among communities. The proposed CoNet Center of Excellence in southern Minnesota has been endorsed by statewide leaders of Minnesota higher education as well as by local government leaders and key potential industrial partners, such as USWest, Mayo Clinic, Jostens Corporation, public broadcasting and other major media. The initial driving force for developing CoNet has been from such economic development initiatives as the Development Corporation of Austin, Vision 2000 Economic Development Committee of Austin and of Mower County, the Freeborn Mower Rural Electric Cooperative, the Cooperative Response Center (based in Austin and serving cooperatives throughout Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin), and Minnesota Technology, this state's principal economic development initiative. Community development and economic development are closely linked to education development, in that Austin Schools and the Cedar River Tech Prep Consortium of five high schools have also endorsed as well as having helped initiate CoNets. Minnesota is in a unique position to help re- invent not only governance but also community in the sense of one's place being rooted in a "home community" where citizen responsibilities are taken seriously and education is continuous. The CoNet Center of Excellence, which will be developed whether with or without NSF funding, will provide a substantial means for helping to replicate nationally and even globally whatever works best in the demonstrations that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will help fund in ten sites around the U.S. CoNet is committed to helping serve that purpose. Q: How can you/others participate/learn more about CoNets, Internet, etc.? A: Join Minnesota Citizens Online (MCO) by sending $5 as 1994 membership dues, payable to Metronet, 226 Metro Square, 121 E.7th Place, St. Paul, MN 55101. o In rural southern Minnesota, a state-supported CoNet Cooperation Committee consists formally of pairs of citizens appointed by each participating city, township, and county government. To learn how to participate in the new 1994 CoNet Planning Project, which will prepare detailed descriptions of community services and governance functions for inclusion both in CoNetWorkbooks and in CoNet OnLine, write Craig Oscarson. He's Mower County Coordinator, Courthouse, 201 NE 1st St., Austin, MN 55912. Ask Craig for a copy of the CoNet Resolution to help get your particular community to participate in S.E. MN CoNet Planning. o To join "MN CONETS" topics online, contact Eventures Ltd., thru me for now -- to learn how (if you have a PC & modem) to use TELNET on Internet to get onto Valleynet/Inforum, where CoNet PARTICIPATE software can be experienced. There you can also participate in planning discussions, such as for "GOPHER PARTI", "MCOWORK", "METRONET", "INTERNET MAIL", and "COMMUNET" about FreeNets. BUT UNTIL 20 JANUARY 1994 I can ONLY respond to requests that include an advanced commitment to consider incorporating PARTICIPATE into a proposal to CPB that you are already committed to writing & submitting by 19 January 1994. Any other requests won't be responded to until late January at the earliest. o To receive information about Internet and CoNets introductory courses (to be held evenings, 6:30-9:30 p.m., Mondays and Wednesdays, initially in April and May, in various locations via Interactive TV), by March 94 please contact: - Austin Community College Continuing Education, 507/433-0532, 800/747-6941 - Minnesota Riverland Technical College (4 sites) 507/433-0600, 800/247-5039 o To receive a registration application and conference announcement now for the 23-24 May 94 Rural Datafication Conference entitled "Meeting the Challenge of Providing Ubiquitous Access to the Internet", please contact: Margo J. Berg, Director of Client Services for Education Minnesota Regional Network (MR Net) 511-11th Avenue South, Box 212, Minneapolis, MN 55415 Email: mberg@mr.net Voice: (612) 342-2570 Fax: (612) 344-1716 o In any above request to MR Net, you may also want to say that you'd like to receive, when available (by March), information about before-and-after video teleconferences -- to be held all over Minnesota, to accomplish the following: - introduce novices to Internet and to rural datafication prospects in Minn. probably on 19-20 May, PRIOR to the 23-24 May national/global conference. - involve experienced online participants in the planning of rural as well as metropolitan CoNets, probably on 25 May, AFTER the Ruralfication Conf. .