You will see as you explore the KTN that a lot of the content, particularly around the workshops and other events, is organised within "Groups". I thought it would be useful to explain the reasons for that, what the implications are and how you can get the best out of the groups.

The main reason for using groups is to start to build a community of people with interest in the different themes. The features on the groups pages allow discussions, comments and sharing of documents. We would like to see activity continuing between our workshops so that, more and more, there is a developing theme. This is going to be increasingly important as our workshops will be increasingly aligned with the Technology Strategy Board ITSS Innovation Platform strategy and the series will lead into upcoming interventions.

So, how to find them? We try to signpost with announcements when there is new content within the groups and link to them from the relevant information pages, but the best way to find them is to login and follow the "groups" link in the actions menu at the top of the page.

This page, "My Groups" lists the groups you are a member of so it is a convenient way of finding your way back to content you have an interest in. To find groups to join follow the "Browse Groups" link. You can also set when you receive notifications about group activity from the "Group Settings" page.

But why should you join groups? Well, as I say, most of them relate to workshops so joining one of those groups helps the KTN team to understand what you are interested in. So if you join a couple of groups, we'll make sure you receive information on the next events on those themes, and importantly, we won't send you information on things you don't want to know about! Another reason is for you to be able to find this information easily in the future from the "My Groups" page. And then you will also be able to participate in discussions and comment on the workshops or the documents and presentations.

Importantly, you can also create you own groups and we would like to encourage you to use this facility. For example, you might want to connect with other members of your company who work on ITS, or perhaps there is a project team that needs to share documents and communicate virtually. If you are developing a project proposal for the Informed Personal Travel competition for funding, why not create a group to manage that process, invite proposed consortium members and share thoughts and discussions? You can make the groups private so that only members can see the content, or open them up to a wider audience for discussion on subjects that interest you. I will write more on managing groups in another blog.

So do look round at the different groups available, and join the ones that interest you. We would encourage you to participate in discussions, and to comment on the workshops. And perhaps you want to set up your own group too.