As a researcher, and as an early adopter, I find a major part of how I am able to stay on top of developing issues, or find unique solutions to problems others can not solve, is to be connected to a wide range of people, each with their own diverse background. Through mediums such as Twitter (shown in the app below) or Friendfeed, I am able to simultaneously filter information from the outside world and find specific data that only a few experts would be able to identify.

For these reasons I think that, like in the communities of previous generations, regular interaction is important to develop the required relationships. One big disadvantage however of being connected to such a large community is finding the right kind of people to get engaged with. As someone who values good content at a premium, I think it is also important to reward those people for the value that they add to your network. On this page I have started a list of people that to me, add consistent value to my feed. At this stage trying to filter down exactly why each person makes up an important part of my network of contacts is a task I will leave for another day, but in a world where many people are simply trying to increase the quantity of their followers, I will continue to focus on the quality instead.