A List of Environmental and Telecommunications Events and Issues

June 13 to June 27, 1997







Published, Edited and Written by George Mokray for
Information Ecologies
218 Franklin St #3
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617)661-2676
gmoke@world.std.com

"A List..." is also a listserv. You can subscribe or unsubscribe by emailing a-list-request@world.std.com, leaving the Subject line blank, and typing "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" as the message.

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If you are interested in keeping Internet an open and free forum, you might want to take a look at the Blue Ribbon Campaign
http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html



Listings

Saturday, June 14th

7:30 am - 11 pm
Homestead '97 - A conference for grassroots and direct action activists interested in radical solutions to poverty and homelessness, and the continued criminalization of the poor
contact 287-9494 or http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/7996/jun97.html
Old Cambridge Baptist Church, Harvard Sq with other events at Central Sq Library and the YWCA
Editorial Comment: Resources for the Homeless is at http://www.mindspring.com/~scpoint/scpronet/homeless.html

11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Protest against the gentrification of Central Square
Meet at Lucy Parsons bookstore (Mass Ave and Prospect St) to converge on the Cambridge Senior Center, 806 Mass Ave

Sunday, June 15

9 am - 2 pm
MIT Electronics Flea Market
contact 253-3776 of w1gsl@mit.edu
corner of Albany and Main streets, Kendall Sq, Cambridge
$4 admission for buyers
Editorial Comment: The MIT Flea is a great place. Wanna buy an original Mac for $25, new old tubes for an heirloom radio, used a/v equipment? This is the place to go. It's a cross between an explosion in Radio Shack and the Fanueil Hall market.

12 pm
Homestead '97 - Rally
contact 287-9494 or http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/7996/jun97.html
Copley Square, Boston, MA

1 pm
Radio Free Allston (106.1 FM) - Antenna Raising
contact 562-0828 or http://www.tiac.net/users/error/radiofreeallston/
sidewalk outside the Allston Mall at 107 Brighton Ave, Allston

3 pm - 5 pm
Qi Gong - free lessons in Chinese health exercises
contact 647-1431 or yxqa@mit.edu
Harvard Yenching Library, 2 Divinity Ave

Monday, June 16

12 pm
Neurotransmitters and Psychoactive Drugs (Like Pot)
Julius Axelrod, National Institutes of Health
MIT Building E25, Room 119

7-9 pm
Town Meeting on Campaign Finance Reform
Rep. Marty Meehan
contact Kerry Quealey at (508)459-0101
Sudbury Senior Center, 40 Fairbank Rd, Sudbury

Wednesday, June 18

10 am
Hearing on the Toxic Use Reduction Act (Re-Authorization)
contact Toxics Action Center 292-4821
State House, Room B-2, Boston

6 pm
Make It, Buy It, License It?
MIT Enterprise Forum Case Study
contact 253-8240
MIT Building 10, Room 250
$10 members $15 non-members

7:30 pm
MBTA Urban RIng Transit Project Presentation
contact Todd Fontanella, Housing & Community Development Dept./Somerville at 625-6600
Somerville Holiday Inn, Washington St, Somerville (nearest T stop: Sullivan Sq. on the Orange Line)

Thursday, June 19

7:30 pm
Internet of the 21st Century - with Venture-Preneurs Case Studies
Vinton Cerf, MCI
contact 720-1535
Marriott Long Wharf, Boston

Saturday, June 21

10 am - 2 pm
Solar Cooker Picnic
contact 49-SOLAR
Herter Park, Allston (across Soldiers Field Road from WBZ)

Monday, June 23

4 pm
Taking Care of Nuclear Weapons - Stewardship, Fusion and Other Matters
Henry Kendall, MIT
MIT Building NW 17, Room 218

Wednesday, June 25

3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment - contributions of different disciplines to enhanced understanding of the interactions between the natural environment and human institutions
contact Dr. Demitri Kantarelis or Kevin Hickey, IEA/Kantrelis - Hickey, Assumption College, 500 Salisbury St., Worcester, MA (508)767-7557 or (508)767-7296, dkantar@eve.assumption.edu, http://www.assumption.edu/html/academic/conf/iicecall.html
Cambridge
Thursday, June 26

