E-mail at work: electronic mail has removed the barriers of time and place between engineers collaborating on complex design projects

Article Abstract:

Electronic mail systems (E-mail) enable geographically dispersed employees to work together on complex design projects. Companies that rely on E-mail systems typically have huge international networks. For example, Hewlett-Packard Co has a network of 94,000 mailboxes that deliver over 350 million messages a year to 90,000 employees; DEC's network sends 110,000 workers about 50 million messages annually. The systems support different types of E-mail. While private E-mail is communication between two people and can include computer-aided design files, wide-distribution E-mail originates with one person but is sent to many. E-mail provides the competitive advantages of avoiding telephone tag and time zone dissonance, providing flexibility, eliminating the need for stressful transfers or expensive temporary assignments, and cuts across corporate hierarchies. E-mail can limit the decision-making process when it comes to highly complex, multifaceted problems.

Performance/Cost Relationship, Team Approach, Remote Job Entry

---

E-mail pervasive and persuasive: the net of networks now embracing the globe is bypassing corporate and other hierarchies

Article Abstract:

The still new electronic mail (E-mail) network already circles the globe, resists control by a central authority and is blind to race, age, gender or handicap. E-mail is also transforming the workplace. It lets engineers pass design problems across time zones and is breaking down hierarchies by making upper managers more accessible and speeding up the pace of research. E-mail evolved spontaneously in the mid-1960s in various computer timesharing systems that were casually written and without uniformity. In 1969, the US government developed the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (Arpanet) to enable university researchers to electronically transfer data and remotely launch computer programs. E-mail has developed its own language of images to compensate for the lack of non-verbal communication, and improvements in electronic mail services are forthcoming, such as the high-speed National Research and Education Network.

Performance improvement (Computers), Trends, Performance Improvement

---

Forces for social change: the international web woven by electronic networks helps empower people around the globe and democratize governments

Article Abstract:

Worldwide electronic-mail (E-mail) network use is empowering people and helping to democratize government. A message received by E-mail was responsible for assuring the Yeltsin government that NATO, the US and other nations were on his side even after his opposition had taken over the mass media. Facsimile machines were responsible for letting students in China disseminate objective reports during the Tiananmen Square massacre. Now E-mail is gaining use in US national political campaigns, although most established political organizations have yet to explore its potential. There are some hazards associated with E-mail use, however. Text can be easily changed, it is easy to impersonate someone and terrorism could even be advanced. Still, E-mail networks are largely viewed as contributing to the good of the world at large, because they are often the only way to approach solutions to problems that defy national efforts.

Telecommunications systems, Democracy, Freedom of information

Similar abstracts:

• Abstracts: At work or play, he's the captain. He builds tools for designers. Red hot: today LEDs come in yellow, orange, green, turquoise, blue-violet, and even white. But first there was red -- and first there was Nick Holonyak
• Abstracts: A network approach to operate agile manufacturing systems. Networked manufacturing: the impact of information sharing
• Abstracts: Chips go vertical. Flash of brilliance or flash in the pan? Giant planar Hall effect could be the next big thing in data storage
• Abstracts: Dynamic software solves special problems. Advanced infusion pump designed on Desktop. Low cost CAD speeds boat firm to profit
• Abstracts: Multiple lot-sizing, and value of probabilistic information, in production to order of an uncertain size. Order point/order quantity models with random yield

This website is not affiliated with document authors or copyright owners. This page is provided for informational purposes only. Unintentional errors are possible.