Importance of the Internet

— His Holiness the Dalai Lama (From a BBC forum held 23 feb 2000)

What is "the internet"?

Technically, the "internet" is all the computers in the world that are connected, including the technologies (routers, servers, etc (which are also computers actually) as well as the wires and antennas that keep all the computers talking to each other.

So the "internet" is not just your web email. It is everything that goes over those wires from one computer to another: the email itself, web sites, messenger (such as Yahoo Messenger or MSN Messenger), phone calls on Skype, messages from an ATM to a bank, ...

The words "Internet" and "Web" are often used interchangeably. Strictly speaking, the "Internet" would be everything that goes between computers, and the "Web" would be ... websites.

importance of the internet to you

Because of all these things, the "internet" is a gigantic library, as well as a world-wide message board, telephone network, and publishing medium. It is open 24 hours a day, and you can find anything you want there, and say anything you want.

As well as current events and blogs, information about almost any subject is available in depth and up to date. This is incredibly valuable for every subject you can imagine. Almost every college and government research organization is "on the web", along with libraries, educational institutions, associations, and many commercial directories and sites,
If you appreciate the richness of the Web and the Internet, and get the benefits yourself, then you will be better able to provide services on them. You don't have to know how to do those technical things yourself — but if you know what is useful, then you will be able to direct your technical staff.

importance of the internet to your organisation

What does your organisation do?

Broadly, i think one could classify your organisation's jobs into something like this:

What's the advantage of these "additional internet ways"? They just look confusing so far.

Yes, they do look confusing, probably because they are new to you. Books and paper looked very confusing to you when you first started to read — you just don't remember because it was a loooong time ago!

And this list mostly concerns using websites and email. I haven't even started on the possiblities of online forums, blogs, wikis, video conferencing, ...

And they also look like more work! What do you need to do this?

I cannot tell a lie: They are more work. But they will reward you thousands of times over.