3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment - contributions of different disciplines to enhanced understanding of the interactions between the natural environment and human institutions
contact Dr. Demitri Kantarelis or Kevin Hickey, IEA/Kantrelis - Hickey, Assumption College, 500 Salisbury St., Worcester, MA (508)767-7557 or (508)767-7296, dkantar@eve.assumption.edu, http://www.assumption.edu/html/academic/conf/iicecall.html
Cambridge
7 pm
Internet Special Interest Group - a panel of local Internet Service Providers who will address issues of communications, support, and security in terms understandable to retail subscribers
contact http://www.signet.org/isig/ for more details
MIT Building 6, Room 120

Friday, June 27

3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment - contributions of different disciplines to enhanced understanding of the interactions between the natural environment and human institutions
contact Dr. Demitri Kantarelis or Kevin Hickey, IEA/Kantrelis - Hickey, Assumption College, 500 Salisbury St., Worcester, MA (508)767-7557 or (508)767-7296, dkantar@eve.assumption.edu, http://www.assumption.edu/html/academic/conf/iicecall.html
Cambridge

Saturday, June 28

3rd International Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment - contributions of different disciplines to enhanced understanding of the interactions between the natural environment and human institutions
contact Dr. Demitri Kantarelis or Kevin Hickey, IEA/Kantrelis - Hickey, Assumption College, 500 Salisbury St., Worcester, MA (508)767-7557 or (508)767-7296, dkantar@eve.assumption.edu, http://www.assumption.edu/html/academic/conf/iicecall.html
Cambridge

Sources for Listings:
MIT _Tech Talk_ :
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www
Harvard _Gazette_ :
http://www.news.harvard.edu/hno.subpages/hno.calendar.full.html
Harvard Environmental Resources On-Line:
http://environment.harvard.edu
MA Executive Office of Environmental Affairs calendar:
http://www.magnet.state.ma.us/envir/earth.htm
Earth Day Network international/national listings:
http://www.cfe.cornell.edu/EarthDay/ednethome.html
Earth Day Greater Boston calendar:
http://www.earthdaygb.org

act-ma the Massachusetts activists mailing list:
subscribe by emailing majordomo@igc.apc.org, leaving the subject line blank and typing "subscribe act-ma" as the message

Peace and Justice Events Hotline at (617)787-6809

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Two from _Tech Talk_

from MIT Tech Talk June 11, 1997 (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www):

Tom Zimmerman
(http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/zimmerman/tzim.html), an old friend and MIT alumnus, won a Discover Award for his work on personal area networks, a way of transferring information between personal communications devices like beepers, pagers, cell phone, PDA or electronic notebook by touch. Tom is also the inventor of the DataGlove. I met him when a group of MIT students built a solar greenhouse back in the 70s. He went on to build a small windmill for a Solar Van project about 12-15 of us did for over three years throughout the Northeast. Look for his work in the July issue of _Discover_ magazine. He wins an all exspenses paid trip to Disneyworld and, if I remember right, there's an awards show on the Disney channel. I remember seeing John Todd on my cable awhile ago for the same thing.

Lee and Geraldine Martin are establishing eight new graduate fellowships in sustainability. These eight are added to two previously existing fellowships in environmental issues and a professorship in Environmental Studies they have also funded. Mr Martin is chairman of NIBCO, a leading manufacturer of pipe fittings, valves and plumbing fixtures. Mario Molina also funded a fellowship in environmental sciences with part of the Nobel prize money he won for his work demonstrating the link between CFCs and damage to the ozone layer.

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MA Toxic Use Reduction Act

from Earth Star (June/July 1997)
PO Box 1033
Cambridge, MA 021440
MA reduced levels of toxic waste by 30% since 1990 when Toxic Use Reduction Act (TURA) went into effect, requiring companies to keep track and reduce the use of toxic chemicals. Before the law, only half of the state's firms tracked their waste, now close to 90% do. The law seems to have actually saved money, nearly $15 million statewide.

from The Massachusetts EnvironManagement Report (June)
PO Box 1450
Cambridge, MA 02138
497-6330
547-6158
An advisory group reviewing TURA recommends expanding the program beyond toxics to include total environmental impacts: water use and wastewater volume, air emissions, solid wste generation and packaging, overall energy use including fuel and electricity. The science advisory board is considering hazard ranking among TURA regulated substances, trying to figure out the trade-offs between toxicity, flammability, corrosivity, worker exposure versus community exposure. Rewards for performance such as reduced fees, flexible permitting, access to loans, grants and tax credits are other recommendations.

