Sat, Aug 1, 2009 Peter Matthews Japan

Since 2001 I have been operating an international NPO social networking site for academic researchers, editors, translators, publishers and others involved in the knowledge creation and science publishing industries. See http://cooperative.ning.com I think growth in this very singular site reflects two main components (1) the overall expansion of the internet (usage of all sites rises with the rising tide), and (2) my own efforts at person to person promotion (no matter how hard I paddle, my board seems to move very slowly). A third component is missing. What I really want is to be surfing at the edge of a long wave: I need the people in my network to become part of the movement. A statistic like "20% growth in one year" is interesting, but we really need to know what are the components of this growth, and how do successful networking sites build momentum and place themselves at the edge of a wave? Dr Peter Matthews (The Research Cooperative)