Opening Doors of Opportunity in the Communications Age
© 1994, Morino Institute. All rights reserved.
Contents
Opening the Doors to Opportunity
Focus of the Institute
Goals of the Institute
Service and Education Partnerships
Helping The New Medium Mature
Building a New Age of Opportunity
What Is Interactive Communications?
Projects of the Morino Institute
The Morino Institute is dedicated to opening the doors of opportunity —
economic, civic, health, and education — and empowering people to improve their lives
and communities in the communications age. The Institute helps individuals and
institutions harness the power of information and the potential of interactive
communications as tools for overcoming the challenges that face them.
Opening the Doors to Opportunity
We are in the midst of a revolution in human communications that is changing how we
talk to each other, how we work together, how we create and share knowledge. This
revolution is already fundamentally transforming society, and its implications for
individuals and communities are dramatic. The most important element of this revolution,
and certainly the most powerful, is the new medium of interactive communications which is
already linking millions of people around the globe.
This new medium offers immense potential for helping people address many of the
challenges to their individual success and the vitality of their communities. Those who
have experienced the richness of interactive communications understand its ability to
empower individuals, inspire collaboration and facilitate learning. The power of
interactive communications is people as the ultimate source of knowledge — not the
physical mass of wires, or the complex networks, or the vast databases of information. It
is people and their relationships, insights, spirit and expertise that are passed from one
person to another that engender the magic of this interconnected world.
Interactive communications can be a powerful tool for helping people, but it is not in
itself a solution. In fact, it could exacerbate many of the social problems we already
face by further fragmenting our communities and posing new risks to our privacy. It can
lead to unemployment by facilitating downsizing and shifting the patterns of regional
economies. What’s more, interactive communications, like many technologies, is often
billed as a panacea, leading to disappointment or disillusionment when overly broad or
unrealistic promises are not realized.
Focus of the Institute
The Morino Institute works to find and cultivate ways in which interactive
communications can be used to benefit society, empower individuals and create opportunity.
This work is focused particularly in those areas where the empowering, collaborative and
educational potential of interactive communications has the greatest chance to improve
peoples’ lives:
- in economic opportunity, to create jobs, facilitate career adaptation, improve
regional economies and inspire entrepreneurship.
- in governance, to strengthen the voice of the people and make government more
responsive, efficient, democratic and accountable.
- in health, to help people access needed information, assume a greater role in
decisions about their care and enhance their community of support.
- in education, to invigorate K-12 and higher education and encourage the lifelong
approach to learning that will be vital in the Communications Age.
In all these areas, interactive communications’ ability to change our patterns of
access to people and information creates significant opportunities to raise the quality of
individual and community life. Perhaps the greatest, is that this new medium can be a
vehicle for bringing together groups of people to solve the interconnected social
challenges that cross these areas. As the key to unlocking this potential, the Institute
works to support affordable, ubiquitous access to information and interactive
communications. This includes a priority placed upon broadening the awareness, knowledge
and understanding which will enable people to use them constructively and effectively.
This focus becomes ever more essential as we collectively experience the transformations
of the Communications Age: the inevitable economic shifts, new roles for intermediaries,
blurring of authority, leveling hierarchies and the new imperative for individual
empowerment.
Goals of the Institute
The Institute measures its success by the positive benefit to individuals and
communities that result from its efforts: the number of jobs we help create; the people
who are prepared to succeed; the institutions which improve their service; the communities
that become better places in which to live.
Our fundamental goals are to:
- Make people aware of the potential benefits and threats of interactive communications,
especially to help them understand its implications for their lives, families, careers,
institutions and communities.
- Advance new ways of using interactive communications that enable people to assume
greater control over their future, make better informed decisions and become engaged in
community problem-solving.
- Prepare people to realize the benefits of interactive communications, with particular
emphasis on those who are already being left out: people who are economically or
educationally disadvantaged, physically and mentally challenged, elderly and those in
rural areas.
- Help public and community service groups to improve their assistance to individuals,
families and communities through the effective use of interactive communications.
Service and Education Partnerships
In support of theses goals, Institute initiatives take two forms: service projects and
education programs.
Through service projects, the Institute acts as a catalyst to encourage new models,
public policies and programs that create opportunity or social benefit through the use of
interactive communications. The Institute works closely with local groups, service
organizations, businesses, educational institutions and government agencies who understand
and respond to community needs. The Institute acts in full partnership with these groups,
helping them define a problem, determine how interactive communications can help, create
workable plans and develop effective solutions. Institute contributions may include
financial assistance, in-kind services, connections to additional partners and access to
an impressive array of experience in planning, management, implementation, communication
and education.
