Telecommuting BOF (TELEWORK)

Reported by Paul Mockapetris/Information Sciences Institute


Introduction

The chair presented some information from a study conducted by the US
Department of Energy, including a lot of information from a Department
of Transportation study.

The number of US telecommuters was:  0.4 million in 1990, 1.4 million in
1991, and 2.4 million in 1992.  The expected number of US telecommuters
is:  10 million in 2000, 30 million in 2010, and 50 million in 2020.

Telecommuters are people who spend at least one whole day away from the
central workplace.  Since this represents 1.6% of the 1992 work force,
and is expected to represent 5-10% of the 2002 work force, there is
little danger of running out of potential telecommuters any time soon.
Another point was that while 99% of the 1992 telecommuters work at home,
the study predicted that by 2002, telecommuters would be evenly divided
between those working at home and those working at telecommuting
centers.  Telework combines telecommuting along with new tools and
social structures to support workers.


Discussion

The following goals for telework were identified:


   o Preservation of families.
   o Convincing management of effectiveness of telework.
   o Defining when a teleworker is ``on duty.''
   o Creating a social structure that allows people to avoid feelings of
     isolation and ``be visible'' as members of an enterprise.


The remainder of the session was devoted to a discussion of the state of
enabling technology for telework.


   o Teleconferencing technology was seen as a key component.  The
     present use of conferencing and whiteboard programs is encouraging,
     but more widespread standardization, available source code, and
     bandwidth were seen as necessary.

   o State caching, in the form of replicated file systems with one copy
     in a laptop, with automatic consistency upon connection, were seen
     as essential.

   o Security is a big issue.

   o A ``home-worker MIB'' was suggested as a way to address management
     concerns, but this was referred to the SNMP directorate.


The BOF participants did not reach any conclusion regarding future work.
A similar BOF will be held at INTEROP in Las Vegas.


Attendees

Jim Barnes               barnes@xylogics.com
Carsten Bormann          cabo@informatik.uni-bremen.de
Sepideh Boroumand        sepideh@jacks.gsfc.nasa.gov
Lloyd Brodsky            lbrodsky@rocksolid.com
Susan Calcari            susanc@internic.net
Ann Cooper               cooper@isi.edu
Peter DiCamillo          Peter_DiCamillo@brown.edu
Judith Grass             grass@cnri.reston.va.us
Richard Graveman         rfg@ctt.bellcore.com
Terry Gray               gray@cac.washington.edu
Darren Griffiths         dag@ossi.com
Scott Hinnrichs          smh@netserv.com
Bent Jensen              bent@cisco.com
Kyungran Kang            krkang@cosmos.kaist.ac.kr
Robert Kummerfeld        bob@cs.su.oz.au
Arthur Lin               yalin@srv.pacbell.com
Michael McLay            mclay@eeel.nist.gov
Gerry Meyer              gerry@spider.co.uk
Kenneth Mueller          ken@cmc.com
Joseph Pang              pang@bodega.stanford.edu
Peter Phillips           pphillip@cs.ubc.ca
Doug Schremp             dhs@magna.telco.com
Chris Seabrook           cds@ossi.com
Steven Waldbusser        swol@andrew.cmu.edu
Shinichi Yoshida         yoshida@sumitomo.com