"BUILDING COMMUNITY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS"

Sun Apr 12 15:10:08 PDT 1998

This may be of interest to people out there.  If somebody does "attend"
they might be able to make some reports back here?

I think they may be able to waive some fees but I'm not sure on that.

-- Doug

From: Seth Itzkan <Seth.Itzkan at digital.com>
To: "'douglas at scn.org'" <douglas at scn.org>
Subject: Building Community for Future Generations - Announcement
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 17:00:35 -0400

	BUILDING COMMUNITY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

		          An Online Collaboration

			April 15 to May 14, 1998

		       Hosted in cyberspace by
		The University of Houston-Clear Lake
	       (UHCL) Program in Studies of the Future
		    and Planet-TECH Associates

			in conjunction with
		   the annual UHCL professional
		  (face-to-face) futures forum

	       The Evolving Faces of Future Communities
			April 23-25, 1998
			  Houston, Texas

		http://www.planet-tech.com/futuresforum
	     http://www.cl.uh.edu/futureweb/conference.html

THEMES:

Online Community		Ecological Restoration
Future Democracy		Alternative Education
Cyber-Districts			Urban Empowerment
Strategic Planning		New Economics
Strategic Partnering		Resource Development

KEYNOTE SESSIONS

Rick Smyre
President, Center for Communities of the Future
Hosting Forum on:  Building Capacities for Community Transformation - a new
model to help local communities prepare for the 21st century

Andrew Cohill
Director, Blacksburg Electronic Village and Initial Director, New Democracy
Center. Hosting Forum on:  Designing 21st Century Democracy - New Avenues
for Citizen Participation in an Electronic Republic

John Michitson
City Counselor, Haverhill, MA, Director Footwear-to-Software task force
Hosting Forum on: Haverhill Online Community and Cyber-District - Case Study
in
Municipal Online Community Building and Downtown Economic Revitalization

WHAT IS IT?

Building Community for Future Generations is an online collaboration of
community activists, futurists, elected officials, scholars, teachers, high
school age students, and others  - working to distill the best practices
and compelling visions for long term healthy community building. The
deliberations will be inclusive of the significant changes occurring in our
schools, our cities, our environment, our health care systems, our economy,
and our avenues for democratic participation. Knowledge of today's far
reaching trends will inform and influence the deliberations by providing a
framework for issues identification and problem solving. Three principle
objectives of the online collaboration are:
      1. Provide facilitated, focused forums hosted by subject matter
experts
      2. Stimulate strategic partnering among participants, and
      3. Develop a resources database to be downloaded and freely shared.

WHY SHOULD I PARTICIPATE? Is this conference for me? What will I get out of
it?

Good questions! You should participate in this conference if you are
interested in the trends effecting the future of your community, from
technology to the environment to health care to education, and you want to
help yourself and your community be adequately prepared and networked for
leadership in the years ahead. If, for example, you are interested in
projects like municipal online democracy, urban ecological restoration and
international educational networking, then this conference is for you. You
should attend this conference if you are a community planner, elected
official, scholar, educator, business person, environmentalist, or any
other stakeholder in your community's future. What you get out of it is an
opportunity to help inform and be informed by the leading thinkers and
doers in community development and futures planning. You get exposure to
the projects, issues, and people that are making a difference in the world.
You also get what you put in, because a community resource database will be
created by the participants and made available for download.

HOW DO THE ONLINE AND FACE-TO-FACE CONFERENCES RELATE?

Building Community for Future Generations is being hosted by the Studies of
the Future Program at the University of Houston-Clear Lake in conjunction
with their annual face-to-face professional futures forum being held this
year, in Houston, Texas, April 23-25. The Houston professional face-to-face
futures forum is titled The Evolving Faces of Future Communities and will
bring together the world's leading futurists and community planners for 3
days of panel discussions, workshops, and open space sessions. All
registrants of the face-to-face conference in Houston are also registered
for the online collaboration and many of the invited face-to-face speakers
will also host or be actively engaged in the online sessions. The online
conference is both an opportunity to augment the face-to-face conference as
well as an opportunity for non-face-to-face participants to take part in
and learn from the Houston event. Additionally, the online collaboration
has many unique sessions, not included in the Houston conference, and will
be a complete conference in and of itself. The coordination between the two
face-to-face and online conferences in a unique creation in conferencing
and collaboration.

