Friday a.m. Pre-Conference Session:

Certain breakout sessions involved discussions about Education and Social Economic Development (SED). A relationship between advancing educational opportunities will effect an advancement in economic development for those areas. An obvious point taken is that if education is provided, then there should be changes in behavior... and that these changes in behavior will affect the community. A point made was that education does not necessarily teach skills... and that educationa and skills are two separate but complementary development processes. What then is the relationship between education and skills? As I consider these, education affects individual and community intangeables - social unity, accord and civility. Skills, on the otherhand and of course in my opinion, affects economic tangeables of wealth and prosperity in a material way. Any other thoughts on this, I would love to hear them.

During the Pre-Conference sessions, it was expressed that there needed to be an easy access to the Internet as this could allow participants to access Scriptures, Messages and communications that directly impact upon the consultation subject. I am wondering if Baha'is during consultation on any subject could benefit by having computers available for instant research? would this be a constructive addition to the consultative process, would this be too distracting or otherwise interrupt the flow and exchange of ideas? What would the ground rules include if Baha'i Groups, Assemblies and others be if such an idea were implemented?