Web 2.0 makes inroads in the scientific community as the Hershey Center for Applied Research, in Hershey, PA develops a social network to improve interactions between industry, academia, government, venture capitalists, the work force and IP attorneys. The social networking software is said to provide a "LinkedIn look" that will enable scientists to connect with each other, and provide content areas such as wikis.

KnowledgeMesh is designed to create and improve interactions between industry, academia, government, venture capitalists, the work force and IP attorneys. Secondarily, Butcher said, she hopes the tool will position the center for growth.

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A social network can help bridge the gap between researchers and the resources they seek. Moreover, the social tools will let outsiders collaborate with scientists they wouldn't ordinarily be familiar with.

KnowledgeMesh includes profiles, wikis and other tools that were created by Intelmarx, a social software provider that caters to nonprofit organizations and higher education institutions.

This week I'll be starting another new stage in my career, as I take on the role of Director of User Experience at Traction Software, Inc, marking my return to the subjects you've read me blogging about in the past: design of information retrieval and content management systems, knowledge management, and social networking and social software for the enterprise.

It's with great pleasure that I return to work on the application I used as a client, and to the team that I contributed some interface design work to over a year ago as a consultant. You'll be reading me return to blogging about the topics I mentioned above, but this time from the design and product development end of the conversation. Previously I wrote mainly about grassroots needs for social software and km and how blog/wiki tools meet these needs. In addition, I expect to show details of the application and its use for various forms of personal and enterprise knowledge management. I've used this tool in the past on a range of needs, including serving as a tracking system for usability testing issues, documenting project information (wiki style), and simply for logging my own projects and todo lists (personal km style wiki).

There will be more to come. I look forward to sharing with you.

I've been thinking about targets that are far off in the weblog services roadmap. Specifically, how do you make aggregated data integrate with other views of enterprise information? The diagram below illustrates how employee data (HR data) can be leveraged to connect people to various types of interests, publications, etc. on the intranet. This rough, generalized illustration suggests the types of data used to associate people with people, with content, etc. It's a way to leverage people's interests and expertise to create communities of practice around topics, projects, products, customers, etc.

Not sure where else to take this idea. It's meant to suggest how weblog aggregation data fits into the bigger picture of enterprise information architecture, a topic that Lou gives seminars on.