I've just answered a post by Matt Chester of Energy Central on the role of networking within EC. There are a lot of reasons to network: You want folks to buy something, you want to learn something from others, you want to share knowledge with others or maybe you want to start a conversation (kind of like what Matt has done here, right.) For me it is to connect with thought leaders and to create conversations or discussions about current or future issues.
Energy Central is a great place for us to do that. After posting on EC, I've gotten both good and somewhat bad feedback. Good because they expanded my thinking and connected me to an expert who had a different but informed view of my post. Bad in that the respondent really must not have read the post. It happens. But even there, we connected and discussed. I learned. I hope someone else learned and I think our EC community grew as a result.
One final though; networking is all about community, and we need more of that in times like this.