Reflection - professional isolation - confronting it

I've set to work today on addressing a few things that I've identified as being an issue a few days ago - most notable being "professional isolation".

Really became conscious of my own "professional isolation" again yesterday when I was at a conference (Google Sketchup - Dxb). Met some other eLearning practitioners in the process. One of them enquired about whether I knew anyone who could work as an elearning trainer. While I didn't have any luck in suggesting anyone to him, I did take the occasion to note the absence of opportunities to network with others in the area and how such querries were just the kind of thing that a network might help support / address. A few others also present at the time, concurred so I suggested that perhaps we should set up something online. We exchanged cards.

Today, as a follow up to that, I've been looking to find other online eLearning Professional communities to either learn what they've been doing to support one another or even joining them. So so many yet most of them seem based in any part of the world except here. Now I have to explore this further to see if in fact this is the case. However, it's pointing out the need to realize this here. I guess I'm envisioning an online community of elearning practitioners who are familiar with the issues that we address here in the Middle East.