Methodology
The 7 Points of Contact is the model Kohtaa uses to describe how a first meeting at an event becomes a professional relationship. It names seven specific interactions between two people and records each one as it happens, so an attendee can see how far a connection has come.
The research it draws on
Trust researchers describe trust as something that gets built, tested, and repaired continuously as a relationship develops, not decided once at a first meeting.
Bairstow, N.R. (2025). The Psychology of Trust in Business Relationships. Psychology Today / University of Technology Sydney.
Research on personal networks shows that closeness between people tracks how much time and how many interactions they have actually invested in each other, not a single encounter.
Dunbar, R.I.M. (2014). The Social Brain: Psychological Underpinnings and Implications for the Structure of Organizations. Current Directions in Psychological Science.
In marketing, the Rule of 7 is a long-standing principle: a single exposure to a brand or message rarely produces action. It typically takes several repeated, positive touchpoints before someone trusts it enough to act. The underlying pattern (repetition builds familiarity, familiarity builds trust) is well established.
The seven interactions Kohtaa records
Profile viewed
Kohtaa records when two attendees have each opened the other's profile. It is the first sign of mutual awareness, stored with a timestamp and the event it happened at.
Meeting requested
Kohtaa records when one attendee sends the other a meeting request, with the time slot proposed and the event reference.
Meeting confirmed
Kohtaa records when a meeting request is accepted, fixing a time and, on grid events, a table.
Meeting happened
Kohtaa records a meeting as having happened only when both people confirm it afterwards. One-sided confirmations do not count.
Endorsement given
Kohtaa records when one attendee endorses the other after the event, a simple directed signal from one person to another.
Second event together
Kohtaa records when the same two people attend a second Kohtaa event, the point at which a one-off meeting starts to look like a relationship.
Mutual endorsement
Kohtaa records when both people have endorsed each other. Combined with the interactions above, this is what Kohtaa treats as a trusted professional relationship.
What this model is, and is not
This is a model Kohtaa built on established research, not a peer-reviewed finding of its own. Kohtaa records the interactions between two people; it does not claim to measure trust itself, which is not something software can observe directly. The seven points are a useful, honest structure for tracking whether a relationship is being invested in over time, and that is all they are meant to be.
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Kohtaa is operated by Curtis Thomas, trading as Kohtaa, Oulu, Finland.