The report stands in contrast to a pending bill (S1046 and H 1553) in the MA House and Senate. You can contact the Toxics Use Reduction Institute (http://www.uml.edu/turi/turi.html) at (508)934-3143 for further information.

On Wednesday, June 18 at 10 am, there will be a hearing on the TURA re-authorization in Room B-2 of the State House in Boston. Toxics Action Center (292-4821) is organizing a show of support.

from _Massachusetts Environment_
11 Mountain Ave, Suite 101
Bloomfield, CT 06002
(860)286-0666
Massachusetts is the first state in the nation to make all of its 105 different environmental permit applications available online at http://magnet.state.ma.us/dep/

So far, you can download and print the applications but eventually you should be able to fill out the forms online, email them in and pay your permit fees electronically. I wonder if this will serve to produce a coherent statewide environmental database. Contact Te Leone at 292-5845 for further information.

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_MA EnvironManagement Report_

I get _MA EnvironManagement Report_ from the publisher, Rob Parlow (rparlow@igc.apc.org), in a trade for "A List..." Here's what else I found in the June edition:

The River Protection Act Regulations (MEMR 8/96) are now available at http://www.state.ma.us/dep or contact 292-5886 or (800)266-1122. See what the legislation will really mean and whether it will result in the same kind of confusion that the Title V act and regs did.

Mass Insight Quality of Life poll shows that 53% of those polled believe most environmental problems in the state today are the side effects of day-to-day living (cars, septic systems...) and not from industrial sources. Personally, I wonder whether that perception tracks the facts and figures. Close to 50% supported tougher environmental standards and enforcement. What "tougher" means is something that remains to be determined. Contact Mass Insight at 492-0580 for further information.

Another look at public opinion on the environment is _Environmental Values in American Culture_ (Willet Kempton, et al, MIT Press. 1995) which reportedly shows that 70% or more of sample groups of Americans from divergent backgrounds (environmentalists, sawmill workers, the general public, dry cleaners...) agree with the statement, "Because God created the natural world, it is wrong to abuse it."

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_Business and the Environment_

_Business and the Environment_ is another publication I recieve in exchange for "A List..." Here is some of the interesting information in _BATE_:

Six Canadian utilities are disbanding their consortium to promote ecolabeling and energy efficiency in the face of utility deregulation. British Columbia Hydro, Ontario Hydro, Manitoba Hydro, TransAlta Utilities, Newfoundland Power and Nova Scotia Power (what? no Hydro Quebec?) have decided to develop their own individual energy efficiency and conservation programs.

On the other hand, New South Wales in Australia is developing the first green power program to offer accreditation for renewable energy production. Customers pay a premium of up to 25% for a verifiable program of investments in renewable energy for distribution to the grid. The customers' electricity may still be coming from a mix of non-renewable and renewable sources but there will be money available to increase the renewable portion. Further information is availabe from Sustainable Energy Development Authority, PO Box N442, Grosvenor Place, Sydney 2000, NSW Australia, seda@seda.nsw.gov.au, http://www.seda.nsw.gov.au/

A report called _Resource Flows; The Material Basis of Industrial Economies_ suggest that GDP be augmented with a total material requirement (TMR) index, which accounts for domestic and imported natural resources that go into the national economy. The report was prepared by the US' World Resoures Institute, Germany's Wuppertal Institute, the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment, and Japan's National Institute for Environmental Studies. They say a TDR/GDP ratio would provide an overall measure of the efficiency of a country's economy. Copies of the report, _Resource Flows; The Material Basis of Industrial Economies_ (ISBN 1-56973-209-4) are available from World Resources Institute (http://www.wri.org/wri/data/matflows)

