The
EEDN/Cleo early days
By: Teshager Tesfaye
taken from Seleda.com
http://www.seleda.com/march/cleo.shtml
In
early 1991 I learned that my former place of employment fostered
email discussion groups (a.k.a. email lists) amongst employees
of similar origin. For example, at Sun Microsystems there was
a mailing list called Chinatown, where Asians used to exchange
information about anything and everything.
After
joining one of the lists, I noticed the members using the forum
to exchange information: service and employee referrals, stock
tips etc. Few days later, I was looking for a particular information,
hence posted my question to the list.
Within
a short period of time had received several responses from individuals
whom I had never met before. This was my first appreciation of
mailing lists and their use for exchanging information efficiently.
Through the advice of peers, I also discovered Internet newsgroups
and became a subscriber to a few, including the African newsgroup,
soc.culture.african.
As
I thought why Ethiopians never had a similar email list, Dr. Samuel
Kinde and Ato Tsehay Demeke were also on the same train of thought
from several miles away. By coincidence, I came across Ato Tsehay's
message on soc.culture.african requesting for support to create
an Ethiopian newsgroup.
The
responses he received were unfavorable, some of the subscribers
responded to his question with harsh remarks. Some time later
I ran into a similar posting by Dr. Samuel Kinde on the same forum
asking about the mechanics for forming discussion groups. Guessing
from his name that he was a fellow Ethiopian, I quickly responded
to him fearing that he might receive flame mail from soc.culture.african
subscribers. After identifying myself I shared with him my limited
knowledge on forming e-mail lists; we continued to exchange e-mails.
I
realized how close-knit the Ethiopian community was when I received
an e-mail from an old acquaintance, Ted Kidane, who heard about
my whereabouts from Dr. Samuel. After a few e-mail exchanges,
the three of us decided to form a small email list to exchange
ideas, information and news regarding Ethiopia.
We
first agreed to recruit our immediate friends and family into
the list. While the two embarked on preparing content to publish
to the list, I took responsibility for handling the technical
aspect of running the list. We started running the list from my
work computer named Cleo, and named the list Ethiopians@cleo.
Ted
Kidane published the first feature article on Ethiopians@cleo,
a fabulous review of Aster Aweke's CD. Then discussions followed
about the review and Aster's work and other topics.
Alas
the birth of EEDN(The Ethiopian E-mail Distribution Network).
Through
word of mouth and email, the formation of EEDN spread amongst
the Ethiopian community. Witnessing our membership pool increase
on a weekly basis was indeed fascinating. Experiencing this in
a short period of time was clearly an outcome we did not expect
in our wildest dreams.
Besides
creating the forum for members to freely discuss current issues
on Ethiopia, EEDN was also helping members to reestablish contacts
with lost friends. Words cannot describe the excitement when we
received the first e-mail from Ethiopia. It was an affirmation
that as Ethiopians, we were "wired" to the Net!
The
continued flow of requests from all corners of the world from
individuals wanting to join the list made us realize two things:
one, that e-mail is indeed a powerful communication media and
Ethiopians were connected to the Internet. Two, Ethiopians, like
any other nationals, like to be amongst their own.
Sometime
around late '92 EEDN experienced growing pains. As the size of
the members increased, the volume of postings rose. To manage
this rapid growth effectively, we set out to draft the lists'
operating guidelines and appointed a board of directors to overlook
its operation. From the beginning, it was our collective intention
to make the list accessible to exchange messages freely amongst
members. Nevertheless, a rogue email posting forced us to restrict
access to EEDN and limit it to members only. As the months and
years went by, the range of topics discussed and information shared
skyrocketed.
As
the saying goes, "... and the rest is history".
Last
but not least, I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely
thank Dr. Samuel Kinde, Ted Kidane, friends and the Ethiopian
'Net community, without whom EEDN would have been just a passing
thought in my mind.
