The Conferencing Dimension
Is there a middle ground between the flood of email and the drought of structured groupware systems? Yes. That middle ground is conferencing, a term that is unfortunately so overloaded that it’s crucial to explain, for the purposes of this book, what conferencing is and is not. Here are some examples of what I mean by conferencing:
A Usenet or private newsgroup, accessed by way of an Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) newsreader
A Lotus Notes discussion database, accessed directly using the Notes client or indirectly through a Domino server by way of a web browser
A Microsoft Exchange public folder, accessed using the Exchange client
An Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) public folder, accessed using an IMAP email client
A web-based discussion system, accessed using a web browser
These modes of conferencing share the following characteristics:
Documents accumulate in a central data store visible to all participants.
The primary medium of discussion is written text.
Discussion is typically threaded, exhibiting a treelike structure of statements and responses.
Text messages may be augmented with binary attachments—spreadsheets, programs, images.
Participation is asynchronous. I might post a message at noon today; you might read it at midnight; you might then reply at noon tomorrow.
The stored documents can be scanned along key dimensions: date, author, subject.
The entire transcript can, ideally, be searched.
Now here are some examples of what I ...