@David & Daniel – I’d agree that you can’t beat face to face. I’d also point out though that to base a strategy that relies on that you exclude people who may live overseas, who may live in the UK but remotely, who are time poor etc. etc. I think there needs to be clear consideration to both an online and offline strategy for networking. Not to say that they can’t complement each other (indeed should), but to me it misses the point to say oh the great thing about online networking is you can use it to organise meetings in real life. Yes you can, but I think we can be a bit more creative than that.

Its maybe also worth considering where face to face is weak too – time constraints, ego’s, costs of travel & refreshments & so on – so maybe theres some merit for looking at those areas where online meetings can have benefits over offline – this could play nicely with the toolkit in terms of helping decide when online can be more appropriate than offline?

So progress will continue but we have also to be patient. After all, we are trying to address issues the RSA has tended to ignore for decades.