Developing your networks can help you to both find and share information. We are all part of various networks of people with whom we regularly interact, share common interests and exchange ideas and information. These exchanges take place and develop naturally all the time through your education, experiences and attendance at events and meetings.
Being proactive about building and managing these networks will benefit your learning and development and make it easier for you to find the information you need or to act on innovative ideas.
Explore the sections below for advice on how you can be more proactive in building these personal learning networks, whether face to face or by using technology.
Using social media to proactively build your personal learning networks has many advantages. You can start out by keeping up to date with topics that interest you, but as your confidence grows you can approach others to share information.
This short video, produced by NHS Education for Scotland and IRISS, illustrates the benefits. This was created in 2014, so some screenshots are out of date, but the ideas are still relevant and advice is sound.
Organising an event? Try using Twitter to expand your audience online and make it easy for people who couldn't attend to keep up.
We've created a short, 4 minute video to explain the benefits of using this digital tool for events and give you a few tips on how to get started.
A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people with a common purpose who agree to work together to share information, build knowledge, develop expertise and solve problems. Acting as learning partners, community members have the principal purpose of sharing knowledge.
CoPs are cultivated and nurtured rather than formally managed. In this sense they differ from formal teams. See the Developing communities of practice section.
Social networking tools and techniques can be face-to-face, online or a combination of both. The Internet enables new ways of creating connections and supporting communication between people who may or may not meet in person. Many online tools enable people to form groups to share experiences and support one another. Among the best-known examples are Facebook and LinkedIn.
Find out more about tools and techniques to share ideas - on our Sharing Knowledge page, scroll down to the Knowledge Management Toolbox and find the section Person to Person Knowledge Transfer.