The Information Society is strongly on its way. Within an open world economy private companies, administrations and national economies have to continuously pursue productivity, competitiveness and high quality services. The renewal process requires a desire and ability for change.

Business and trade opportunities have greatly expanded as Internet and other information networks for common use have emerged. Information networks accelerate the shift of production, marketing and service activities to specific units and collaborators, such as subcontractors, cooperative clusters and distance workers. Information networks open new local, regional and global markets and new means to find business partners. Electronic commerce is here to stay.

Governments consider the role of information technology in reforming services offered by public administrations and agencies. The main objective is to take full advantage of public information resources and make them easily accessible to all citizens through public information networks. Fair and equal access to open networks is a prerequisite to ensure that the potential and benefits of free information flow are gained.

For individuals, whether in role of a consumer or a citizen, Information Society opportunities provide new challenges and benefits.It has to be ensured that everybody has the basic skills to use services offered by the networked Information Society. Electronic mail, information services, entertainment, electronic marketplaces and new services provided for citizens by administrations will be available.

The political, economic and social impacts of the Information Society are manyfold and in many respects still unforeseen. Concrete actions to increase public awareness and understanding of the opportunities, benefits and possible risks is needed.Employment, quality of life of the citizens, environment, transport, healthcare, renewal of public administrations and service provision and opening fora for a stronger participation of the citizens in local decision making are examples of issues that require immediate attention and practical actions.

Local and regional authorities may lead the way to information society with high quality and confidence building examples of public services. Europeans may act as frontline change agents and play a visible role in awareness raising of the benefits information society may offer. This mission requires European level cooperation and supportive actions.

The European Commission has launched several processes, programmes, events and other actions to promote cities to take benefit of the information society development. This work is done under umbrellas like local and regional, urban and rural. These actions are necessary in providing prerequisities for public administrations, local authorities and the private sector to make their moves.

The actions depend on every European country, region and city to make their own plans and carrying them out. The decisions are and will be theirs. Nobody is supposed to do it for them but cooperation and exchange of information, experience, lessons learnt and best practices helps a lot.
 
 

 MISSION AND OBJECTIVES OF ISPO

ISPO (Information Society Project Office) is a service unit established by the European Commission and jointly managed by DGIII (Industry) and DGXIII (Telecommunications, Information Market and Exploitation of Research). ISPO operates as part of Information Society Activity Center (ISAC) of the European Commission.

The mission of ISPO is to promote the process towards Information Society in Europe. As a service unit ISPO acts as a bridgebuilder between the European Commission Services and external counterparts, public and private, active in Information Society issues.

Main activity areas of ISPO include awareness raising activities concerning the opportunities and impacts of Information Society development, information services, brokerage of ideas, applications and best practices and managing focused project programmes.
 

ISPO CUSTOMERS AND SERVICES

As a service unit with a bridgebuilding function ISPO has a twofold customer base.The external customer base of ISPO includes private and public organisations within the Member States of the European Union. Through ISPO information services also individual Europeans and organisations representing them are customers. Public information services of ISPO are frequently used from outside of Europe as well.

The internal customer base of ISPO includes the Institutions of the European Union, especially the European Commission services that work in the areas having an Information Society dimension through information technology and applications research and development, regulation, competitiveness, social aspects or regional development.

A specific added value provided by ISPO is the provision of information exchange opportunities and channels between these customer bases.

The main services of ISPO are the following:
 

1 ISPO World Wide Web (WWW) site

The site has achieved the position of one of the most popular servers within the European Institutions with a usage frequency of more than one million hits per month (December 1997). The site offers network visibility to Information Society related actions all over Europe and with a growing global approach. The site is the basic information source to cover EU actions and their results concerning the various aspects and dimensions of Information Society development.
 

2 ISPO Monthly Newsletter

The newsletter covers main Information Society news, projects, programmes and other actions with a European Commission relation. The newsletter is available as a leaflet and in electronic format.
 
 

 3 ISPO Information Desk Service

The information desk service can be addressed through freephone, payphone, fax, email, Internet and traditional mail for making enquiries and for ordering information packages.
 

4 Information Inventories and Interfaces

ESIS (European Survey of Information Society) as an ISPO led project provides an inventory of European actions launched to promote Information Society development, country by country profiles and Europe level summaries. ESIS data sets representselected, formatted and organised information collected by ISPO and its subcontractors.

GIP (Global Inventory Project) as a G7 pilot project initiative provides an global view of Information Society related projects and actions. GIP offers an international point of reference and a network interface to information sources established around the world on national and regional basis. Advanced search facilities and multilinguity support are under construction.
 

5 Financial Support for Actions

In cooperation with other ISAC activities ISPO is able to provide financial support for selected European Information Society actions. The initiatives supported should meet the criteria of good payback in terms of direct impact on awareness raising of Information Society opportunities and in optimising the socio-economic benefits of Information Society development in Europe.
 

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The scope and aims of ISPO services are especially focused on the objective to reach a strong penetration of Information Society services usage in everyday life in Europe. The Information Society is powered by new and renewed services available through information networks. Strong emphasis is given to the issues concerning service production, distribution and usage. Understanding the factors and their interrelations behind succesfull service production, either on commercial basis or in form of free public service, is crucial and best practices in this area need to be identified.