TOWN MEETING is an innovative groupware program that allows you and other users to hold an electronic meeting on any Macintosh computer running System 7. There are many advantages to a networked meeting over the more traditional meeting.
Perhaps the greatest advantage is that you can have a meeting at any time. No need to fit everyone into a crowded meeting room that may not be available. With Town Meeting, everyone can interact from the comforts of their own desk.
Secondly, with an electronic meeting, everyone will be able to contribute a lot more—in a lot less time—making your meetings more productive.
FORTUNE magazine (March 23, 1992 - Here Comes the Payoff From PCs - p. 93) says:
"In many meetings, 20% of the people do 80% of the talking. Those who are shy, junior, intimidated, or just too polite typically shut up. Meeting software uses several techniques to loosen the lips of the silent majority. Everyone speaks at once, via the keyboard. As you type in your ideas and comments—hunt and peck is okay—they accumulate on your screen alongside everyone else's. Most people can read much faster than they can listen, so they can deal with far more material in a given period. Says Jay Nunamaker, who helped pioneer the concept at the University of Arizona in the early 1980s and is now CEO of Ventana Corp., a Tucson firm that markets systems based on his work: "In a typical hour-long meeting of 15 people, everybody's got an average of only four minutes of air time. With computer support, everybody's got the potential to talk for 60 minutes. That's a big increase in productivity."
"Also important, most systems [Town Meeting gives you this option] keep the author of a given comment anonymous. That can be a powerful incentive to speak. Go ahead and disagree with your boss. He won't know it was you."
Town Meeting can also be used for less serious applications. It's a great way to meet for an informal chat. You can discuss your weekend plans, sports, and anything and everything with others from your Mac.
Companies like IBM, Boeing, Marriot, J.P. Morgan, and Dell Computer already use electronic meeting software with great results. But Ventana's GroupSystems product costs $25,000 per license, and IBM rents its TeamFocus software for one meeting room for $50,000.
The bad news is that $25,000 to $50,000 is way too much to spend for most companies.
The good news is that Town Meeting is much more reasonably priced. And you'll be able to do all this on your Apple Macintosh, even while running other applications. No special equipment is necessary.
DISTRIBUTION:
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You may freely distribute this version of Town Meeting to individuals, companies, user groups, and anyone else as long as you include all the files that are listed above without any changes. This version may also be uploaded to any commercial or non-profit bulletin board, as long as all files are included. This version may be included on commercial or non-profit disk-based or CD-ROM-based collections of software as long as all files are included. I encourage you to do so. Insanely Great Software reserves the right to change this policy in the future.
REGISTRATION INFORMATION:
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First of all, I’d like to thank you for trying out Town Meeting! I hope you like it!
If you use Town Meeting, you are legally and morally bound to send in the registration fee.
I’ve written a lot of shareware products because my users have sent in their fees. As long as users pay their fees, shareware authors will continue to provide quality shareware. Please do your part by supporting shareware. (For more information about shareware and myself, open the Note From Adam Stein text file.)
Pricing:
1 - 4 Users/Copies : $19.95 each.
5 - 9 Users/Copies: $18 each.
10 - 15 Users/Copies : $17 each.
16 - 25 Users/Copies: $16 each.
26 or more Users/Copies: $15.50 each.
I'll send you the version of Town Meeting required for the number of users that you order.
The Neat Stuff! Disk contains the latest versions of all shareware and freeware programs that I’ve written. It costs an additional $5.
Simply print out the order form from the File Menu and send it along with a check made payable to "Adam Stein" to:
Adam Stein
Insanely Great Software
126 Calvert Ave. E.
Edison, NJ 08820
REQUIREMENTS:
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Requires System 7 to Run.
INSTRUCTIONS:
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1) Distribute copies of Town Meeting to everyone who wants to participate in a meeting.
2) Everyone should rename their copy of Town Meeting to their own name. Just rename it in the Finder.
3) Everyone should launch their copy of Town Meeting.
4) Decide if it's going to be an anonymous meeting or not. If it is, everyone should select Anonymous from the Connections Menu. You can change this setting at any time if you'd like to be identified when you speak.
5) Now, everyone should make their connections with everyone else. To do this, simply select the Make Connection… menu item from the Connection menu or press Command Key-K. Then look for the other people that will be "present" at your meeting. Double-click on the first person. Repeat the process until you've connected with everyone. The easiest way to do this is to press Command Key-K, wait a second, and then press the Enter Key (for OK.) Just keep on repeating this process until there aren't any people left in the Dialog box.
6) Start typing. Town Meeting will broadcast your message when you press return or when you type 200 characters, whichever comes first. You can use the delete key to correct mistakes before the text is sent. You cannot delete already sent text.
7) At any time, you can save the meeting to a text file that can be opened with TeachText or your word processor. Just select Save from the File Menu.
You can even simulate a meeting on your own screen.
1) Make a couple of copies of Town Meeting. Rename them to different personas. (I use Bill, Ted, and Garth.)
2) Select all three from the Finder and double-click on them to open them.
3) Position the three windows so that you can see all three windows.
4) In each of the three applications, make the necessary connections. See step 5 above.
5) Start Typing! That's all there is to it!
Your meetings may get a little out of control at times if everyone attempts to type at once. On America Online (a commercial online service), the forums have devised a way to make large meetings more manageable.
To prevent others from interrupting everyone, make sure that everyone types GA (go ahead) or some other word when they are finished typing. That way, no one will interrupt the person who is "speaking."
One person can become the meeting leader. (They should probably change the name of their Town Meeting application to Boss:Their Name.) The leader can tell people when it is their turn to speak. When someone wants to make a comment, they type an exclamation mark and return. When someone wants to ask a question, they type a question mark and return. The leader then keeps track of who should speak next. (Garth, it's your turn to speak.) Of course, this only works well when the meeting is not anonymous.
You'll probably figure out other ways to make your meetings more productive as you use the software more.
The Town Meeting window can store about 25,000 characters before it starts to lose older information.
You'll only be able to connect to 2 different people (3 including yourself) in this shareware release. You'll need to order a larger license to increase the number of people that can attend your meeting.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT:
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Technical support is available to all users of Town Meeting at no charge. You may contact our technical support staff (i.e., the author!) if you have any problems with or questions about Town Meeting! We’re also very open to suggestions for improvements to the program.
You can call the author direct at (908) 549-0590 between the hours of 3 P.M. and 9 P.M. Ask for Adam Stein and he’ll be glad to be of service. He still believes in old-fashioned service with a smile!
