Mark Hughes, responded to Tunde's message and no doubt George
Michaelson's original one back on the 7th of this month (I flagged it
and kept meaning to respond myself!) by "exposing" the fact that their
are a few of us already involved who represent organisations, clusters
and groups of  'real users' and I presume that it is appropriate to
re-declare that I fit this catagory too.

To quote from an message posted by me onto the old ADNA list in June
last year, then modify it....
" By way of introduction I started my interest in Internet as a user
served by .edu's; I utalise, extensively, services from ".edu, .gov and
.com";  I have a ".com" site but NOT a ".com.au" site, and I'm an exec
of a ".org.au"  which is a NGO/NFP entity to facilitate equity and
opportunity in Trade Efficiency over the net, so I declare a strong
interest in and interactivity with ".com.au."  These comments however
are from a 'membership in general' stance and only personal opinion"...
and then as I'm want to do I went on....

Since then my company [a Women Owned Small Business operating since
1982] now has another ".com" and two ".com.au" sites.  And my ExCo/
Directorship involvement has encouraged three more ".org.au" and another
".com" domain to be registered. So I suppose I both am a 'real user' and
can certainly poll others for information and input as required....

FYI the Trade Efficiency Association is the NSW one running under the
UNTPDC's Global Trade Point Network (GTPNet) programme so we are
focussed on micro companies and SME's and is strictly controlled in its
acceptable business models under the UN's various guidelines and
initiatives... so issues of cost minimisation / neutrality rather than
profits are important here.

By the way I was at the Cafe at 1330 on  Thursday, at Internet World
98.... sorry I did not actually meet with any one else from this list,
but I did chat to some people who recently pitched for a multimedia
consult EOI we recently put out before I had to dash off for a
presentation to a Board I sit on... Perhaps we should try again next
time there is something happening and not just in any given state
{geographical not mental}... With enough warning I'm sure we can
organise our diary entries to match up occasionally... I'm often 'post
meeting or conference' in Vic, Qld, ACT etc.. with some time to kill
before I fly out again, and perhaps others are as well ?