Several of us in our house spent this past Sunday night curled up on the couch watching the Golden Globes. We had set the DVR to record since we came in late which meant that I had to wait until Monday morning to go online and process what I really thought of what I'd seen the night before.

I read through the Facebook status feeds of the friends who had kept running commentaries and had to forcibly remind myself that we were no longer "live." Commenting "Oh yeah, that dress was AWFUL!!" wouldn't have the same impact 12 hours later. I found myself wishing for some kind of playback (besides grainy YouTube videos) to relive some of the more talked-about moments.

All of this makes it even more interesting that a film about the creation of Facebook won for Best Film - Drama. Social networking is so ingrained in our lives these days, it's hard for me to imagine *not* knowing what my friends think about a major event in real time. Many of us spend most of our lives online (and yes, I'm included in that crowd). We offer such a continuous stream of what-are-you-up-to that some writers wonder whether holiday cards are becoming extinct. As the Mark Zuckerberg character says in the film "[People] are online because their friends are online." The more we put out there to share, the more there is to see.

Social networking has incredible applications for marketing research. It runs the gamut from doing a simple blog - or Twitter-scrape before starting a project and finding out what consumers say about your brands and products unprompted to completing entire research projects within Facebook. One great example of a company that uses its social network base to ask good questions on an ongoing basis is Carol's Daughter. Become a fan on Facebook and you'll have the opportunity to answer meaningful questions about the Brand, its products, and how you best want to interact with them. At the same time, they offer product giveaways, sneak peeks at new products and other valuable incentives to stay engaged with their brand.

So what does your company do to engage with your customers online? Does your Facebook page sit idly by waiting for someone to use it to interact with real people? (Like ours is sometimes is guilty of doing.)When's the last time you added to the conversation in a meaningful way?

All right, I know photobooks aren't exactly a new product, they've been around for a long time. Shutterfly.com, one of the largest publishers of photobooks on the web, has been in existence since 1999. Of course, before the advent of digital photography (and of course, uploading your pictures to Facebook) photobooks were called albums.

However, photobooks have evolved to become much more than the latest version of your grandma's picture album. Different websites now allow you to access friends' photo streams from social networking sites, the technology has become incredibly simple to use and photobooks have truly become a new way to tell your stories through pictures. It's easy to tell the story of a fabulous vacation or curate an exhibit of your child's art. Whatever your subject matter, photobooks make a great way to tell your story in a way that will last a long time. They are also a wonderful way to share those stories by making a copy or two for Grandma, or the hostess at the beach house, or your maid of honor.

You can network with us socially in person! Jane and I will both be presenting at the 8^th Annual Florida Creativity Conference in lovely Sarasota, FL. Jane will be presenting an all-day workshop on creating better teams using the FourSight model. And I will be presenting a breakout session on using the rules of improvisational theatre in the workplace. If you're tired of winter, or just need to re-charge your brain, come and see us February 25-27 in Sarasota!