The Global Office Network is just that – an association of companies that rent office accommodation and services to small companies or stand alone executives who do not want the hassle or overheads of running an office and employing staff, or companies which are setting up international offices and need temporary accommodation.

The rapid growth of GON provided some initial problems. At the simplest level it meant the phone calls between members had to be made at socially difficult times. Distribution of agendas, minutes and other paperwork was an expensive business, both in terms of the amount of paper it consumed and having a member of staff standing at a fax machine for hours on end feeding the machine with paper.

At a more complex level, decision-taking was slowed down by the fact that presence meetings were often dominated by small, often trivial, details and many of the major topics for discussion never got their relevant allocation of time.

In 1995, Richard Nissen, co-chairman of GON, approached Kevin Tea who was a web marketing consultant who was also a manager on a forum on CompuServe which dealt with teleworking. It was agreed that GON should be allocated a private area within the forum with the messaging section acting as a virtual or electronic boardroom, and the library area as an access point for storing minutes, agendas, etc.

One of the immediate benefits was that the free software donated by CompuServe gave members an email address and this straightaway enhanced communications between members. Members in Asia could pick up messages from members in Europe when they logged in at the start of their day and their replies were then received when the Europeans came into their office the following day.

Despite the initial success of the CompuServe experiment, it became clear that it was not the panacea at first envisaged as many members in Europe and Asia did not have local dial-in nodes and connecting to CompuServe was an expensive option. After 18 months it was decided to leave CompuServe and establish a web site of their own.

The initial site was a simple "suck it and see" experiment, with very little in the way of interactive information. A couple of basic, introductory pages, lead to a list of members my country and a simple contact page completed the site. Despite its rather Zen minimalist approach, the site generated a lot of interest among members and potential clients and it was decided to invest further to enhance the site.

First it was moved away from a slow and limited Unix–based server solution to a new host running Windows NT with FrontPage extensions. Members, as well as having a general listing, were given the opportunity to have links to their own web sites or have sub-pages built into the main site which provided the facility to provide more information about themselves and their companies.

Possibly the most important new addition was that of a WebForum facility. This provides threaded messaging in a predetermined number of conference areas where visitors can ask questions of GON members, discover more about the services and facilities they have on offer and even pre-plan their arrival in a city and book an office over the web. For those with Java enabled browsers, there is the opportunity to hold real-time conferencing via a special "chat" option.

The benefits of Internet messaging are being reaped. There is substantially more open discussion via the webforum and email. Members have lost a feeling of isolation and the messaging infrastructure is proving a strong plus point in attracting new members. Cross-referral of clients is becoming commonplace and new business is being picked up via the webforum.

GON has recently strengthened links with the American market by entering a co-operative agreement with the Alliance Network in the USA and preliminary talks between the two organisations on sharing data via respective web sites are underway.