A member logs onto your website and is immediately immersed with in an intuitive graphical environment that reflects your organization's structure and mission. She sees a community center and a library across a pleasant shaded courtyard. Walking through the courtyard, she encounters someone she met at a recent convention. After sharing some news, she enters the library where she is greeted by a virtual librarian, manned by a live person who can provide information and help specific to her needs. In the community center, she consults the calendar to see today's scheduled events and decides to attend a guest speaker's seminar just starting in the auditorium. After the seminar, she heads to a conference room she had previously reserved to host a weekly work-shop. She shows slides prepared in advance and takes the attendees on a tour of other websites. At the end of the meeting, all participants automatically receive a full transcript via email, and the meeting organizer posts her presentation and notes on the bulletin board system (BBS)for those who couldn't attend. Lively discussion continues through the BBS, as a growing number of members join her weekly workshop.
As more and more people go on-line, the World Wide Web is emerging as a place not just to get information, but also to communicate and interact. A vibrant virtual community can supply an ongoing experience that strengthens the relationship between an organization and its members. The Numedeon Interactive Community Engine (NICE) software is uniquely designed to support multifunctional interactive communities on the Internet. NICE supports a graphical virtual environment that makes navigation and interaction intuitive.
Tools for communication and interaction include:
- customizable avatars
- bubble chat
- transcription tool
- bulletin board system
- calendar system
- event scheduling tools
- moderator tools
- conferencing tools
- document sharing tools
- collaborative editing tools
- shared desktop
- language filters
- community safety tools
All a user needs is a standard web browser on a computer connected to the Internet with no more than a 56K modem. NICE requires no software downloads or installation.
An example of this system implemented for children ages 8-14 can be seen at Whyville.net. Whyville is a favorite after-school destination for children around the world, with close to 1 million members and 50 million page views per month.
Numedeon has also implemented a virtual campus for the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio through which scientists and medical professionals collaborate locally and at a distance. Virtual tours are available on request. Similar systems can be developed for any group, with custom designed graphics and tools.