Why Networking?

When I was new to the Internet, in 1994 and 1995, Webmasters were incredibly generous in creating free links to other sites.

Buiding the Web, link by link, was "networking" although we didn't call it that.

As New Zealand Dances developed, there was a lot of correspondence between the web site and the users. This was also "networking" but we didn't call it that.

When I was first offered the opportunity to JOIN, an online social network called Ryze, I foolishly turned the offer down. "What a waste of my precious time," I told myself.

There are now hundreds of social networks. In my view Facebook is a good place to for family based networking.

Serious efforts and productive work and learning occur in other places. Often the most productive for the least effort are simple online email lists.

The largest business network on the Internet is LinkedIn, with over 90 million members.

Skype and Twitter both have their place, and everyone should feel confident enough to use such tools.

Where do you develop that confidence? You can jump right in of course. But is you want to go softly, joining a Street Group first makes a lot of sense.