There’s quite a bit involved in designing and running good research communities, so we decided to create this podcast where we speak with a couple of folks who have been actively developing communities for a number of years.

First up there’s Tom Ewing, yes theTom Ewing who created quite a stir at this year’s Research ‘08 conference. Back in 2000, Tom created the ILX (I love music) message board as a personal endeavour and it grew viraly. At the time of recording Tom was in a marketing role at Research International. But soon after, parent Kantar had the sense to make him a social media adviser.

Next there’s Matt Rhodes of FreshNetworks, the online community-building part of the award-winning FreshMinds. Matt’s an active blogger and recently revealed that FreshNetworks had won a £5m ($7.5m) interest-free loan as part of an entrepreneur competition – quite a nice prize in the (economic) circumstances.

Hoping, as always, you find this useful.

 STARRING 

• Matt Rhodes, Head of Client Services, FreshNetworks
• Tom Ewing, Social Media expert, Kantar Operations

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