There is a certain amount of concentrated up-front learning and development, and then the network expands gradually over time from there. Most designers devote between two and eight weeks after completing workshops to increase their design skills and expand their initial network structure. This period of time does require dedicated effort, no doubt about it. The process is similar to building a Web site. The initial effort pays off big over time.

Once the initial core development is complete, expansion becomes quite efficient because there is no need to rebuild components that already are included in the network. For instance, perhaps you have an important talk coming up in a couple of weeks. Rather than building a 50-slide slide show for that performance alone, you see that 45 of the needed slides already exist as a permanent (reusable) part of your network. So it’s merely a matter of building the five new slides required and adding them to appropriate sections.