In addition to helping people and communities directly, service projects support the
creation of knowledge and models that can be applied by others to improve their own
communities. As a result, service projects are also an important engine for the
Institute’s educational efforts.
Education programs are in many ways the Institute’s most important work because
they help many people learn from the knowledge and experience of others.
With education programs, the Institute transfers information, strategies, analysis,
expertise, models and solutions through a variety of channels, including:
- online facilities like moderated discussion groups, listserves, directories and
electronic publications
- educational events including seminars, conferences, symposia and town-hall meetings
- publishing including books, monographs, directories, newsletters, audio/video tapes and
electronic media
- broad-based public awareness campaigns
In keeping with its mission, the Institute’s service and educational efforts focus
not on the technology of interactive communications, but on creating opportunity and
helping people through its use. In the Institute’s work with the Virginia Chapter of
the Association of Retarded Citizens (ARC), for example, the challenge is not building a
network, it is rather to apply enhanced communications toward bolstering the knowledge and
support resources available to families. While creating an interactive communications
network is part of the project, one of the Institute’s services is to put groups like
ARC in contact with the right people who can provide expertise and training in the
communications, information management and technical elements of online access.
Helping The New Medium Mature
For all of its growing popularity, and despite some marketing claims, interactive
communications has to mature before its full potential can be realized. Many decisions
about its nature, implementation, use and access are still being made. Many issues have
not even been identified or defined. Research into how it can be used effectively and how
it will affect our communication and learning patterns is just starting. The road leads
well beyond the immediate technical and regulatory issues that are most commonly
considered and bears directly on how well we will develop opportunity and social benefit
using the new medium. For this reason, the Institute also supports service and education
programs which:
- Advance Public Access Networking to ensure broad-based access to interactive
communications for all people and to create affordable platforms for local, regional and
community problem-solving.
- Advance the Internet as the core "network of networks." The Internet is
a cost-effective means to bring interactive communications to the most people through its
critical mass of participation, its emerging global reach, its broad number of supporters
and its decentralized model that offers maximum local participation.
- Advance Information Management so that people can become better consumers and
producers of knowledge in a time when the information explosion is outdistancing
traditional legal, editorial, and classification controls.
- Connect the Public Interest and Non-Profit Sectors to provide them with
facilities to reinvent public and community service, make organizations more responsive to
their constituencies and aid them in collaborating on multi-disciplinary solutions.
- Advance Public Policy and Legislation to ensure that our legal system, public
policies and regulatory efforts are conducive to the growth and use of interactive
communications; that they recognize the risks and impact on individuals, communities and
posterity; and to be sure that opportunity is made available equitably, responsibly and
with an eye toward the public good.
- Advance the Availability of Funding Sources to ensure public and private support
for interactive communications applications that stimulate improvements in economic
opportunity, governance, health, education and the public good.
- Advance Access to Government Information at the federal, state and local levels
to ensure broad and easy access to public information, awareness of government programs
and to expand the individual’s ability to participate in government.
Building a New Age of Opportunity
Dickens described the French Revolution as the best of times and the worst of times.
That paradox applies to the Digital Revolution as well. While some children are learning
to use computers, others are learning to use guns. While thousands of people connect with
each other through networks, millions remain alienated and detached. While fax machines
and cellular phones deliver more messages, the human quality of communication seems to be
in decline. While the sheer quantity of information explodes, the useful nuggets become
harder to find. While some online communities thrive, many local communities founder.
By providing new opportunities and empowering people to meet them, interactive
communications can help make this the best of times for millions of people. However, it
also threatens to create an insurmountable divide between those with access to opportunity
and those without. The Communications Age will dictate vastly different and continually
changing rules for education, community and competition. The challenge for all of us is to
survive and succeed in this new world, and it is our responsibility to hold open the doors
of opportunity for our families, friends and neighbors to pass through as well.
What Is Interactive Communications?
Interactive communications is the new medium that links people throughout the
globe via networks of computers and telecommunications devices. The computers are
intelligent mediators that manage, manipulate and store messages of various kinds —
the written word, sound, pictures, movies — in a digital form which can be passed
through telecommunications "pipes" such as phone lines, fiber optic cables,
satellites and wireless. Technically it is referred to as computer- mediated
communications. Casually it is sometimes called the information superhighway, but it is
more than that. It is a truly new and revolutionary form of human communication.
- It makes possible an entirely new level of interactivity, fostering — even
demanding — engaged participants instead of passive listeners or viewers.
- It is unique in supporting all forms of dynamic communications: one-on-one, small group,
mass broadcasting and a wholly new form of many-to-many or interactive mass
communications.
- It eliminates the obstacles of time as well as distance by combining immediate
communication, with stored and delayed forms, such as email and in the future, video mail.
