PR Initiative 1st meeting
The first meeting of the PR/Information Initiative at the TERENA Conference in Limerick on 2nd June 2002, and was attended by participants of Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia and the US. In this meeting various communication issues that National Research Networks are facing were discussed: communication with the customers, communication with end-users and communication with the outside world. Furthermore some ideas of what the concrete activities of the PR/Information Initiative could be were discussed.
In communicating with the customers, it is clear that NRN"s have difficulty in spreading their information within the institutes. The problem is often that the NRN is not even known within the institutes. One should first inform the clients and users that the network exists and then encourage them to use the capability of the network. A joint effort to establish this knowledge within the institutes was seen as useful.
In communicating with the end-users it was discussed whether end-users should be informed about the NRN or whether they shouldn"t be bothered with this information. It was agreed that maybe half of the end-users is not interested, but the other half should have the possibility of being informed. And it is useful for end-users to know that it is a complex system.
An important goal of NRN"s is to get into contact with researchers and other relevant end-users in faculties and establish the right channels to the right people. These channels can be used to inform these users, but also to find out why they are using the network, what they are using it for, to get feedback from them and give them the support that is needed. This was seen as a goal of the PR/ Information Inititiative.
In the communication with the outside world, experience is that it is hard to reach newspapers and other press, especially because it is hard to explain what it is all about. Because NRN"s are funded, it was seen as an "obligation" of NRN"s to inform the public about what"s been done with the funding and distribute knowledge. Another reason to communicate with the public is the fact that although the NRN"s are "hidden" to the community, there are techniques created within the NRN"s that eventually come back to community. And finally there is a role for NRN"s in putting things in the right perspective, for instance, the definition of broadband.
In their PR, the NRN"s should focus on applications; what can the network mean for users. It is seen as important to show what you can do with the network, things you can"t do over a commercial network.
A main activity for the PR/Information Initiative was seen as gathering information and providing a source of information. The PR group should collect information and establish a central place for interesting brochures, news, reports, publications, an overview of NRN"s, European projects, and a database of people with their expertise.
The other role for the group was seen in sharing experiences and sharing used methods and techniques.
A second meeting of the group is planned for later in 2002 or early 2003 and details will be announced to the mailing list as soon as they are available.
It is our intention to form a TERENA Task Force, TF-PR as soon the objectives, action plan and deliverables have been established.