This is the third occasional newsletter from Analytica.
EMERGENCE
I had hoped to open this newsletter with a fanfare
announcing the launch of the EMERGENCE project, but due to various bureaucratic
complexities at the European Commission we still do not have a signed contract
so the news will have to wait. However I will tempt fate a little bit and
tell you that this is (for us) a hugely ambitious project involving research
partners in the
EU, Eastern and Central Europe, North America
and Australasia which will eventually, we hope, produce reliable information
on the new global division of labour which is emerging in 'knowledge work'.
The initials stand for Estimation and Mapping of Employment Relocation
in a Global Economy in the New Communications Environment. Says it all
really, doesn't it?
Some of the results of the survey of call centre managers are quite dramatic. Recruitment, retention and absenteeism problems are rife and reported stress levels high. Whilst only 4% of call centres are currently employing homeworkers as a supplementary workforce, 42% expect to be doing so in the future. The executive summary of the report has been posted on the TCA web-site at: http://www.tca.org.uk/news2.htm
CONFERENCE PAPERS
The organisation of academic conferences seems
to be getting more and more bureaucratic. I was recently invited to speak
at a conference In Canada called Citizens at the Crossroads: Whose Information
Society?. Speakers were issued very stern instructions to submit their
papers in full by a certain date on pain of being refused the right to
speak. I presumed that this was to enable the papers to be printed in advance
and circulated to participants so was happy to comply. I was therefore
very surprised to find that, despite having to pay a hefty attendance fee,
we were required to pay two Canadian dollars for a copy of each paper.
The income from the fees had, it seemed, been spent on lavish catering
rather than intellectual sustenance. As a protest against such practices,
I have placed my paper free of charge on the Analytica website at http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/hg54/xroad.htm.
The article is called Women, participation and Democracy in the Information
Society.
PAPERLESS OFFICE
In case you are interested to see what the Analytica
office looks like, there's a picture accompanying a newspaper article which
is on the web at: http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/99/11/06/timwkmwkm02013.html?3138045
This is a fairly good likeness of my desk (and its owner) on a reasonably
tidy day. But please note that almost all the other information in the
article is incorrect. I am not an educational
adviser; neither do I live in South London!
COINCIDENCES
The growing precariousness of the jobs of researchers and of those who commission research, combined with the increasingly cut-throat competition for funding may be contributing to what seems to be an alarming increase in plagiarism, at least in the areas of research we're involved with here. I have had several painful personal struggles over intellectual property in the last couple of years and almost every week I hear colleagues recount similar experiences. However plagiarism is only one aspect of the problem. There also appears to be a new trend which seems designed to blur authorship. Not wishing to seem unduly paranoid I usually try to give the benefit of the doubt and it is of course the case that two people often do have the same idea. So I will only note here some astonishing coincidences in the field of research and consultancy on teleworking.
In 1993 the UK government published the results
of a pioneering survey of teleworking I carried out for them under the
title 'Teleworking in Britain'. I later drew on the results of this study
for a practical guide to managing teleworking called 'A Manager's Guide
to Teleworking'. This year someone drew to my attention another subsequent
study, using a superficially similar (but much cheaper) methodology and
a remarkably similar questionnaire which was also published under the title
of 'Teleworking in Britain'. The consultants who carried it out also accompanied
it with 'A Director's Guide to Teleworking'. The titles are not very original,
of course, but one would think that someone claiming to have an overview
of the subject would be
aware of the existing work in the field and try
to AVOID any confusion rather than add to it.
I have also recently discovered that another UK
consultant has set up a company called 'Telework Analytics'. Having visited
its web-site I have now solved a riddle which has been mystifying me for
the last couple of years: people coming up to me at conferences and saying
'I was really surprised at how commercial your web-site is, Ursula. And
there doesn't seem to be much
information on it'.
Ah well, to adapt the proverb: You can fool some of the search-engines all of the time, and all of the search-engines some of the time, but....
GLOBAL VILLAGE
Just time (before I depart for Goa in seven hours
time) to tell you about a really useful newsletter from India available
from fred@goa1.dot.net.in. or
fred@vsnl.com
or partha@drik.net It's called Bytes
for All and raises some sharp issues about citizenship and inclusion
as well as providing a lot of interesting news.
NOTE
All contents of this newsletter are copyright © Ursula Huws, 1999. However you are free to pass it on to anyone for non-commercial purposes provided the text, including this copyright notice, is not changed.
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all contents of this page © Ursula Huws, 1999