A Personal Network is a set of human contacts known to an individual, with whom that individual would expect to interact at intervals to support a given set of activities.

Personal networks are intended to be mutually beneficial--extending the concept of teamwork beyond the immediate peer group

Peer group

A peer group is a social group consisting of humans. Peer groups are an informal primary group of people who share a similar or equal status and who are usually of roughly the same age, tended to travel around and interact within the social aggregate Members of a particular peer group often have...

. The term is usually encountered in the workplace, though it could apply equally to other pursuits outside work.

Personal networking is the practice of developing and maintaining a personal network, which is usually undertaken over an extended period.

Personal networking is often encouraged by large organizations, in the hope of improving productivity

Productivity

Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output divided by the total input...

, and so a number of tools exist to support the maintenance of networks. Many of these tools are IT-based, and use Web 2.0

Web 2.0

The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...

 technologies.

Care should be taken not to confuse a personal network with a Personal area network

Personal area network

A personal area network is a computer network used for communication among computer devices, including telephones and personal digital assistants, in proximity to an individual's body. The devices may or may not belong to the person in question. The reach of a PAN is typically a few meters...

.