Friday’s AppGap Webinar was terrific. While it focused on the future of work, the conversation was rooted in examples of companies where the future has already pretty much arrived. These are the companies that have gone global and distributed, have telecommuting and outsourced workers and have in all the respects touched on in the webinar been up front and personal with the demands of the future.

For as long as I’ve known her, Nancy Settle-Murphy (principal consultant at Guided Insights) has been facilitating virtual teams, providing insight into developing good conversational norms for distance communication as well as the use of emerging technology. Last fall, Nancy asked me if I would have a few conversations with her about Web 2.0 and how the social networking tools could be used to enhance the connectivity of virtual teams. It was a great opportunity both to collaborate with Nancy and to get some of my emerging thoughts into bits. (Bits into bits? Nevermind.)

The resulting conversations are in the following articles, the most recent of which was just published last week in Nancy’s eZine, Communiqués:

• Why Social Networking Can Mean Serious Business for Your Virtual Teams
• Speed Virtual Connections, Strengthen Collaboration With The Right Social Networking Tools

In the first article, we talked about social networking sites like Facebook and how they can help people who may never meet in real-space can use the networking sites to get to know the people they work with. I do think that while people can establish cordial relationships virtually, that they miss not only the serendipity of water cooler, coffee pot, or hallway encounters, they don’t get to see how people decorate their cubicles: photos, awards, name tags, posters, cartoons, books on the bookshelf. These artifacts provide insight into family, pets, hobbies, and interests that are often undiscoverable in a virtual relationship. And yet, in this “meatworld” (an ugly term that I hope, emphatically, does not stick), we do get an opportunity to ask people about those photos, books, posters as ways to initiate personal conversations. It’s entrée into our human presence.

In the second article I take my first cut at helping people to make sense of the different types of social networking tools and what they are most useful for. The categories:

• Getting introductions (using a tool like LinkedIn to get a referral for a job, an interview, or information)
• Establishing and maintaining connections with colleagues (as Facebook currently allows me and so many others to do)
• Creating, sharing, and collaborating on content (blogs, wikis)
• Keeping on the edge of ideas and learning (via RSS feeds, social tagging)
• Orchestrating serendipity (D0pplr)
• Staying constantly connected (Twitter, Skype) and fostering transparency

These are either too few or too many categories, and there are certainly overlaps (for example, blogs also help us keep connected and sometimes to manage serendipity, but I’d rather not stretch it). But as I try to make sense of all the tools in this space, I’d be delighted to open the conversation: how do you distinguish this amazing array of tools that connect us?

This is a virtual conversation, as I’ll be on vacation until February 25th.