Adding value to networks and services - automatically

A quick thought on the differences between a service and a network and getting real value from joining up online and offline services.

Service

We get people registering their interest in our Experts Online service, and it is now possible to even register online. Once registered, the end user can ask questions, search and browse answers. But although the knowledge is shared between all the users of the service, there is no real interaction between users (peer to peer) although is it perfectly possible for any users to comment on existing questions. In fact questions are deliberately anonymised where necessary, to prevent sensitive information being made public. However this does put a barrier to networking.

Network

How about if ruralnet|online helped you network offline as well - when if you registered, we could look up your postcode and/or themes/preferences that you are interested in and show you a list of local service providers. eg if you were in Cumbria and you registered with ruralnet|online - a panel/sidebar appeared with 'Other local organisations', maybe including 'Help with your ICT strategy' and your local net:gain centre, and other organisations that had registered on the site.

People like UK Villages and National Rural have fiendishly clever ways of working with geographical areas and help locate other people (and the latter has even cleverer ways of syndicating event information by RSS).

This might provide the networking link that is missing from Experts Online, which is not really a problem for EOL as it is (back to my original point) designed to be service not a networking tool.

Any thoughts welcome - I realise this has elements of the dreaded social network about it, but although we have had profile (resume) pages for each individual/organisation in the past - you had to know who to look for before you read the profile. Not easy when you don't necessarily know anything about the name or services of the organisation who might be local or share an interest with you, which is what this system might provide.

(NB I'm trying this out on here rather than filing it away in my email, forgetting about it, remembering it in a meeting later this afternoon, emailing it round when I get back off on holiday on Friday etc.)