B Y  S C O T T    D E L O A C H
SIG Manager
Atlanta Chapter

Every year, the Online SIG holds a business meeting at the Annual Conference. This year, we focused on identifying new SIG activities. These potential SIG activities are summarized below.

This year, we introduced special "members only" offers. Our goal is to help offset and justify the $5 SIG membership charge. Members currently receive an announcement that a new Hyperviews:Online has been posted, and those who attend the Annual Conference receive a member gift. This year, we handed out SIG buttons. I hope to also provide SIG T-shirts next year (at cost) to interested members.

The special offers page is our first attempt to provide a monetary benefit to joining the SIG. In the future, we hope to continue providing special offers for training, conferences, books, and other items and services.

The membership database team was disbanded due to work commitments. I am currently recruiting a new team. The original team did a great job of identifying our limitations, opportunities, available technologies, and potential designs. The new team will be able to use this planning information to implement the database. The membership database will be another "members only" benefit.

Many members have requested an "ask the expert" column or a mentoring program. I am currently looking for volunteers to assist with this effort.

I have been looking into hosting a SIG chat room or discussion list, where members can discuss issues, share tips and tricks, and network. I have considered using the chat room for interviews with various leaders in our field. I hope to begin testing a discussion list or chat room in 2Q00.

Fall 1999
Volume 2, # 4