The virtual cafe

The practical advantages of being able to rapidly change and replace contacts in the information space of the Internet has been adequately covered in the first two books in this trilogy. In "The Entrepreneurial Web", this was seen in terms of an abstract concept known as Hilbert's space. In "The Ultimate Game of Strategy" a conceptual tool was described – the virtual cafe (also described in chapter one of this book) – that can be employed to use information space more efficiently.

The virtual cafe is a method by which people can optimise a strategy of creating and maintaining a constantly varying contact base. The population of an individual's cafe of contacts is constantly reviewed and reconfigured at frequent intervals in order for the total information available to an individual to continuously evolve and according to their current aims and interests.

Using the metaphor of a cafe, it is possible to supercharge the relationship of an individual with their contacts by arranging for the contacts to virtually socialise with each other and so cross fertilise ideas. This involves bringing specific groups of contacts together in mini e-mail discussion forums of short duration. The metaphor being that these are the equivalent of short discussions at a table in a cafe where selected contacts are invited (or paid) to take part.

It is easy to see how an individual working with an evolving virtual cafe of contacts and at the same time belonging to a number of e-mail forums can access to a wide variety of information and ideas on demand. It is this ability of an individual to use information space intelligently that can transform the individual into a super individual.

The trick now is to employ this same intelligent use of information space to create a superior Web presence.