[This revision of this page was posted January 16, 1997, 0930 CT.]
1. E-mail. If you have not yet done so, send me an e-mail message (1035393@mcimail.com) of any content (e.g., "hello," or "test" if you wish) from whatever is your preferred account so that I have an accurate e-mail address for you.
2. Bio. You are to prepare, by next Tuesday, a one-page "bio" about yourself (in hard copy). If you have done one of these in the past for another course of mine, feel free to use it (or revise it, as you wish). If you have not, and would like to see a sample of the kind of booklet we will make of them, I will get a sample to Rita Jansen (Room 421) which you can examine. I will also endeavor to get an "instruction sheet" posted here.
3. Country. Most of you picked your country Wednesday evening, January 15. If you have not yet done so, pick a country and let me know your choice. Those that have already been selected are posted here by country and by associate .
4. Technologies. This is the "describe the universe and give two examples" assignment -- although you are encouraged to keep it to two or three pages at the outside. Because this requires a little more research and thought than what we did with class projects January 15, I encourage you to bring to our meeting January 22 two pre-prepared documents. But we will, then, as we did last time, discuss this as a group. What we are looking to develop is a sense of the range of clusters of (a) hardware, (b) software, and (c) services that might be thought of under the general rubric of "telecommunications," "media," "consumer electronics," "computers," "intellectual property," "Information Age businesses" or "networks." The reason for doing this, aside from increasing our general knowledge of the field, is to give all of us a common base when we start evaluating what kind of business each of us wants to, first, explore, and, subsequently, establish, in our country of choice. (The second document, as before, is a list of the sources, or research procedures, you -- in this case, have used, rather than might use -- to conduct such a survey and produce such a list.)
5. Global Firms. You are to propose the name (only, at this point) of at least one, but preferably more, firms that you believe may be among the, say, 25 largest global corporations operating in the industries you have identified in 4, above. In all likelihood, those names will come to you as a matter of course from your research of 4. (From those nominated we will, next week, pick a list that provides one per associate. What you will then do with your firm is a relatively simple task that should take very little time. But since that's for the future we'll save the details for later.)
6. Reading and Resource List. This is not so much a separate task as it is simply a request that you keep notes as you go along. One of the products of this seminar will be -- for the benefit of all of us this semester, and for others in the future -- a list of books (and, given the nature of the material, of course, Web sites) that we have found useful in our inquiry. You are encouraged to "nominate" such items as soon as you find them (perhaps with an e-mail to me). That will create your credit for finding it. We will then submit the nominations to the firm, and if there is consensus, put the items on our list (and whatever Web page we create and maintain for the purpose).
7. Photos. Let me know, privately if you wish, if you have an objection to being (a) photographed at all for any purpose, or (b) having your photograph put on a Web page. You need not provide a reason for your objections. Your reluctance will be honored and treated with sensitivity. For the benefit of our overseas participants (and your potential future job opportunity) it makes the project a little more personal for everyone if we can have pictures. But it is certainly not essential, nor is it necessary to have the participation of everyone. So let me know how you feel about this. I will try to give you an e-mail "heads up" a day or so before a photo session is planned if we do go ahead with this.
8. Country Information. You will want to at least begin the process of discovering potential sources of information about your country (as distinguished from writing it up). Spend some time (say, a half hour or hour) browsing around the Law Library and the Web to see what sources you can find, and begin to evaluate which ones you think most useful.