Virtual Conferences: A New Way to
Network
The Internet offers new opportunities to join in
international discussions without the
disadvantages of costly and time-consuming
travel.
© International Trade Centre, International Trade
Forum - Issue 4/2000
Small businesses in developing countries have
been finding out where to go to bid for supplies at
the best price worldwide, and how to avoid some
of the commonest pitfalls of e-commerce, thanks
to a conference organized by ITC in Switzerland.
Conveniently, participants did not have to worry
about getting there, since the conference took
place by e-mail.
Doing more with less
Networking, long recognized as a useful tool for
business, is taking on a new lease of life as the
virtual world of the Internet offers new
opportunities for international discussions without
the disadvantages of costly and time-consuming
travel.
ITC has found that e-mail discussions can be
particularly useful in providing a low-cost and
efficient way of promoting debate between
business in developing countries and trade
development organizations.
Extending the reach to a global audience
A recent series of e-mail discussion forums on the
challenges and opportu-nities offered to exporters
in developing and transition economies by e-
commerce attracted nearly 600 participants from
86 countries, some 80% of them from the
developing world.
ITC was determined to share the debate at its
Executive Forum on Export Development in the
Digital Economy, co-organized with the Swiss
state secretariat for economic affairs, with as
many people as possible. But at the same time,
ITC wanted to limit the actual event to 24 teams
of government and business leaders from
developing countries, along with e-commerce
experts, in order to keep the discussion fruitful.
The e-mail debates enabled businesses in
countries from Nepal to Peru, and Viet Nam to
Kazakhstan, to share their experiences of e-
commerce, from problems such as high telecom
costs at home to useful solutions such as global
supply auctions.
Developing countries shaped the e-debate
The three e-mail discussions served as a
complement to the Executive Forum, and enabled
interested parties all over the world to follow the
live debate and offer their own comments on e-
commerce issues. The debates were spread over
three months and enabled participants to offer
input before the Montreux discussions began and
to continue exchanging ideas afterwards.
The first discussion was held in early September,
ahead of the Montreux event, and invited
participants to provide
national perspectives on electronic commerce,
and share their ideas and experience in areas such
as portal sites, e-commerce strategies,
community awareness programmes, and training
programmes for small and medium-sized
enterprises.
Input ranged across the globe, from the United
States to India, Zambia to Russia, and included
upbeat success stories of national e-commerce
portals or computer literacy programmes, and
cautionary tales about the problems of trying to
do e-business in countries where access to
telecom services is neither universal nor cheap.
One participant also stressed the value of offering
sites in several languages, so as not to limit
potential customers or partners to a single,
perhaps small, language group.
The second e-mail discussion took place during
the forum, and linked e-mail participants from
around the world to the live discussions in
Montreux. Summaries of the Montreux discussion
sessions were posted within hours so that e-mail
participants could provide immediate feedback.
Again, comments came from all over the world.
The final session, in November, focused on
identifying how to develop these ideas into action
and finding partners who might be interested in
helping e-commerce development on a national,
regional or international level.
The debates offered ITC a vision of the needs of
would-be e-commerce exporters in the developing
world, right down to basic questions such as
where to start. But there were also some red
flags, notably on the need for balanced
information in a wildly fluctuating and emerging
digital economy. This included calls for the media
to limit excessively positive articles about
electronic commerce, and to steer clear of
buzzwords such as "market-space" and "Internet
pure plays".
Behind-the-scenes planning
The experience proved the usefulness of virtual
networking, but also offered a series of lessons in
how to ensure that such exercises are successful.
In fact, planning, tight organization and follow-up
are just as important in the virtual world as in a
conference hall.
Most critical is to have a clear focus for the
discussion, which not only ensures that the
debate remains on track, but ensures visibility
and support from staff and management. In this
case, the topic was export development and the
digital economy.
ITC took care to ensure that it targeted a clearly
defined group of participants, focusing on
developing countries, for the e-mail discussion.
One of its biggest successes was in securing
collaboration among staff by encouraging them to
invite their own contacts to register, using a short
e-mail announcement that they could forward.
Staff targeted groups such as ser-vices exporting
associations, purchasing associations, trade
development organizations in developing
countries, e-commerce experts, and participants
from ITC's Executive Forum, with a mix of
business, government and academia.
The wide geographical and national spread of the
e-mail participants, for many of whom English
was not their first language, highlighted the need
for basic ground rules such as keeping language
simple and messages brief.
E-mail vs web
E-conferences on the web are not that
uncommon, but conferences by e-mail are fairly
unusual. Yet they have distinct advantages. For
instance, rather than simply setting up a web site,
participants automatically receive new
contributions to the debate in their mailbox, rather
than having to keep clicking on a web site to find
out what was going on or to put in their own
comments - something most people are too busy
to do during their working day.
But using the web as a reference point remains
useful. To ensure that the ideas and suggestions
are not lost, ITC posted discussions from the e-
mail sessions on a special web site.
The e-discussions are available on ITC's
Executive Forum web site (http://
www.intracen.org/execforum/)
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