Graciela Chichilinsky of Columbia University has written a paper for the UN Development Program called _Development and Global Finance: The Case for an International Bank for Environmental Settlements_. She proposes an Internation Bank for Environmental Settlements (IBES) tp provide a market in emissions rights and other environmental resources like biodiversity, soil, and forests. Developed countries should be initiate the program and emissions rights should be loaned and not sold in order to avoid the long-term consequences of irreversible transfer of such rights. The paper is available from Rachel Gogos, UNDP Office of Development Studies, Room 410 4th floor, 336 East 45th St, New York, NY 10017 (212)906-3689, ods@undp.org

_Business and the Environment_
Cutter Information Corp
37 Broadway Suite 1
Arington MA 02174-552
641-5125
bate@igc.apc.org
http://www.cutter.com

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Hydro-Quebec and the Energy Future

Editorial Comment: Ann Stewart (Stewartship@compuserve.com) keeps her eye on Hydro-Quebec. For very good reasons.


The _Providence Journal-Bulletin_ of June 5, 1997 reported that Vito Stagliano, an energy analyst with Energy Security Analysis of Washington DC, told the annual meeting between New England's governors and eastern Canada's premiers that "energy trade in the Northeast and Canada will double in the next five years" as all the New England states plan or seriously consider electricity deregulation. According to another article in the _Boston Globe_ of June 8, 1997, Rhode Island cities and towns are already planning to band together in an energy buying cooperative to take advantage of the hoped for market pressures.

Under the competitive pressures that deregulation will allow, it is probable that many of the region's older fossil fuel and nuclear plants will close and that replacement power will come from either Western coal-powered plants or Northern hydro, although small, local natural gas power plants will also be an option. New natural gas pipelines and electrical transmission lines will have to be built in order to provide the projected electricity needs for New England from outside the region. Nobody seems to have talked at that meeting about non-hydro renewables or energy conservation.

At the same meeting, Andre Caille, president of Hydro-Quebec, indicated his willingness to increase H-Q's electricity sales in New England but said there will be no more megaprojects, such as the James Bay development which flooded tens of thousands of square miles of Northern Quebec for dams that generate thousands of megawatts. "You will see more and more smaller projects coming on-line more quickly," said Caille. "You won't see huge projects."

However, on the front page of the Saturday, June 7 edition of the _Montreal Gazette_, it was reported that "seventeen months after the Parti Quebecois government shelved Phase II of the James Bay hydroelectric project, it's back on the table, and this time Hydro-Quebec has set its sights on diverting two of the largest rivers in northern Quebec," the Great Whale and Rupert rivers. The new project would not require dams but would reduce the flow of these two rivers "to a trickle." David Masty, an official of the Great Whale community, situated at the river's mouth, said "It will have the same impact as if the river was dammed."

Hydro-Quebec spokesman Steve Flanagan said hydro development in James Bay is back on the table because of a desire to export power to the United States and a rise in energy consumption in Quebec.

Anne asks that people call the Cree office and tell them that as an American consumer, you oppose ANY river diversion. Phone (613)761-1655. And let the people in Whapmagoostui (Great Whale River village) know you still support them. The band office number is: (819)929-3288. I ran into John Cook, a man who has many years of experience in energy services management and using it to advance energy efficiency, at the library this week. He recommended that I look at _Green Pricing Resource Guide_ from the Regulatory Assistance Project (177 Water St, Gardner, ME 04345-2149, (207)582-1135, rapmaine@aol.com) to get a good overview of how green energy pricing will affect the development of renewable energy sources.

And once more Spriggs has sent me something that could be of interest, a new electronic newsletter called Global Energy Marketplace at http://gem.crest.org

"GEM, the Global Energy Marketplace, is your gateway for quickly locating valuable documents, contacts, and resources about sustainable energy development as a tool for preventing and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. GEM is a powerful, on-line, searchable database of more than 2000 energy efficiency and renewable energy annotated Web links. You will find highly useful case studies, reports, publications, economic analyses, product directories, discussion groups, country profiles and mitigation assessments, and other beneficial resources.

