Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Technography On-Line, an experiment

Author:Bernie DeKoven
Posted:2/21/1999; 1:33:16 PM
Topic:Technography On-Line, an experiment
Msg #:3080
Prev/Next:3079 / 3081

This week we tried an experiment to get the feel of what it'll be like using the web as a platform for on-line technography. I want to share the results with you in the hopes that: 1) you'll get a feel for the concept and be able to provide some feedback and 2) it'll frustrate you enough to develop some more effective tools.

We were using what can only be called a primitive simulation of the intended experience. But it was enough to prove the concept. No, we didn't try to do this in Frontier. Which was a big part of the reason the simulation is so primitive.

First, we set up a page with no graphics and some code that would make the page refresh automatically every 8 seconds Using an FTP program and an HTML editor the person playing technographer (me) would write items into the editor, save the file and then upload it fia FTP. The other person, connected by phone and dataline, saw the results. As the document got longer, we learned to post the newest input on top of the document because when the page refreshed it always took the reader back to the top.

It was a cumbersome process, but it did allow us to collaborate, it did help focus the conversation (when I could get the collaborator to stop playing around with his computer), and we did wind up with a fairly good representation of what we wanted to remember about our conversation.

I invite you to try something similar. I especially invite you to improve the process.

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