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Reflexive Internet? The British experience 133locations. Globalization is about the death of distance, and new technologiesare claimed to be “space defying, boundary crossing and ubiquitously linking.”Against this, our research found that the realization of the ideal of a“virtual organization” was actually set aside in favor of more trusted businesssolutions to the organizational problems of coordination. Workers’ efforts aredirected primarily at “making the new technology at home” within existingwork practices. In so doing, it is local relevance that is crucial rather thanglobal dimensions (Hughes et al., 2002). Relatedly, our research showed thatthe use of ICTs can reiterate spatial divisions and distinctiveness, rather thanhelping to ameliorate them (Agar et al., 2002). To a large extent this rule is aconsequence of the preceding four rules.REFLECTIONS ON THE VIRTUAL SOCIETY? PROGRAMIt was clear from the outset that the program should be built around strongnetworking both internally and externally, within academia and beyond,involving both researchers and “users.” The program aimed to take full advantageof the new technologies so as to provide accessible and rapid electroniccommunication between and beyond the academic research communities. Atits inception, intensive use of web technologies was a rarity. In 1997, I wastold that the program should be seen as something of a flagship for the ESRC’suse of new technologies.The challenge of networking with non-academics, and using electronictechnologies to do so, has three main consequences. First, it means that themajority of the repository of information about the program is available on theprogram website (www.virtualsociety.org.uk). The website provides a muchfuller account of the activities and achievements of the Virtual Society?program than can the flat, textual structure of this chapter. Second, it meansthat the distinction between “internal networking arrangements” and “externalcommunication with users,” a key distinction in research council bureaucracyof the 1980s and 1990s, becomes blurred. Indeed, one clear lesson from theVirtual Society? program is the importance of rethinking some of the key categoriesand distinctions currently enshrined in processes of research organizationand management. Third, this in turn provides a more general reminder thatprevailing assumptions about the relations between “researchers” and “users”require re-evaluation.By exploring some of the potential of enhanced networking and linkage,the Virtual Society? program was able to contribute to current debates aboutthe prospects for a more “interactive” social science (Gibbons et al., 1994;Caswill and Shove, 2000; Gibbons, 2000; Woolgar, 2000). The work of directingthis huge research effort was no longer just about intellectual leadership, it