"The Results Center (http://solstice.crest.org/efficiency/irt/trc.htm) has produced among the best case studies worldwide evaluating successful energy efficiency programs implemented by companies, communities and utilities. There are 125 full-text profiles divided into six categories: Residential, Industrial, Comprehensive, Commercial, Agricultural, and Institutional.

GEM contains links to not only the main Results Center web page, but directly to a number of the case studies that fit into GEM's categories.

For example:
British Columbia Hydro, Power Smart High-Efficiency Motors Program http://www.crest.org/efficiency/irt/38.htm

Each year over 300,000 horsepower (HP) of 3-phase integral electric motors are purchased by British Columbia Hydro (BCH) customers, including standard and high-efficiency motors. The goal of the High-Efficiency Motors Program has been to transform the market in the province and to make sure that most if not all of these motor sales are high-efficiency motors. In 1990, a Buy-Back option was added to accelerate the change out of the installed stock of standard motors. For participants in the program incentives are offered in the form of rebates of $293 ($35 Canadian) per kW saved. Another $59/kW ($70 Canadian) is offered to distributors under the vendor incentive."

As reported in _Business and the Environment_, the Power Smart consortium is dissolving but BC Hydro will retain the rights to the Power Smart name.
GEM is a project of the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology (CREST) (1200 18th St., NW Suite 900 Washington, DC 20036, (202)-530-2234, Fax: (202)-887-0497)
Contact Jonathan Guth, GEM Project Manager at jsg@crest.org for further information.

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Ecological Footprint Report

Editorial Comment: Tom Spriggs (mtspriggs@igc.apc.org) keeps notifying me of lots of good stuff.


An ecological footprint is the land and water area that is required to support indefinitely the material standard of living of a given human population, using prevailing technology. A report commissioned by the Earth Council, "Footprints of Nations" (http://www.ecouncil.ac.cr/rio/focus/report/english/footprnt.htm) investigates the ecological impact of 52 large nations that are inhabited by 80 percent of the world's population. It shows to what extent each nation's consumption can be supported by their local ecological capacity. One key finding is that today, humanity as a whole uses over one third more resources and eco-services than what nature can regenerate. In 1992, this ecological deficit was only one quarter. Contact Mathis Wackernagel, Ph.D., Center for Sustainability Studies, Universidad Anhuac de Xalapa, 52-28-14-96-11, or email: mathiswa@edg.net.mx.

Further information is available from _Our Ecological Footprint_ by Mathis Wackernagl and William Rees, New Society Publishers, 1996 ISBN 0-86571-312-X (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=086571312X/alistA/)

Another form of ecological balance sheet is "Ecosystem Services: Benefits Supplied Human Societies by Natural Ecosystems," by Gretchen Daily, et al at http://www.sdsc.edu/~ESA/daily.htm

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Green Business Course

Editorial Comment: Another tip from Mr Spriggs.


The Geneva-based World Business Council for Sustainable Development, representing 125 international companies, and AISEC, the largest student organization in the world, have developed a program to improve environmental literacy (http://www.wbcsd.ch/foundation/). There are background papers and an online exam. Students passing the exam will receive a certificate that will be recognized by all member companies in job applications. Here are some of the "Business Concepts for the 21st Century" they offer: Eco-Efficiency, Sustainable Shareholder Value, Sustainable Consumption Patterns, Stakeholder Partnerships, Transparency.

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Harvard Information Infrastructure Project

First Announcement and Call for Papers
THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNET ON COMMUNICATIONS POLICY

Co-Sponsors: International Telecommunication Union
Center for Law and Information Technology, Harvard Law School

Cambridge, Massachusetts
December 4-5, 1997

The Harvard Information Infrastructure Project announces the launch of an activity to explore the impact of the Internet on existing national and international communications policies.

This activity is intended to assist policy makers as they grapple with the fundamental challenges presented by the Internet to the assumptions that underlie current policies. A conference will be held in late 1997 at Harvard University. It will convene key policy makers, government officials, industry representatives and academics to explore new models for policy development. Accepted contributions will inform discussion at the conference, and will be subsequently published as a volume in the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project's series with MIT Press. This activity is undertaken in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union and the Center for Law and Information Technology, Harvard Law School.