WHAT IS THE FORMAT?

The online conference will work with web-based threaded discussion groups.
There will be hosted discussion groups with subject matter experts and open
ones where participants can create topics of their own interest. All
threaded discussion groups will have email lists associated with them which
will distribute all postings to the threaded discussion groups so you can
keep abreast without having to read via the web. These lists are offered as
an convenience to support the distribution of threaded discussion group
messages. You will not be able to post to the email lists. Additionally,
the conference will support user profiles and a community generated
resource database. All of these will be searchable. You will also be able
to download the community generated resource database at the closure of the
conference.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST? WHERE DO THE PROCEEDS GO?

The online conference costs $25. This gives you a month of forums hosted
and joined by representatives of many of the leading projects in community
development and futures planning, including Andrew Cohill, director of the
Blacksburg Virginia Electronic Village Project , Rick Smyre, president of
Communities of the Future, John Michitson, director of the Haverhill,
Massachusetts Cyber-District Project, and others. All proceeds go to the
University of Houston-Clear Lake.

ONLINE FORUM HOSTS

Rick Smyre
President, Center for Communities of the Future
Hosting Forum on:  Building Capacities for Community Transformation - a new
model to help local communities prepare for the 21st century

Andrew Cohill
Director, Blacksburg Electronic Village and Initial Director, New Democracy
Center. Hosting Forum on:  Designing 21st Century Democracy - New Avenues
for Citizen Participation in an Electronic Republic

John Michitson
City Counselor, Haverhill, MA, Director Footwear-to-Software task force
Hosting Forum on: Haverhill Online Community and Cyber-District - Case Study
in
Municipal Online Community Building and Downtown Economic Revitalization

Jim Laurie
Systems Biologist. Speaking on: Why 'Titanic' is a Movie About the Future
- Coming to terms with the Defining Principles for Sustainability.

Albert Willis
Urban Technology Empowerment Evangelist. Steering Committee Member, Boston
Collaborative for Community Technology. Hosting Forum on:  Overcoming the
Barriers to Effective Use of Computer Technology in Urban Areas

Barry Kort
Educational Technology Scientist and Online Community Innovator.  Founder
and Director of the Musenet K-12 Project. Hosting Forum on: The Orenda
Project -
Community Soul on the Right Path. Defining the life-affirming applications
of technology.

Lisa Jobson
Program Director, International Education and Research Network (I*EARN).
Hosting with I*EARN students, forum on: Ambassadors for the Future - Young
People Using Telecommunications to Build Community Around the World

INVITED ONLINE GUESTS

Peter Bishop
Director, Masters Program in Studies of the Future, University of
Houston-Clear Lake, Clear Lake, Texas.

Cole Jackson
Administrator, Strategic Planning Educational Improvement Services, Orange
County Public Schools and Advisor, Images of the Future Project, Orange
County Futures Center.

Laurence Doxsey
Coordinator, Sustainable Communities Initiative, Austin, Texas.

Ken Jones
Executive director, Green Mountain Institute for Environmental Democracy.

SPONSORS

W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Mitchell Energy
World Future Society
World Future Studies Federation
Compaq Computer Corporation
OrbitWorld Network, Inc.
Bridgemedia Communications Group
Planet-TECH Associates

CONTACT INFORMATION

Online Collaboration
Seth J. Itzkan
sitzkan at planet-tech.com
(978) 456-2702
http://www.planet-tech.com/futuresforum

Face-to-Face Conference
Christian Crews
CRCrews at aol.com
(281) 283-3316
http://www.cl.uh.edu/futureweb/conference.html

                -- See you online!

Seth J. Itzkan
Internet & Media Development
508-467-4363: DTN 297-4363
seth.itzkan at digital.com

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