This page last updated 02 December 1998

 This first international meeting took place in Bath 25-26 June 1998 and was a great success. All of the presentations at the first meeting are available for viewing by clicking on the appropriate presenter's name below.

We thank all speakers and attendees at this first meeting for having made it such a success.

The 1998 programme

 Thursday 25 June 1998

Session 1: Overview – what makes a good community?

Cliff Figallo (Salon Magazine, California, USA)  fig@well.com What makes a good virtual community?: Human and social perspectives
 

Mark McDonough (Knowledge Systems, Virginia, USA)  mcdee@well.com Building virtual communities that work: What they can do, business models and how to plan
 

Session 2: Consumer communities

Alan Stevens (Which? Online, UK)  stevensa@which.co.uk The development of Which? Online: Why Which? chose the virtual community route and how it is performing
 

Peter Ashby (Radcliffe Interactive, Abingdon, UK)  peter@radcliffe-interactive.com BabyWorld: An advertising-sponsored community for parents
 

Mike Neal (JavaKats, Colorado, USA)  mneal@javakats.com A virtual community for the healthcare industry and its customers
 

Session 3: Business and professional communities

Phil Baker (Metal Bulletin, London, UK)  pbaker@metalbulletin.plc.uk SeaNet: A trading community for the shipping industry
 

Andrew Gray (Sift, Bristol, UK)  agray@sift.co.uk Developing virtual communities for vertical markets: the Sift experience
 

Session 4: Science and technology communities

Steve Moss (Elsevier Engineering Information, New Jersey, USA) jjr@ei.org

William Town (ChemWeb, Inc, London, UK)  billt@cursi.co.uk

Friday 26 June 1998

Session 5: Community building

Carol Young Carver (Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA) cyoung@gsu.edu Building a virtual community for students at an urban university: How to get students to take part and how they benefit from membership

Steve North (Okupi, UK)

Session 6: Tools and technologies

Sylvia Lacock (Well Engaged, USA)  lacock@well.com

Richard Hughes (Lilikoi, California, USA)  rhughes@lilikoi.com

Calum Smeaton Orbital, Edinburgh, UK  kevin@orbital.co.uk

Session 7: The virtual community in the real community

Adam Wilkinson (Kington Connected Community, Kington, UK)  adam@kc3.co.uk

Nick Garbutt (Belfast Telegraph, Belfast, UK)

Wendy Warr (Wendy Warr & Associates, Cheshire, UK)  wendy@warr.com

The Programme Chairman

Hugh Look is a consultant, writer and lecturer on business strategies for the interactive media market. He is helping a large UK professional institution to develop a virtual community for its members, having written the initial feasibility study and business plan. He is also working on virtual community strategies for publishers and other media companies. He is especially interested in the human aspects of creating self-sustaining communities that enable a wide range of social, professional and commercial interactions between members and have a viable business model. He has recently completed the business plan for a magazine publisher setting up web-based merchanting services

Hugh edits the Interactive Media International newsletter for Interactive Media Publications Ltd and is a member of the executive team setting up the Scottish chapter of the Internet Society, which will also function as a trade body for the the internet industry in Scotland. He develops and delivers in-house and public training courses on internet business strategies for publishers and other organisations and is a regular conference speaker on interactive media and digital publishing strategies.