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In 2005, I contributed a paper to the International Conference on Computers in Education whichtook place in Singapore (Blamires and Hughes, 2005). In that paper, I reported on the joining upof four very different components of a new network, formed from representatives of pre-existingand otherwise independent networks. The academic community was represented by myself andMike Blamires; Phil Sheffield (British Education Index) and Stephen Pickles (London Instituteof Education) represented a community of librarians; Paul Charman and Matt Smith representedthe commercial sector in educational technology and Marilyn Leask, Matt Foulds and PaulJenkins represented the civil/public service educational technology policy community. Althoughwhat joined us together was the challenge of building an online community of initial teachereducationists, supported by peer-reviewed resources and materials, each group represented verydifferent networks with varying organisational ‘cultures and climates’ (e.g. Adair, 2009) 67 .Reflecting on this experience, it can be seen that we exploited the strengths of each of theseinter-connecting networks. It was in the combination of the respective DNA of each pre-existing‘rhizome’ that the efficacy of the TTRB was forged. Phil’s contribution of semantic ontologycomplemented Paul’s contribution of assured commercial behaviour, which was embraced bycolleagues in the TDA, who drew from Mike and I intelligence about the academic communityand those most likely to contribute to this emerging way of generating knowledge for the sector.It is a fact of history that the third iteration of RE-Net was a direct consequence of myparticipation in this network. In order to model how other SRNs could benefit fromparticipation in the TTRB, we created a sub-portal for RE-Net and then uploaded all the existingcontent and materials into the new platform. RE-Net was thus effectively a new rhizome withinthe over-arching parent ‘plant’. Contractually, I established RE-Net as a separate presence67 There are a number of sources for Adair's work, the most recent being a revised version of Effective Leadershippublished by Pan in 2009247Simon Hughes Ph.D. Thesis (October 2012)