The difference is, important conversations (to you) would live in your own knowledge repository. You would have full control and immediate access to them. They would not be hosted by a third party, like most forums are. One of the requirements is that the solution would be fully de-centralised. Each person interested, or participating in the conversation would have a copy of the conversation on their computer. Another aspect of the solution, which is a little different to other existing solutions, is the time and thoughtfulness that would go into a reply. i.e. The "seed" of a conversation would be agreed upon ahead of time amongst interested parties. The context, purpose, and objective would be established upfront. Once agreed, the group would go to work on growing the seed into something useful by documenting their learnings in the process. The conversation and the findings then become part of your own knowledge bank, and get filed into your own hierarchy.