The following is a sketch of the forces that are changing the world of communications as the Internet assumes greater commercial importance. This sketch is not intended to constrain the views of contributors, but rather to stimulate the identification of important policy issues that should be addressed.

With the emergence of a mass market for Internet services, the relationship between the Internet and traditional media - the public switched network, cable, and broadcast - is growing close and complex. The Internet's rapid expansion is challenging the assumptions of traditional communication policies and raises the possibility that these underlying principles may be recast around basic Internet access. The Internet blurs traditional demarcations in the regulation of communication services, combining features of telephony, broadcast, multicast, and data communications. In the area of telephony, policy makers have sought to advance competition by promoting open access to unbundled services, while maintaining the goals and principles of universal service. In this process, they have distinguished between basic telephony and those services and products that remain outside the regulatory regime. In many countries, therefore, Internet services have been treated as "enhanced services", exempt from regulation. In the case of broadcast, distribution networks - spectrum or cable - have presented significant barriers to entry. Internet broadcast is not limited by access to such high value and limited assets and brings added two-way communications capabilities. While the Internet is not yet mature as a real-time, high quality, multi-media broadcast network, service bundling with cable and satellite services is rolling out quickly, and experimentation with web-oriented click-through features is expanding.

Use of the Internet is becoming pervasive in business and in the home. As this installed base expands, the fixed cost and flat rate pricing structure of the Internet is leading to arbitrage against usage pricing and the regulatory and cost structures of circuit-switched telephone services. Dial-up access to the Internet is placing demands on the local exchanges as users stay connected for long periods of time, provoking debate as to whether Internet service providers should remain exempt from access fees. Over the long term, the market for the public switched network seems likely to erode as the Internet draws away fax traffic and Internet email substitutes for both fax and voice.

Internet access is presently viewed as something of a commodity service that, like personal computers, can be put together from off-the-shelf components. The advent of resource reservation and the ability to prioritize among service classes will enable rapid development and growth of real-time audio and video services (including telephony) not normally suited to packet-switching. Product differentiation and market segmentation, including the premium option of end-to-end service from a single provider, will lead to a proliferation of pricing models, some of which may cannibalize demand for broadcast services. Already, substitution effects are reducing television viewing in Internet connected households.

Demand for high-speed Internet access is already the major driver for two-way broadband. Depending on whether and the manner in which access fees are imposed for Internet service providers, Internet demand may encompass some piece of the traditional broadcast market and become the dominant driver for alternatives to the local loop, broadband or narrowband. The functionality of the Internet is far greater than circuit-switched telephony and its capabilities are incrementally scaleable. The Internet embraces telephony, broadcast and multicast (and will more completely as priority service is implemented), but transcends the physical and logical limitations with which they have each been associated. Traditional services may enjoy a similar degree of multiplexing and compression, but Internet-based applications escape many of their infrastructure investment, management, and regulatory costs, while benefiting from the sharing of joint costs with a multiplicity of services and applications.

These developments suggest a possible paradigm shift in which ordinary un-prioritized Internet service rather than circuit-switched telephone is cast as the basic service that policy-makers seek to make universal. In this scenario, circuit-switched telephony may increasingly be viewed as a technology used to implement Internet access only where no better alternative can be cost-justified. Implementing anything analogous to "universal service" may be difficult in the fast-moving, unregulated, computer-based environment of the Internet. However, the principles of universalism may become more important because of the high social value of efficient access to government services and other Internet-enabled applications.

Policy processes are often hampered by an incomplete understanding of continually expanding and changing Internet applications, especially when policy-makers have little experience with the Internet. Where national governments are committed to liberalizing telephone service, the advent of the Internet accelerates both market and policy processes. Many countries are looking to the United States, Finland, and other countries with high Internet penetration to gain perspectives on the manner in which the issues play out under different business and regulatory scenarios.

Prospective authors should submit short abstracts for review and comment as soon as possible. Extended abstracts or outlines should be submitted by July 31, 1997, to ensure consideration for this activity. Acceptances of abstracts and outlines are conditional pending receipt of a satisfactory draft by November 13, 1997.

