The year-old Meetings Community listserv has launched a new monthly educational seminar, Chat Lessons 1.0, that will be facilitated by industry leaders in the MeCo chat room (www.meetingscommunity.com).

The first session, on Meeting Environments and Content Delivery, was held January 24 and was hosted by independent planner Sandy Biback. Future sessions will be led by meeting-technology consultant Corbin Ball, Association Meetings magazine editor Sue Pelletier, and others.

MeCo launched in January 2006 as an online conversation for meeting professionals and now has more than 1,100 members. “The Meetings Community has grown beyond what I envisioned. It has become a central gathering place for people all over the world,” says Jim Louis, MeCo co-founder and chief information officer at Best Meetings Inc., Bloomington, Minn. “MeCo was designed just to allow members to communicate through e-mails. At the suggestion of our users, we have added a membership directory, a chat room, and an interactive job board.”