Social Impact Committee Report to Council 03/08/01

MEMBERSHIP:

Howard Frederick, Chair; Jennifer Northover, Drew Whittle, Simon Riley; Andrew Mason, Don Hollander.

During July, the Social Impact Committee met virtually on its list to discuss proposals that had emerged after F2F meetings with between Howard and Jennifer, Simon and Jan Bieringa (of e-vision), respectively.

TARGET MARKET

We see our target market as broader than the already e-literate members of the Society. That means we must appeal beyond the narrow interests of technologies and policies of interest mainly to the Member community. We see our target audience is primarily non-members because (1) we have so few members; (2) wed like to recruit more members; but most importantly (3) we want to do education and research on social impact issues of relevance to the entire New Zealand internet community. Our purpose is to help us, as a nation, understand how the Internet and its associated technologies are changing our social, economic, and cultural worlds. We are especially interested in advanced warning about what might happen in New Zealand based on overseas best practice and experience.

We propose the focus on the following activities.

CARRY ON THE ROADSHOWS, ESPECIALLY FOLLOWING THE ECAT MODEL.

Our original roadshow concept (discussed during the previous Council) focused on small and rural communities. We were going to do events in DND, CHC, NEL, GIS plus Auckland and Wellington venues. These events require an event organizer, is resource intensive and needs to be planned with care. We know theres a market and we have had success in filling this market. We can do this at $5K per event.

This concept has now evolved into a more concrete form in support of the Electronic Commerce Action Teams (ECAT) approach. The ECAT was set up by the Ministry of Economic Development (especially Min. Swain) with four aims: supporting the implementation of the government's e-commerce strategy; advancing the uptake of e-commerce across regions and industry sectors; improving the e-commerce capabilities of businesses and their advisors; and promoting e-commerce and its opportunities and challenges to the broader community.

The SI Committee carried out similar events to ECAT at our Tauranga Tech Expo with our focus on ebusiness, ecommerce strategy, IP, security, and marketing; and at the Waitakere Economic Development Summit, where we organised a day-long series of workshops on these same issues.

To this end, the Social Impact Committee has Joined the ECAT Network as a non-profit member. See http://www.ecommerce.govt.nz/ecat/members/index.html

ENDORSE THE PRESENT GOVERNMENTS KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY STRATEGY.

We wish to issue a press release in support of the Governments Knowledge Economy initiatives. The purpose is for Council to endorse the emerging champions within Government of the Internet economy. With little effort we can achieve a good profile and overall impact

LIAISON WITH OTHER ORGANISATIONS

InternetNZ operates alongside numerous like-minded organisations such as Internet Safety Group, Telecommunications Users Association TUANZ, Information Technology Association ITANZ, New Zealand Software Association NZSA, American Chamber of Commerce AMCHAM, New Zealand Library And Information Association LIANZ, Prime Ministers Office on the Knowledge Economy, Ministry of Economic Development Information Technology Policy, and many others.

The purpose of our liaison with these organisations is to share information, build coalitions, learn and disseminate best practices, and provide information to Council and Members.