The Famil-E-Circus - family Intranet usage

Vibrant Life, July, 2000 by Celeste Perrino Walker

These days you can "reach out and touch someone" with more ease than ever before. This has lent a whole new meaning to the words "keep in touch." Once-a-year pictures and old news hastily scrawled onto a Christmas card don't cut it.

Not now when digital cameras can send instant photographic gratification winging through cyberspace in mere minutes and e-mail has become a form of communication second only to telepathy. My own widely scattered family has made great strides in the use and misuse of the Internet.

Even though most of us live in Vermont (with the exception of my sister Aimee and her husband, Sunggu, who live in South Korea), we are at one-hour intervals from each other. Solution? The family Intranet. An Intranet is a Web site that is available only to "members." Members are people you invite to be part of your Intranet. They are the only ones who are allowed access to the site.

The Intranet is an amazing communication tool. It can confuse more people in less time than any other method of communication--bar none. My family has had a home on the Intranet for almost a year now at Adobe's eCircles. In this private space we can share pictures of family outings, birthday parties, vacations, or special events like one of the kids losing a first tooth. We can post family and personal schedules so we know who's doing what, when, and where. We can share interesting Web sites. Every time something is added or changed on the site each member receives an e-mail describing the change.

In our family it works like this: The Christmas schedule is posted. Immediately several members note that key elements of the previously discussed celebration have been left out. Is this an accident? Have plans been changed without our knowledge? Furious e-mailing ensues. Some elements are hastily added back into the "official" posted schedule, but they are incorrect. Is this also a mistake, or have plans been altered? More furious e-mailing. Confusion reigns. But in the end, plans straighten out before the holiday. Crisis averted. Peace is once more restored to Home Sweet Intranet Home.

Despite the hazards of miscommunication, it's nice having a central meeting place on the Intranet. Living long-distance from family can be isolating, and the Intranet brings us together. There is a sense of "family togetherness" that can't be denied, no matter how prejudiced you are about impersonal mass communication. It really can make your far-flung family seem closer.

If you are going to try to make a cyber-connection in your family, it is best to have one technically inclined member of the family be the "Webmaster." This person is in charge of maintaining the site and posting family events. Each remotely located family/family member should ideally also be equipped with a

digital camera. These really aren't that expensive anymore, and they add a lot of fun to family communications.

Of course, you don't have to go to the trouble of having a family Intranet in order to stay in touch electronically. You can make your family members and close friends into a "group" in your e-mail program. This makes it easy to forward pictures and news bites to people who are interested in hearing them.

Whichever way you decide to use the Intranet to keep in touch, you can be sure you'll never have the argument over which is better: quality or quantity of time. You'll spend loads of both keeping in touch. But when you see pictures of birthday parties you missed, you'll have to agree; it's the next-best thing to being there.

To create your own family circle, try one of these sites:

http://www.adobe.ecircles.com
http://www.egroups.com
http://www.intranets.com
http://clubs.yahoo.com
http://www.homestead.com

Celeste perrino Walker sends articles to Vibrant Life via e-mail from her home in Rutland, Vermont.