By Horace Mitchell <eto-info@eto.org.uk>
Individuals can benefit from teleworking, but successful communities
need teletrade - doing business over networks - says Horace Mitchell of
the European Telework Development Initiative.
As I write this article, at the end of 1996, only about one in a hundred
Europeans are using the Internet every day - for work, for pleasure, for
education and the hundred other things you can read about in these pages.
In the UK we are well ahead of the average, with perhaps two or even three
per cent "connected and networking". So why should we concern
ourselves with matters such as working-by-wire (telework) or doing-business-across-networks
(teletrade)? The short answer is: to open up opportunities we cannot afford
to miss.
Telework opens up new ways to do today's job and new work opportunities
beyond today's job (or beyond unemployment). Teletrade is the other side
of the coin: it opens up new ways to do business, to find new customers,
even to invent and sell new products and services. Any individual who feels
he or she doesn't need such new opportunities is either very lucky or perhaps
just optimistic. Any community leader who doesn't see such needs just isn't
looking!
The television, radio and newspapers have paid quite a lot of attention
to telework over the past few years, but the picture they've painted is
not the whole story. Most of us are familiar with just one aspect of telework
- working at home instead of travelling to a company office.
But working at home is only one aspect of telework. Telework means using
the Internet and similar technologies to "change the geography of work".
That can mean bringing work into a local community from outside
- very important in some communities, for example where there is high unemployment
or where the kind of work on offer locally is very limited so that creative
young people want to move away. Changing the geography of work can also
mean losing work from the local community; over half of
all the work done in Europe today could in future be done elsewhere using
telework methods. So "being good at telework" is an important
safety precaution for any community.
Teletrade means "doing business across the networks" and it
can apply to any kind of business. It will become increasingly important
over the next 20 years as telecommunication costs fall and bureaucratic
barriers to international trade are reduced.
Some products and services can be sold, bought and delivered entirely on
the Internet, as when I "download" a new piece of software from
Microsoft's website to my own personal computer. Some products and services
can be promoted and ordered online but have to be delivered physically,
as when I order a book or a report and I want to get the paper version,
or when I order a video recorder or a bunch of flowers - yes, all these
items can already by bought "online" here in the UK. Of course,
some products I might not buy online, for example a house - I just might
want to go and look before I buy - but even with these I can use the network
to track down likely offers. Indeed this last example - the product I'm
unlikely to buy online - is where the significance of teletrade can be seen
most clearly. Once I get into the habit of "looking online", I'm
inclined to favour suppliers who do a good job of presenting their products
and services online, regardless of what those products might be.
The message for communities and for community networking is clear - if you
want to be a prosperous community, with successful companies, a good supply
of jobs and work - local as well as telework - and the financial capacity
and independence to do all the exciting things you can read about in these
pages, make sure that people and companies in your community understand
about teletrade and have started learning to do it well.
So what can you do personally to benefit from telework and teletrade? Like so many questions the answer starts "It all depends" . . . .
The European Telework Development Initiative has been established by
some forty organisations across Europe with support from the European Commission
to help people, organisations and communities to "get connected"
and start to benefit from telework and teletrade as quickly as possible.
It offers information, advice and practical examples in most European languages.
You can find more through the European Telework Online website (http://www.eto.org.uk), or by emailing the
Initiative at eto-info@eto.org.uk.
In the UK, contact the Initiative's UK coordinator (The Telework, Telecottage
and Telecentre Association): website http://www.tca.org.uk/,
email tca@venus.co.uk, fax 01203 696538
and phone 01203 696986.