Re: Translations, Europe, ... (Was: Finnish digital youth

Don Tapscott ([email protected])
Thu, 26 Feb 1998 23:05:15 -0500

Thanks for the note. I've forwarded your message to Phil Ruppell, my
publisher and he'll send it to the McGraw Hill International Rights people.
Hopefully we can get a Finnish translation going if it is not already
underway.

Best

don

At 9:12 PM +0200 2/25/98, Toni Alatalo wrote:
>Is someone working already on the Finnish version of the book?
>What about other European versions? Have your other books being
>translated? I think it would be really important.
>
>I wish my mother, and all like her in Finland, could read your book. Many
>boomers there don't know foreign languages like we (N-Gen) do and that
>makes the lap even greater .. and a gap, I'm afraid.
>
>The situation is even worse in these strong, traditional conservative
>Central European countries like Germany, France and Spain. They have their
>own widely spoken languages so they don't follow angloamerican literature
>like we Scandinavians (and the Dutch) do.
>
>As you know the net is lagging behind there otherwise too. A French
>speaking Belgian friend of mine, who has started using the net now that
>we've been living here in Amsterdam, told me about a message-party he had
>been to recently back in Belgium. He had changed contact information there
>with someone. As the other gave the Minitel number and he gave his e-mail
>address there were comments like "oh, mr. follow the trend!" in almost a
>nasty sense if I understood correctly.. Of course there's a whole lot of
>net.positive hype like everywhere but I was quite suprised to hear about
>the incident.
>
>You write a lot about parents. Mine seem to fit your picture as something
>we young think is cool. My mother has always been wonderful, bought me
>this domain (explained in http://an.org/inet98/discussion/0027.html) even
>though she couldn't really understand what it was about. Now she uses
>e-mail and my father (they're divorced) has been contributing for the
>presentation too and often writes really interesting mails.
>
>I know that it doesn't go that well with all the parents. Some get
>hysterical about their childrens addiction and I'm afraid that this
>attitude might get stronger and even affect public policies even in
>Finland if we don't go through the discussion I hope your book will
>support.
>
>I come from quite a poor family myself so the unrestricted free public net
>access that we now have had in Finland in (kindergartens,) schools and
>public libraries is critical. If older people - who run those politics -
>get too concerned about "net addicts" in a wrong way it might have
>dangerous consequences. As a member of the European Union stupid
>decisions made in Brussels affect Finland too so we have even more reasons
>to be concerned about what's happening here in the old world.
>
>Pekka Pihlanto, a professor and a specialist in situationism working in
>Finland who has been contributing quite a lot for my presentation, wrote
>an interesting message about a note that had been published in Helsingin
>Sanomat (the leading Finnish newspaper) 21.2.1998 about net addiction. The
>A-klinikkas��ti� ("Alcohol Clinic Foundation") asked the persons who feel
>addicted to net, to contact them and describe personal experiences about
>the problem. I wonder what they're thinking? The whole message is at
>http://an.org/inet98/discussion/0045.html
>
>Thank you for your time - in case you had any ;)
>and for the book I've really enjoyed reading!
>
>+ an + ~ Toni ~ : (t . !

**************************************
Don Tapscott
Chairman
Alliance for Converging Technologies
133 King Street East, Suite 300
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5C 1G6
http://www.mtnlake.com/paradigm
416-863-8801 (fax) 416-863-8989
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