Dear Colleagues,
Of our more than 700 TechNet participants, 200 responded to the
poll. Thank you for taking the time to contribute.
15% felt that TechNet should be eliminated in favor of more
focused lists
30% felt that we should keep TechNet and *not* offer more
focused lists
70% felt that we should keep TechNet *and* offer more focused lists
As you can see, some participants were comfortable with more than
one option. Only a few people preferred another medium, such as a
newsgroup, digest or summary.
LONG LIVE TECHNET
It was apparent from the votes, and from the comments we received,
that the desire to keep TechNet in place as a meeting ground for
people in all disciplines of our industry was overwhelming. Typical
comments were:
"...the essential benefit of TechNet's existence is instant
communication between diverse groups that would otherwise
not interact, let's not compromise this feature."
"(TechNet) allows cross fertilization through the whole
manufacturing process. I don't know of any other place where
this happens so freely and with so little effort."
"...the current format fosters the cross-functional team approach
where everyone understands and participates in the challenges
facing the entire organization trying to create a finished
product. The more I'm made aware of someone else's problems
the better I'm able to not make them worse by something I'm
doing in ignorance."
CREATING ADD'L LISTS
Many of the 70% who voted for creating more focused lists preferred
to stay with TechNet, but wanted to accommodate the people who
prefer to receive less mail.
A large percentage of this group wanted to keep TechNet as a master
and link it to the smaller, more focused mail lists.
The problem with creating additional lists is three-fold:
1. We learned that it is not practical to link two mail lists
when we linked TechNet with IllinoisNet. Our efforts to prevent
people from subscribing to both failed, they received duplicate
e-mails and became frustrated.
2. If TechNet and the focused lists are not linked, some
participants are forced to subscribe to several groups in order
not to miss information pertinent to their needs. This creates
more subscribe/unsubscribe tasks, more administrative and system
requirements, and more chance for users to ask the wrong
question of the wrong group.
3. Submissions would be sent to multiple lists in an effort to find
the expert who can help, thereby increasing the load of
participants who subscribe to more than one list.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
Three excellent suggestions were offered by our participants.
1. Implement a protocol whereby the Subject of each submission
to the TechNet forum begins with
FAB: If it has to do with fabrication,
ASSY: If it has to do with assembly,
DES: If it has to do with design, or
ADMIN: If it is from one of our mail list administrators,
as this message is
Participants do not have to read beyond this identifier
to determine if the message falls within the disciplines
in which they are interested.
2. Recommend that users create a separate "folder" or "mailbox"
for TechNet mail so that it is not intermixed with normal work
e-mail, and can be reviewed at leisure.
3. Refer those who are interested in specific subjects
to the archive of IPC e-mail forum submissions at
http://www.automata.com/ipc. 75% of those responding
to the survey said they had access to the WWW; others
indicated that they hope to in the near future.
One particularly wise participant offered, "No matter what you do,
not everyone will be happy with it. Good luck." We realize that
this proposal requires a compromise on the part of those who wanted
to have specialized forums, but we hope that you will give this
three-step solution a try. If we all follow the recommendations
above, it will
-- keep administration to a minimum,
-- reduce the pain of those who wish to read less mail, and
-- continue to provide access to cross-disciplinary discussion,
which many believe benefits the entire industry.
Please begin to use the FAB, ASSY and DES protocol now! If you have
any comments, forward them to me at [log in to unmask] (though I will
be out of the office the week of March 4).
I apologize for the length of this e-mail, but the future of
TechNet is important to us all and the management staff here at IPC
felt that it was important to share this information with you.
Regards,
Melinda
*******************************
Melinda Robinson
Director of Publishing and
Information Systems
IPC
2215 Sanders Road
Northbrook, IL 60062-6135
voice 847-509-9700 x314
fax 847-509-9798
e-mail [log in to unmask]
URL http://www.ipc.org
*******************************
|
