If anyone had any doubts as to the relevance of the Internet to the baking industry, I hope that the previous paper has dispelled them. While we may be at an early stage in the development of the Internet and in its use by ordinary businesses, we only have to cast our mind back a few years to a world before the routine use of PCs and word processors, fax machines and mobile phones. These are now integral parts of any business and we can confidently predict that the same will apply for E-mail and Internet in the not too distant future.
One of the main features of the Internet is the ability to transfer information between individuals and for those individuals to access a central source of information. If we consider this in the context of the British Society of Baking, particularly as expressed in the Creed, you will see that the Internet provides a very powerful tool for Society members to obtain and exchange information.
The American Society of Bakery Engineers to whom we are affiliated were quick to realise the opportunities provided by the Internet. As was mentioned at last year's conference when Thom Kuk visited, have been developing the Bakery Industry Information Network (BIIN) which provides both public information and information restricted to their membership. Our secretary, Stanley Watson, visited ASBE in 1995 and following that visit I attended the ASBE annual conference in March this year at which a presentation, very similar to the one given today, was made to the delegates showing the concept of setting up an ASBE Internet service.
The progress made to date was presented and I would like briefly to tell you the work they have done and to indicate what we as the British Society now plan to do.
There are sections of the BIIN which are closed to members only and we have agreement with the ASBE that BSB members will have access to these sections. This will be done by using your BSB membership number and surname as passwords, and the arrangements for this will be in place shortly.
On entering the ASBE Web site you first encounter a 'home page' which shows the various facilities available. These are grouped into the Public Forum and the Password Access section, restricted to members of ASBE and BSB only.
Under the public section you find the Virtual Showcase where suppliers list the services they offer, details of affiliated organisations, details of industry and trade publications, background information on the ASBE and a preview of membership services available to members of ASBE.
Under the password controlled membership services, there are access instructions, a library of past papers and a Career Centre which contains details of training courses and where it is intended that details of job vacancies and people looking for work will be held. There is an Industry Related Data Base, a Consultants Corner with details of consultants who can offer services to ASBE members on a fee paying basis, and Network Services where details of individual members are held, the purpose being to facilitate networking between members.
At the bottom of the home page are contact details including an E-mail address for the ASBE.
It is our intention that as a sub-directory of ASBE, we will create a BSB home page which will have a similar list of facilities although not necessarily them all as they may not be directly relevant.
The following are some of the sections which can be made available to you:
Virtual Showcase
The information is categorised either under ingredients, equipment, related equipment and services, and bakery products.
If you looked at ingredients, for instance, in more detail you would see that there is an index of products similar to the printed buyers' guides which many of you receive. By clicking on particular products then you will find details of the companies who have advertised.
Affiliated Organisations
There is an alphabetical list which contains, among others, American Society of Cereal Chemists, American Bakers Association, American Institute of Baking, Australian Society of Baking and Baking Equipment Manufacturers Association. Not all of these organisations have as yet set up a home page, but for example the American Association of Cereal Chemists has - and by clicking on that section, if you were on line, you could go directly into its home page and obtain any information that it had put on the Internet.
What we would hope is that in the future, under the BSB home site, affiliated organisations relevant to the UK market, for example, the NAMB, SAMB, CCFRA, Federation of Bakers, BATA, indeed any of the relevant industry organisations, would include information on their services which would be accessible to all members of the trade. At the very least they would give an indication of the services they offer and how people can find out more details about those services.
Career Centre
Here you would find for example educational institutions, and again this is something which we could build into with the BSB facility.
About ASBE
In this section the Americans have given background information which anyone browsing through the Internet could access. In case they were interested in obtaining more information on the Society, contact details are given, including a membership application form. Again this is something we could create for the BSB.
Library of Past Papers
Moving to the closed section you can view the information which will be available to BSB members only.
ASBE has already loaded papers from the last 10 years of the annual conferenc
It is our intention to make available our own past papers starting with 1995 and adding prior years as resources permit. In the future it is also the hope that the Australian Society of Baking, a fellow affiliate to the ASBE, will also come on line making available to us its papers.
The papers are listed by both year of presentation and by main subject index. This information is perhaps more readily accessible through the main subject index, which follows similar format to the index to past papers you will find at the back of BSB Proceedings. Here products are grouped by their key word and you access the records simply by clicking on the initial letter of that key word.
Consultants Corner
Here you find access to further areas of expertise. It is intended that this section Will grow to include not merely consultants who will charge for their expertise, but also an interactive way to reach special interest forums, have question and answer sessions, and have access to what the Americans have called a Membership Resource Data Base, or put more simply details of areas of expertise among members where the member has expressed a willingness to share the expertise with fellow members.
You may recall that several years ago we issued a questionnaire and created a similar PC based database. However, this was never used by members, perhaps because it was not capable of personal access but rather had to be accessed through the secretariat.
It will perhaps some as no surprise to learn that the fee earning consultants are the first people who have made information available to the Consultants Corner. They are listed by name and alphabetical number giving information on their areas of expertise. Behind this index each consultant gives more detailed information.
Network Services
The third aspect of the membership services which is probably of direct benefit to our members is the list of fellow members and how to make contact with them.
This is accessed through the Network Services section where again you have a number of options, one of which is the member-to-member forum.
ASBE has 2700 members, BSB a little over 300. Here we will hold contact details with the assumption that members have no objection to fellow members making contact with them to develop the personal network which is one of the prime reasons for being a member.
The important thing to note is that you have full contact details including an Email address which will enable you to send messages directly through the Internet.
ASBE's network services include a section on travel planning which they are building up to include information on airlines, airports, car rental, hotels and weather.
We are not proposing going this far. Nor would we plan, certainly in the first phase of creating the BSB system to include the industry database, which has potential to grow like Topsy!
I hope this has given you an insight into how powerful a tool the Internet is. By setting up the BSB Internet facility in conjunction with ASBE where access to technical papers will be limited to members only we will once and for all answer the question: 'Why should I join the British Society of Baking?'
The Society is committed to getting the service up and running as soon as possible, using funds from our reserves. However the future costs of the service will have to be met through fees obtained from companies who advertise on the Virtual Showcase. ASBE already has 150 companies signed up.
To advertise in the Virtual Showcase a company will need a home page, and if they are not able to produce one themselves we will be able to recommend to them companies or individuals who are able to create one on a paid basis. We have yet to finalise the cost of including a company home page in the BSB Virtual Showcase, but we anticipate it being in the region of £200 a year - a very modest sum compared with other means of advertising.
It is true that companies could put their own home page on the Internet without paying the BSB and indeed some in the UK already have done so. However, potential readers of those home pages have first of all got to find them and if you consider the subject of flour, today if you were to do a search on all entries falling under the heading of 'flour' you would receive a list of 1200 entries from all over the world.
How much easier for a potential flour user to go into the BSB Virtual Showcase and under the heading of 'flour' find only those UK suppliers who are of interest. It is worth noting that if a supplier already has an entry on the Internet they do not have to create a separate one for the BSB an automatic link would be created between their entry in the Virtual Showcase and their own home page.
There is no question that there are real business advantages to being on the Internet as the previous paper showed, and we are confident that we will be able to obtain enough interest in the Virtual Showcase to maintain this very exciting service to members.
If there is anyone in the audience who controls a marketing budget and would like to invest a very small part of it in the Internet, please write that on your conference appraisal form or speak to me directly.
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Last Updated: Saturday, January 25, 1997
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