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Shaping the National Information Infrastructure
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Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 19:10:08 -0500 (EST)
From: Richard Civille
Shaping the National Information Infrastructure Public Interest Summit
ANNOUNCEMENT
NOTE: Use this electronic mail address for contact:
On-site registration for the Public Interest Telecommunications Summit scheduled for March 29th in Washington, DC is quickly reaching the maximum capacity of 500 people. Vice President Gore will address the Summit. It will be broadcast over public radio stations. It is expected to be covered live over C-Span. It will include live participation from community networks, the Internet and many other online forums. You should register immediately if you plan to attend.
It is critical to broaden participation of this Summit far beyond Washington, DC, -- to the Nets and beyond the Nets. An Organizing Kit will be posted to this list shortly. Please watch for it. This kit will show how you can quickly conduct local discussion groups and involve your local public media. These discussions will be recognized as part of the Summit if you let us know about them. Help us build a strong public voice to accompany the Summit. Please read the forthcoming Organizing Kit carefully.
During the course of the all-day Summit, four panel discussions will cover the impacts, promises and dangers the information superhighway poses for individuals, our homes, jobs, education and health, the future of our democracy and our way of life. Topics will include public interest applications, Universal Service, communities and the economy, and making democracy work.
The Summit will bring major consumer and public interest advocates together with key Administration officials. Panelists and moderators will include C. Everet Koop, Jean Armour Polly, Connie Stout, Pat Waak, Rev. Ben Chavis, Morty Bahr, Randy Ross, Mitch Kapor, Ralph Nader, Nadine Strosser, Sonia Jarvis, Linda Tarr-Whelan,Woody Wickham, Andrew Schwartzman, Peter Goldmark and many others.
The Summit is supported by private foundations and organized by a broad-based coalition of public interest and non-profit organizations. The Summit will set a new process in motion that will bring a strong public voice to the critical communications legislation that is moving through Congress this year. Many of the activities we can begin over the next week will carry on after the Summit itself is over. We are dropping a pebble into a very big pond. Help turn the ripples into a wave of change.
In addition to televised segments, panelists will also answer questions from callers and through the Internet on a special edition of the Derek McGinty Show. This joint effort of WAMU, Washington DC and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters will be made available to stations nationwide over the Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS) during the Summit.
Further announcements from the Summit production staff will be made early next week. Press releases, the full agenda, a recently published survey of how Americans view the NII and other materials will become broadly available shortly. A gopher server will be established for the Summit, and pointed to from many gopher sites around the country and the Summit will be live on the Net during the event. Stay tuned!
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Center for Civic Networking Richard Civille P.O. Box 65272 Washington Director Washington, DC 20035 rciville@civicnet.org (202) 362-3831
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Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 20:16:24 -0600
From: Richard Civille
Shaping the National Information Infrastructure Public Interest Summit
-- ORGANIZING KIT --
NOTE: Use this electronic mail address for contact:
Your participation is essential to making the Summit responsive and effective. We are sending you the enclosed "kit" of questions, organizing suggestions, and formats for sending your discussion materials back to us. This is a call for you and your organization or group to discuss the information highway issues -- as YOU see them. Send back your replies for lead ins to the panel discussions, and as questions and concerns for panelists and Administration officials to consider -- as soon as you can. Please use the questions listed below to help organize your discussion group.
It is important to hear as many voices across the Nets as possible, as soon as possible. However, it is even more important for us to use the Net to go beyond the Net. We hope the following ideas will be helpful in organizing discussion groups in classrooms, in church, at work, at home; in service organizations, and activist groups; for radio call-in talk shows, local cablecast panel discussions and anywhere where people meet to talk about what is important to them. We must move very quickly to make this work and we need you. Remember, we are talking about beginning a wave of change this week, that will grow in power and momentum beyond the Summit and into the Spring and beyond.
-- Registration --
Register with us to become an organizer/moderator of a discussion group
(either on-line or off-line). Send e-mail to
-- Video Opportunities --
This is a media event. We are also searching for good, brief, video
shots. Do you have good local public media contacts? Do you know of good
video opportunities -- important new voices that should be heard, projects
in your community using information technologies for good public benefit
that should be recognized? Tell us about them as soon as you can. Send
your ideas to us at
-- Questions for Discussion Groups --
1. What is important to your group? 2. What does your group want in terms of connectivity to the NII? 3. What does your group want not to happen with the NII? 4. What special requirements do you have that might be missed in the national planning for the NII which is taking place now in Washington, DC? 5. What would you be able to do with the NII, that you would not otherwise, if you did not have to worry about the cost of access? 6. What one key question would you want the Administration to give you an explicit answer to about the NII? 7. How can you describe the positions your state and federal representatives are presently taking on your concerns about the NII?
-- More Ideas --
You might consider several scenarios such as these for your discussion group. Make up your own!
* Print this notice and take it to your group (church, class, work place lunch, family) for discussion, summarize the results, and send them to us.* Use the questions for a discussion item in your local community or civic network and report back with summaries of key points. Direct, attributed quotes are very helpful. Pose questions directed to specific panelists or to specific issues. Organize a local press conference.* Help increase the spread of the dialog by taking these questions to people and groups well beyond your own networks of friends and acquaintances, whether online or offline. Fax this Notice all over town. Photocopy fliers and distribute. Get these materials into the hands of those who are not members of online systems.
-- Contacts, Format and Deadlines --
Please e-mail results of discussions back to the Public Interest Summit to
Include:
Your name Name of online community, community/civic network or organization Describe the process you used for your discussion (was it a working lunch, a bridge club, a call-in talk show, who moderated, how was it organized, etc.) e-mail address of contact person, or phone if email is not available
Please provide a summary, and several vivid highlights, and direct quotes that can be attributed to real people. No more than two pages or 4k. Please e-mail group discussion summaries by Sunday, March 27 at the latest. Videos must be received by the 25th and not be longer than one minute in length. The earlier the better, there is a great deal of pre-production work to be done. Things earlier will be summarized and posted to gopher servers under the menu heading: "Public Interest Telecommunication Summit" including new questions as they arise.
If you cannot email you can contact the Summit production team through:
The Benton Foundation 202-638-5770 (voice) 202-638-5771 (fax) ```
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