Stever wrote
>My conclusion is somewhat different: I conclude it's a waste of your
>time to read my message, if it wasn't important enough to warrant a
>library phone call. Your reaction was "appreciating the commentary." My
>claim is that finding commentary that one can appreciate doesn't
>constitute a compelling business justification for using the Internet as
>a management tool.
My first response to this comment was,
"Yeah, why am I wasting my time reading these notes on these 'net lists?"
My second response was,
"Hey wait a minute -- I only go the library when I have a pretty good
idea of what I'm looking for. When I go to the _bookstore_, I may just
browse, looking for favorite authors or in favorite sections. But for me
the _library_ trip is generally pretty specific. And when I go to the
bookstore, I get the benefits of serendipity, just because I'm not that
narrowly focused."
Maybe we just use the library differently.
In some ways, subscribing to a 'net list (as a specific example of using
the internet) is like getting on an elevator in an office building or
eavesdropping in the cafeteria: there's just no telling what you're
likely to hear -- or when it might prove useful. But I do tend to pay
more attention to some contributors (note the _value_ connotation of
'contribution' versus 'writer') and some subjects / blinking words.
Of course, I can't spend all of my time riding elevators, either!
Michael A
-- Michael Ayers mbayers@mmm.com Voice (612) 733-5690 FAX (612) 737-7718 IT Educ & Perf Svcs\3M Center 224-2NE-02\PO Box 33224\St Paul MN 55133-3224 "Sometimes the right question is, 'Are we asking the right question?'" Ideas contained in this note represent the author's opinions and do not intentionally represent the positions of anyone else in this galaxy.Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>