Your opinion (fwd)

Mike Gurstein (mailto:mgurst@SPARC.UCCB.NS.CA)
Sat, 13 Jan 1996 20:11:01 -0400 

Message-ID:  <Pine.3.89.9601132020.A924-0100000@sparc>
Date:         Sat, 13 Jan 1996 20:11:01 -0400
From: Mike Gurstein <mailto:mgurst@SPARC.UCCB.NS.CA>
Subject:      Your opinion (fwd)
To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 96 10:01:12 MST
From: Barry Hamilton <mailto:theresa@infosphere.com>
To: Mike Gurstein <mailto:mgurst@sparc.uccb.ns.ca>
Subject: Your opinion


Mr. Gurstein,


I have been following many of the economic development groups for a few
months yet, and I find your comments very thought provoking.  I found your
description of Cape Brenton very informative and much like the situation in
western Colorado.


I have found myself very interested in local economic development and how
access to advanced technologies influences it.  In fact, I am considering
going back to school to investigate that very issue.  I have two questions
to pose:


1)  Do you know if anybody is doing this type of research in the states?


2)  What do you feel would be the best area(s) to pursue this kind of
research. . .(i.e. economics, computer science {a combination of both},
business administration, etc)


I would appreciate any comments and guidence you could offer.


Thank you,


Theresa Hamilton




Hi  Theresa,


I will forward your post to a couple of lists and will also be interested
in the responses.


The field is of course, very new--community economic development (CED)
seems to have been somewhat "anti-technology" up till fairly
recently--mostly I suspect from lack of opportunity/resources.  Now of
course, there are freenets/community nets which have sprung up in many
many communities in North America and in other countries as well.


Linking these with CED is the next task and while some people seem to be
thinking about this-- many on these lists, it still seems to have escaped
the dessicating clutches of academe.


>From my knowledge there are very few computer science schools (perhaps

UC--Irvine is one) where the end user applications are examined.
Economics faculties typically are uninterested in CED or even IT (except
as applied to their methodologies) and I'm not aware of any Business
Schools except the one here at UCCB which has any interest at all in
CED.  You might be better served by looking at "Information
Science/Library Science" schools where a few places are looking at
community access issues and where some community oriented IT folks have
found academic refuge, the University of Toronto is one I'm familiar with.


Coincidentally, I have just begun preparation of a new course on Managing
Technology for Community Economic Development (MT/CED) which I will be
offering next autumn as part of a new (anticipated) MBA in CED here at
UCCB.


I am expecting to offer the course (for credit) and as part of a
Certificate in MT/CEDwhich we will experimentally be offering this
semester and which we expect will be available on the Internet for the
Autumn 1996 term.


Regs


Mike Gurstein


Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.
ECBC/SSHRC/NSERC Associate Chair in the Management of Technological Change
Associate Professor Organizational Management
University College of Cape Breton
Sydney, NS, CANADA  B1P 6L2


Tel.  902-562-1055 (H)
        902-563-1369 (O)
        902-562-1055 (fax)
mailto:Mgurst@sparc.uccb.ns.ca