I’ve spent a good bit of the day with a far-flung team, exploring social networking ideas and figuring out how Berkshire can begin to provide community space for our authors – space that will be of value to them. There are some great free tools we’re looking at and I’ve been going through them. It’s a challenging area for me, both in terms of vocabulary and technology, but easier than global economics. I thought I’d point out one risk to online community, easily seen at a site called Connotea. The system is designed for knowledge sharing, and has something of an academic feel and look, but it seems to have been highjacked by a few niche types of internet business, as you can see at their recent activity page. It’s not pornography, but not a whole lot better. That’s why we’re planning to experiment with an invitation-only community, a Facebook “group” called Berkshire Board (An Academic Community Space) .