Thursday 25th November, 6.30 p.m.
IBM South Bank, 76 Upper Ground, SE1 9PZ

Event review by Jim Kennedy:

After a late start to allow as many people as possible to take their seats before the meeting began, Ian Thomas, the e-business marketing manager for Lotus UK talked to the audience about various Lotus products, giving strategies, case studies and tips about how to make the most of the products they were using and considering. The turn-out was disappointing, but worked to the advantage of those who attended, resulting in an interactive meeting that was almost evenly split between presentations and question and answer sessions. Ian provided plenty of hand-outs including a pocket-sized "Quick Guide to Email Better Practice"

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Wednesday 27th October, 6.30 p.m.
CSSA, 20 Red Lion Street, WC1R 4QN

This event was in association with the CSSA and 'Computing' magazine.

Event review by Dalim Basu:

It featured 4 companies with 'success stories' from the recent 'Computing Awards of Excellence 1999' - including 3 of the award winners.

So who better to start the presentations than Douglas Hayward, Editor of 'Computing' and 'host' of the Awards ceremony?

The 4 presentations which followed featured:

• Compuware with the award winning 'Uniface' and 'EcoTools' products - presenter Mike Lucas;
• Goldmine with the award-winning project for 'HEAT implementation at MAFF' - presenter Tony Probert;
• Lernout & Hauspie with the award-winning 'Voice Xpress' product - presenter Julie Strawson;
• Nortel with leading-edge wireless network (LAN) products - presenter Paul Sherry.

The cosy ambience of the venue (plus the free drinks and food - all provided by the CSSA) encouraged most of the 15 participants at the event to stay and chat for more than an hour after the official end of the event.

In fact, it was noticeable that even most of the presenters established contact with each other, said they'd found the event interesting and enjoyable, and expressed willingness to come to present at future BCS NLB events in 2000.

So - despite the low numbers, an interesting and successful evening enjoyed by those who braved the dark wintry night to attend!

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Wednesday 15th September, 6.15 p.m.
IBM South Bank, 76 Upper Ground, SE1 9PZ

Event review by Dalim Basu:

" Rain stopped play" doesn't only apply to cricket, but also to our events! We've seen in the past that the challenge of venturing out on a rainy evening halves our event attendance - and so it seemed on Wednesday 15th September. The answer to "E - what is it?" looked like "Eee - it's wet, wet, wet, lad!"

But the weather did not deter some 75 people coming to the super venue at IBM South Bank for our first e-business event 'E - what is it? A strategic overview'. Three fine presenters contributed to this very successful event - Gerry Devlin (E-Business Senior Associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers [PwC]), Dr Rodger Hake (Technical Director, BCS), and Ian Lynes (E-Business Solutions Consultant, IBM).

As usual with our events, lots of people (25 to 30) stayed to chat and 'network' with others after the event. Also as usual, this event seemed to appeal to our target audience of IT professionals, but to attract only a limited number of BCS members - less than one-third of the audience were BCS members, And that's despite the primary publicity for the event having carried in the BCS pages of 'Computing' and 'Computer Weekly'! We also appeal to professional IT organisations (for example this event was in association with IBM, Computer Weekly 500 Club and PwC), and we benefit from some very good support (for example the super facilities at IBM South Bank were provided free by IBM). In return we encourage presenters to bring company information and product publicity - and virtually everyone in this event's audience took copies of the IBM and PwC e-business brochures on offer.

We also gave BCS NLB event handouts, and got a lot of feedback from the audience - 24 people filled in the Feedback Form included in our handouts. The attached Feedback Responses document summarises these responses. This shows that 7 of the 24 people saw the event advertised in 'Computing' (including the quarter-page advert), 3 in Computer Weekly, but none via the BCS NLB website. 6 people indicated interest in joining the BCS. There were 7 suggestions for future BCS NLB events. There were 15 requests for more 'e' information from the presenter organisations.

And what is the answer to the question 'E - what is it?'?? Ian Lynes of IBM gave the most concise definition - "E-business is about transforming key business processes using Internet technologies." That's clear enough, but the Feedback Forms show that the e-business issue perceived as the greatest challenge for the respondents' organisations is "We don't know how to build e-business into my strategy". Now there's a challenge!

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Wednesday 11th August, 6.30 p.m.
Channel4, Near Victoria.SW1

Event review by Dalim Basu:

The request for tickets for this popular event soon outnumbered the limited number of places available. The 'full house' of 14 people were welcomed to a drinks reception by Tony Eden (IT Manager of Channel 4 TV) They were introduced to the IT-based technology 'behind the scenes' at Channel 4 by presentations, taken round on an illustrative tour by Tony and a colleague, and finally had any remaining questions answered in a discussion forum.

"Great!" was one visitor's comment. "I thought it would be interesting - it turned out to be fascinating!"

Tony Eden enjoyed it too, and said he'd be happy to do it all again. So will we have another 'Channel 4 TV advert' next year? Watch this space!

This Event was Fully Booked.

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Wednesday 21st July, 6.30 p.m.
Withers (Solicitors) Offices, 12 Gough Square, EC4A 3DE

Looked at the legal side of Y2K.

Event review by Dalim Basu:

This was a very enjoyable event according to all reports I've heard from presenters and attendees. There were 15 people there, including about 10 IT people - just right for the 30 seats and corresponding fine wine, soft drinks and food. The event was well-presented by solicitors Adam Taylor and Lyn Barkow of Withers, and raised a number of interesting issues for discussion. The actual event finished at 8.30, but ten people (including John, Patrick and I) stayed chatting in the friendly surroundings until 'closing time' at 9.40 p.m.! Withers say they would like to discuss future event possibilities with us for next year. Two people at the event - presenter Lyn Barkow and attendee Alastair Duggin volunteered to join the committee. Very successful!

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