Most of the members are academics and other researchers, followed by consultants, a few product people and graduate students. The majority of members are trained as computer scientists or psychologists but there are also anthropologists, technical communicators, town planners, communication specialists, trainers, cognitive scientists, linguists, physiotherapists and architects. Communication Most communication inside and outside Australia is by email, most people having access to the Internet at least for mail. This method of communication is seen as an essential part of staying in touch. And in fact because the number of people is relatively small, news tends to spread fast.
Many collaborations take place entirely in email.
People in Australia are very proactive about reading publications, attending conferences and generally keeping up to date with work going on elsewhere. Most of the individual local groups do not run their own monthly meetings, and surprisingly, most people don't travel much within Australia so the annual conference becomes the focal point for direct contact. A good example of this emphasis on cooperative education was the Show and Tell program for our December '94 meeting. The only requirements were that the presentations be fun to watch, and that they should have something to do with computer-human interaction. We're looking forward to another great year of information sharing and increased membership in 1995.