Meet and Greet We used to be jealous of the corporate types when it came to networking-but now it's the 21st century, now we have technology, and now home offices are coming together.

When Deb Haggerty ditched corporate America in 1985 to launchher own business, she didn't know she'd long for the"team" she left behind. All it took was one week for theformer career corporate citizen to realize she needed peoplearound.

"I missed the camaraderie, the give and take, the jokes andcompliments that go on in an office full of people," she says."I realized I needed to get into some networking groups tomaintain my sanity and my self-esteem."

Today, Haggerty, president of PositiveConnections, a communications skills and recruiting enhancementcompany, no longer longs for the buzz of the corporate hive.She's too busy with her own network of colleagues inprofessional and peer groups, as well as frequent interaction withclients.