- It provides two-way broadcast capability where any participant can receive or transmit
large or small amounts of information. Each participant can be a publisher or consumer and
each maintains equal control.
- It combines text, audio, graphics and video, thus enriching communication, expanding
self expression and supporting more styles of learning.
- Through incorporation of the computer, it can be adapted to the individual user,
overcoming many of the differences that separate us, like physical ability, race or
location.
- In many of its implementations, particularly the Internet, it has no central authority
for monitoring, disrupting or censoring communications.
With interactive communications, people have much broader access to information, in new
forms, from new authors and through new channels. It makes possible a learning process
whereby people can gather knowledge when they need it, either from the vast repositories
of information and research or directly from the multitudes of individuals and experts who
are connected through the networks. Perhaps most importantly, it presents the potential
for dozens or even thousands of people to be brought together in collaboration to support
a movement, solve a problem or fulfill a need.
Projects of the Morino Institute
Broadening a Child’s Horizons
The children of New Haven, Connecticut and East Palo Alto, California are separated by
three time zones, but united by disadvantages they share with other inner-city kids. Put
simply, they are losing out because, among the other challenges they face, they lack the
facilities, training and support required for the Communications Age. Leadership,
Education and Athletics in Partnership (LEAP), in conjunction with the Morino Institute
and others, is helping to change that through the National Youth Center Network (NYCN)
project.
NYCN has two primary goals: to help engage children through communication and to
improve the delivery of youth services. Part of this effort includes the creation of a
pilot network between the Youth Centers in New Haven and East Palo Alto with child service
providers such as the Children's Defense Fund, the Urban Strategies Council, the
Playing to Win Network and others. As the program matures, it will be expanded across the
United States.
Andrea Schorr, a program coordinator for LEAP’s Computer Learning Center,
observes, "I haven’t seen a single child who isn’t excited about talking to
kids in faraway places, to see that they have things in common with others. It’s
going to become increasingly important to kids’ lives and it’s an equity issue.
Without this experience they won’t be prepared to function in the workplace of
tomorrow."
Sharing Knowledge and Education
One of the most compelling aspects of the Communications Age is the way it has inspired
grass roots civic, economic and public service efforts across the globe. Public access
networking is a profound example of this, where communication and information services are
delivered free or at low cost to local citizens. Because these are grass roots programs,
however, there is often little opportunity to share knowledge and experience.
The Morino Institute helps connect these efforts through support of programs like the
Ties That Bind Conference, co-sponsored with Apple Computers. This kind of knowledge and
experience sharing is also the impetus for the Institute’s Directory of Public Access
Networks which serves as a resource for community sponsors, public and community service
groups, media, policy makers, grant makers and others interested in the emergence and use
of public access networks.
Preparing A Vision for Regional Economic Growth
How will communities, regions — and for that matter, individuals — adapt to
the economic and social changes of the Communications Age? To do so effectively, many will
have to take honest stock of their strengths and weaknesses, preparing strategies and
action plans that embrace both opportunities and threats. In Northern Virginia the Morino
Institute is helping people come together around a vision for developing an industry in
network-based information products and services. The strategy turns the region’s
unique strengths in intellectual resources, telecommunications, and information bases into
a foundation for entrepreneurship and job creation. The goal is to help people prosper in
the face of trends that are altering the region’s economic environment; trends such
as job migration, corporate downsizing, defense conversion and federal work force
reductions.
This initiative is a product of the Northern Virginia Roundtable, a coalition of
Northern Virginia business and community leaders. Founding members also include George
Mason University, Northern Virginia Community College, the Virginia Center for Innovative
Technology, GREDAC and the Northern Virginia Technology Council with assistance and
support from the Morino Institute. The program includes creation of an information
entrepreneurship and innovation program, a community-wide education campaign, and a
regional online network. "What’s so exciting about the project is that it is
truly an industry and community driven initiative," says Robert Templin, President of
Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology, "involving local businesses —
large and small — in partnership with many other members of the community. The Morino
Institute has been a catalyst to help spark this effort and has been an essential part of
helping us formulate the strategy and bringing people together behind it."
Unlocking Opportunity and Expanding Participation
In Nebraska, the Community Networking Institute (CNI) brings together local businesses
and service groups throughout the state to help people in rural communities find economic,
health and educational opportunities. A woman in tiny Wallace, Nebraska now teaches
graduate courses to students around the world from her home. A rancher in Sand Hills
developed systems to manage his herds more productively in collaboration with a colleague
over 500 miles away.
According to CNI Director Steve Buttress, "The Morino Institute’s partnership
and management experience was of tremendous value. They helped us ask the right questions
and develop an effective operational plan to meet the needs of local people. Their
continuing support in establishing contacts to national resources and in developing
educational materials will help assure the success of this ambitious project." |
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