Contrary to the general trend of trying to increase user participation in the standards development process, the authors argue that “user participation at all costs does not achieve much; in fact, may be counterproductive due to the environment-specific requirements that each user is likely to contribute.” The conclusions reached in the paper are based on the findings from case studies of the introduction, implementation, and subsequent deployment of corporate electronic mail systems.

The introduction of email in a distributed organization through a bottom-up approach and then the superimposition of a top-down approach to establish an integrated, organization-wide email system cannot represent the standardization process used to develop standards like X.400 and X.500. The case studies on which the paper is based are a typical example of the evolutionary development of an IT service. Since the end users initially do not know much about the service, significant contributions cannot be expected until they familiarize themselves with the service. As the users increase their experience with the IT service, they make more significant contributions to the system evolution process. The great majority of IT users, even after they are fully familiar with the service, will not be in a position to comment on any of the underlying standards, such as X.400, X.509, SMTP, and TCP/IP.

The authors should note that only a very small percentage of the IT community (professionals and end users of information systems) are direct users of IT standards; in fact, they constitute only a small subset of IT professionals. It is these professionals that the standardization organizations are trying to motivate to participate in the standards development process. Due to their professional background, one would expect them to be capable of providing significant contributions at any stage of the standard development process.

There should be as wide participation as possible in the development process in order to ensure that the final standard meets, to the extent possible, the requirements in the area it addresses. With the currently available means (including email and the World Wide Web), experts anywhere in the world could provide their views--from their own offices, without attending any meetings--to the institutions leading the standard development activities. Using similar means, the institutions could keep the interested expert community continuously informed about the development activities. Standardization institutions need only a core staff to lead the standard development process. Facilitating worldwide participation in the development of international standards will greatly increase the likelihood that the resulting standards will be applicable in a wide variety of IT environments.