The
Screen Porch Newsletter on Caucus and social computing |
Issue
#1
February 1998 |
Happy New Year to you—the Caucus community and friends
of Screen Porch. 1998 will be an important year for social
computing, and we all have something to contribute.
—Tom
Mandel
Stories
1. Caucus 4.0—it'll be here soon
2. Success Stories—Creating the Future with Caucus
3. Tech Tips—understanding and managing Caucus userlists
4. Website Redesign—more information, easier to find
5. Take Caucus for a Test Drive
6. Keeping Your Maintenance Contract Up-To-Date
Instructions for subscribing/unsubscribing may be found at
the end of the newsletter. Please send your comments on
Collaborate! to editor@screenporch.com.
Announcing Knowledge Ecology Fair 98
Knowledge Ecology Fair 98 showcases companies creating
shared work environments on the net. Participants from Intel,
Hughes Space & Communication, Sun Microsystems and Skandia
will report on experiences in knowledge ecology, the creation
of Web communities among employees to develop, share and
harvest best practices. This virtual Fair is produced by Metasystems
Design Group and Community Intelligence Labs (CoIL).
"This unique web event will give executives first-hand experience of a
collaborative on-line culture," comments George Por,
founder of CoIL. The month-long on-line conference started February
2.
It features keynotes from leading thinkers and authors,
teleworkshops, and informal conversations among experts and
participants. Full information on the Fair and participating
companies can be found at http://www.co-i-l.com/kefair.
The Knowledge Ecology Fair is powered by Caucus!
1. Caucus 4.0—The most powerful & flexible Caucus yet
Caucus 4.0 is coming soon. Expect a host of enhancements and
a new look. You'll see a new browser-based module for managing
Caucus and organizing and administering conference workspaces.
CML is still the most powerful Web-based language for building
collaborative spaces online, and now it includes easy ways for
you to integrate all kinds of knowledge resources into your Caucus
conference workspaces. Your users will enjoy the new Caucus
Notebook, where they can manage and organize knowledge created
in Caucus. Stay tuned for more information and an announcement
of the release date.
Note: special Caucus pricing is available before March 1998.
Contact sales@screenporch.com
for more info.
2. Success Stories—Creating the Future with Caucus
Look for case studies and success stories in upcoming issues
of Collaborate!—you will read about government agencies,
Fortune 500 companies, and major educational institutions where
Caucus is making a difference and helping you and people like
you work together to create the future. If you've got a success
story to share, please email our editor@screenporch.com
3. Tech Tips—understanding and managing Caucus
userlists
Caucus gives you powerful tools to manage the userlist for a
conference space quickly and with a fine level of control.
Lets say you are creating a conference to plan your annual
offsite marketing meeting in Tahiti and want to include
marketing, but exclude the strategy group within marketing.
Still, you *do* want Mary Walton (mwalton), of the strategy
group, to participate. Here's how to build the userlist:
:include
<marketing
:exclude
<strategy
:include
mwalton
("<" indicates a Caucus group) With this power comes the need
to think carefully to get the result you want. For example:
:include
<marketing
mwalton
:exclude
<strategy
won't include Mary Walton. Caucus includes her by name, but
then excludes her as a member of Strategy! Some thought and
planning is required.
4. Website Redesign—more information, easier to find
Major changes are coming to our web site, including a new
design and public conferences. There'll also be a conference
space devoted to issues of social computing and online
collaboration. We'll invite speakers to join these conferences and
discuss their activities and applications. Of course, we will
continue to invite all to join our demonstration conference
and try out Caucus.
5. Take Caucus for a Test Drive
If you are starting to feel the urgency to support virtual teams,
enable communities of practice, or create learning environments
online, there is no better time than now to download a trial
version of Caucus and find out what all the excitement is about.
The trial version is a fully-functional, easy-to-install copy of
Caucus. The only difference between trial and purchased
versions is that the trial version times out in thirty days.
6. Keeping Your Maintenance Contract Up-To-Date
A current maintenance contract will ensure that you receive the
new version of Caucus at no additional charge. Please contact
sales@screenporch.com or call
directly at 760-751-2142 if you
have any questions or need information about the status of
your maintenance contract.
When you need support under your Caucus maintenance contract,
please have one of the two technical contacts you designated
contact our support department directly by email or phone. We're
looking forward to helping you.
Screen Porch Contacts:
http://screenporch.com
sales@screenporch.com
support@screenporch.com
corporate: 703-243-3001
sales: 760-751-2142
fax: 760-751-4228
Collaborate! will appear approximately once a month.
Please email requests to subscribe or unsubscribe to
editor@screenporch.com.
Thanks.