This activity seeks to advance policy development processes by combining regulatory, economic and technological perspectives. Papers should be written in a clear, non-technical manner (technical appendices are permitted) for a mixed, interdisciplinary audience. Although the activity will focus on the impact of the Internet in advanced communications environments, papers that address implications and lessons for policy development in other countries are also invited.

Papers will be published as a volume in the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project's series with the MIT Press. Copyright assignment is not required and parallel or subsequent publication of individual papers in journals is encouraged.

Please send paper proposals and requests for subsequent announcements to:
Ms. Nora O'Neil
Project Coordinator
Information Infrastructure Project
Harvard University
John F. Kennedy School of Government
79 John F. Kennedy St.
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 USA
Tel. +1 617-496-1389
Fax: +1 617-495-5776
Email nora_o'neil@harvard.edu

Editorial Comment: The Harvard Information Infrastructure Project also has announced that a new book, _Coordinating The Internet_ (edited by Brian Kahin and James Keller) will be published by MIT Press by July 1. MIT Press is accepting pre-publication orders by telephone (1-800-356-0343) and online at <http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/mitp/recent-books/polsci>. Chapter drafts, in addition to Internet-based supplementary materials, are available on the HIIP website at <http://ksgwww.harvard.edu/iip/cai/caiconf.html>.

The syllabi and results from the courses Business and the Internet: Strategy, Law and Policy and The Exploding Internet: New Game, New Rules are available online. Team projects from Business and the Internet: Strategy, Law and Policy are available at http://www.law.harvard.edu/courses/tech97/calendar/team_schedule.html#appendix The team projects may also be linked to through the "Courses" page of the IIP website http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/iip/#Course Offerings These projects are the property of the students who created them. Contact the students for permission to reproduce or otherwise use their work.

The Exploding Internet: New Game, New Rules is available at http://www.law.harvard.edu/groups/center_law/ExecEd/ These pages may also be linked to through the "Courses" page of the IIP website
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/iip/#Course Offerings

The Harvard IIP has recently upgraded its whole website at http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/iip

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Bad Design on the Web

In wandering around the World Wide Web looking for resources, time and time again I come across an obvious example of bad design: webpages that include an email address and only an email address. No street address, no phone number, no fax number. It is annoying and stupid. This is something people should have learned in kindergarten.

All of the articles and books I've read about using the Web for business or organizing talk about integrating the Net and the Web into your existing information strategy whether it be mail, phone, fax, or radio and TV advertising. You're supposed to build your message across media, integrate it into all your public outreach efforts, and create "synergy" that will result in more effective communication, organizations, and better results. The fact that there are so many Webpages out there designed by reputable and informed people that don't include the information most of us have on our letterheads is damning. This leads me to believe that our culture doesn't really want integration or "synergy." We don't want people to know how to reach us. We only want to reach them.

You will notice that I include my address, phone number, email and Web address at both the top and the bottom of each week's edition of "A List..." And sometimes that isn't enough to let people know where to send the checks.

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The Begging Bowl

I'm going out of town next week so there will be no "A List..." next week. I should be publishing again on June 27. Enjoy the solstice and if you have any ideas, information, criticism, or money to contribute to this effort please go right ahead and send it on it. Any form of feedback is welcome.

How "A List..." works:
If you want to have a listing included in "A List..." please send it to me before noon on the Friday before the event and if said even is deemed suitable for coverage, it will be included in the appropriate edition of "A List..." Articles and reviews, ideas, rants and opinions are also solicited. Publication is up to the erratic discretion of the editor.

"A List..." is also a listserv. You can subscribe or unsubscribe to the listserv by emailing a-list-request@world.std.com, leaving the Subject line blank, and typing "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" as the message.

"A List..." is a freeware/shareware publication. If the information is of any value to you, please contribute - money, information, encouragement, prayers and good wishes are all valid currencies for feedback and will be gratefully appreciated by
George Mokray
Information Ecologies
218 Franklin St #3
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617)661-2676
gmoke@world.std.com

This publication is copyrighted to George Mokray and the individual writers of the articles. Permission to reproduce is granted for non-profit purposes as long as the source is cited.

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