Outside innovation is a systematic process for sourcing, evaluating, and driving ideas through to funding and measuring success but it starts with understanding your internal innovation process. Innovation is an important topic for most companies, it is the essential source …

It seems like only yesterday that Salesforce was talking up Cloud 2. Now, today, they’ve unveiled Service Cloud 3, the company’s next-generation social contact centers, which will let companies interact with customers on "any social community". That means Facebook, Twitter, and any other social network via social media monitoring software Radian6. However, it’s just supporting Twitter out of the box, from the sound of it. 

Google announced that it’s rolling out an updated version of Gmail Contacts for Google Apps. In addition to improvements made to Contacts for regular Gmail users last summer, the new version comes equipped with some business-specific features. 

Google has announced the worldwide availability of Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office. The product was first announced in November, spawned from the company’s acquisition of DocVerse, which specialized in real-time sharing and editing of documents. 

Cloud Connect lets Office users automatically sync and backup their documents with Google Doc, so they’re always accessible on the web, and able to be shared with others. 

I just saw a short online article summarizing results of a survey sponsored by CareerBuilder.com. The article had the provocative headline “Survey: Cutting business travel cuts business.”

It opened with two bullet points in bold face on a highlighted background:

Using Google Latitude is and should be a personal thing – only to be used with people you trust. I use Latitude with my friends and make sure to only confirm close friends. However, recently I met a woman that works in marketing for a health organization.

One of the huge issues you’re going to see play out starting this year is the movement and flux of those that work within the digital marketing and PR industries.

It’s not often talked about, but believe me, it’s a major concern for agency owners and businesses. How do you retain your top digital talent? How do you keep them happy? And, how do you keep your eye on the next hire?

When Facebook Groups was unveiled last year, I was skeptical. Facebook tinkers with its platform so much (to its credit) that I sometimes just tune out. Professionally, I need to know about these changes. And, more importantly, I need to know how they impact my clients. But, this one just didn’t do much for me.

Until I started revisiting the tool recently.