B2Bridge

"During the 2006 Milan IMP Group Conference on Industrial Marketing and Purchasing, I was feeling like an 'alien', being the only non-academic participant amongst three hundred researchers and professors. When I asked other participants about the absence of business people, they told me the conference was not intended to be of particular interest to them. Others mentioned that business people do not have time to attend a three-day conference. I have to admit that the contents of the presentations were not prepared for a business audience, but the presented research results were of great validity to the industrial world I know -- so the conference was definitely interesting enough to spend some days. PhD students and professors also explained me that they too were looking for business contacts to validate their research with daily business. That triggered the idea of building a community that could bridge both worlds. In my hotel room in Milan, I sketched the first draft for this community, and the name b2bridge almost automatically got into my mind. I could not wait to get back home and check wether the url was still free. That happened to be the case -- until I registered it."

"A couple of weeks later, I had a meeting with Hans De Keulenaer, the European Marketing Manager at the European Copper Institute. He wanted to start a blog on blogs for business marketing, and invited me to take part of that initiative. During our meeting I presented the b2bridge community, and convinced him to join in with his blog on b2blogs. He even proposed to develop the technical framework for this community. From that moment on, things got accelerated. I schetched the web site, and decided on the structure of the organization. In the meantime, Hans developed the technical framwork for the website. By the 1st of December, the site was up and running."

Jan Lagast (Forte)

b2bridge Community Manager