Subject: Re: unsolicited advice...... From: catchup@dial-switch.ch (Norbert Specker) Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 10:25:31 +0100

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The organizational structures of an online operation and the influences of
these structures back into the parent company to me are a key issue for any
publishing house.

The inherent structure of a net, such as the internet is based on permanent
feed back. It is a dynamic, highly unstable, feedback system.

The common decision making with newspaper management does usually not take
this into account. The idea is, that a online newsoperation gives something
to the net and its users. It is based on the paradigm of the one-to-many
that worked quite well for many decades. This view usually favours a
hierarchic organizational structure.

The clashes will arrive however when the extremly different organizational
structure of the net produces the feedback it does by its very nature. It
threatens hierarchic decision making. It has an influence back into the
parent company. It demands other decision making processes in order to
allow the online venture to be successful.

Of course, what is true for the organization as a whole is equally true for
the people working there. The demands for online production vs. paper
production are by their very structure (network vs. one-to-any) extremly
different. I would hold that the differences are permanently
underestimated. So it seems understandable that on a personal level a new
orientation will need time and a much more process oriented mind-frame.

These fundamental differences in organizational structures prompted me to
invite Dr. Peter Kruse from Bremen to speak on chaos management, the
management in dynamic, complex and highly unstable circumstances which - I
am sure you all agree - we deal with daily in this field. I hope he can
point to a different set of values that need to be cultivated in order to
operate successfully in the online world.


  Norbert Specker                       INTERACTIVE PUBLISHING Confernce
  Catchup! Communications AG            November 13-15, 1996, Zuerich
  Landenbergstrasse 10                  Freiestrasse 208
  CH-8037 Zuerich (Switzerland)         CH-8032 Zuerich (Switzerland)
  Phone +41 1 272 10 52                 Phone +41 1 387 70 88
  Fax   +41 1 272 40 00                 Fax   +41 1 387 70 80
                                        http://www.mediainfo.com/IPEurope.htm
  catchup@dial-switch.ch                IAPUBLISHING@catchup.dial-switch.ch




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