Leena,
I was one of three people who developed one of the first commercially
successful groupware applications -- OptionFinder (R). It was not
designed for use over an intranet -- it uses wireless 12-button keypads in
face-to-face meetings. In fact disagreement over its development for
intranet use was one factor in my asking my partners to buy me out of the
company.
I believe that intranets are poorly used now in support of learning but,
as our host says in his article on "groupware," intranets can be important
to a learning organization.
My only claim to expertise is in the somewhat limited area of "meeting
management" uses of an Intranet. As Rick also mentions, one of the
advantages of an intranet (or the Internet) in meeting management is its
ability to do "time shifting" and "location shifting." That is, to hold
meetings at which people attend at different times and from different
locations -- whereas a traditional face-to-face meeting requires that
people be "synchronous" in both time and location.
My work here has focused on "focus" -- where Rick has been experimenting,
quite successfully with this listserv, with longer-term informal
discussions, I have worked on time-limited (more like traditional meetings
but somewhat more flexible), agenda-driven (which also implies
specific-outcome-driven) uses of technology. If my ideas could be of
help, please help me focus on what I could do for you.
John W. Gunkler
jgunkler@sprintmail.com
--"John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>