If you are reading this, then you've probably figured out that our industry now has its own social networking site; CommonGround. CommonGround was built to become THE global community for property due diligence professionals and my hope is that this goal will be reached as rapidly as possible. What makes CommonGround different from other social networks is its exclusive dedication to the property due diligence industry.

Most of us are aware of the successes that MySpace and Facebook have enjoyed recently. What many people are not as aware of are that thousands of niche communities also exist for very targeted audiences of professionals who are involved in similar lines of work. These niche communities provide rich and highly focused content that help their members perform their jobs at a higher level. By joining a business community, members will be able to contribute and consume content, ask and answer questions and establish themselves as an industry thought leader within a certain geography or subject matter. These communities exist already for doctors, lawyers, IT professionals and even airline pilots. Why not for property due diligence professionals?

So log on and check it out. Take a few minutes to set up your own profile and start looking into the various discussions, blogs, downloads, podcasts and events. Pose a question or answer someone else's. For the next few weeks, the name of the game will be to get comfortable navigating the site and begin building your own personal network. After that, its anyone's guess where the community decides to take itself.

My hope is that this platform will provide our entire industry with a valuable service that improves the quality of environmental due diligence everywhere. But how we get there will be up to the community itself. Community members will determine the community's success themselves based on individual involvement and cooperation. Some people will be "lurkers" who quietly observe others without saying much themselves. Others will get very involved right away, constantly searching for ways to use the community to promote their brand or expertise. If we are to learn anything from observing other professional communities, it is that the people who benefit the most are the ones who get engaged early and stay engaged over time.

For three days this week, some colleagues and I attended the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) Summit in New York. The event pulled together a broad range of business executives from both the content world and the software world to discuss emerging trends and the rapid rate of change that the internet has brought upon all of us.

For me, the best part of the conference was seeing firsthand that the things EDR is dealing with are the same things that all other content companies are dealing with and essentially confirming that we're not "off the reservation". For example, there was a lot of discussion about how content companies must expand into the software space in order to add value to our content. Increasily, content must be delivered into applications that then help the consumer work with the information more efficiently in order to, ultimately, make better business decisions. In EDR's case, simply dropping a report into someone's lap won't cut it in the future. Instead, our content must instantly and seemlessly be delivered electronically into workflow tools. Here our content co-exists with other content elements to create a more valuable experience for the user.

Two other major themes of the conference were "community" and the role of "user generated content". Today a large percentage of our employees and customers are members of various social networking communities. The biggest of these are obviously MySpace and FaceBook. Both communities are great for personal social interaction but neither really provides a lot of benefits to businesses communities. This is causing the creation of literally thousands (or more) niche business social networking communities built around very precise business areas. Communities exist now for oncologists, scuba divers and model train enthusiasts. Members in these niche communities now have a place where they can go that is geared exclusively towards very finite topics and activities and, as a result, the user experience is much more valuable. The result is that these niche communities then become a place where very specialized user generated content is created and shared and everyone in the community benefits.

I think the property due diligence industry is perfectly suited to benefit from these rapid changes and trends made possible by the internet and broadband connectivity. Like all other industries, we too can expect to see continued convergence between content, software and community.

Earlier this week I received a phone call from a guy who told me he wanted an ESA performed on a commercial property he was buying. After explaining that EDR is an information service and that our customers are the ones who do assessments, I asked him how he heard about me and EDR. His response was that he conducted a search within the ActiveRain Real Estate Network for "environmental assessments" and came across my profile.

If you're not familiar, ActiveRain is a social networking site for people involved in real estate (mainly residential although some commerical groups have formed within the community). Think of it as MySpace for people involved in real estate.

I set up a profile several months ago in ActiveRain (www.activerain.com) as well as in several other networking sites including LinkedIn and BizNik and each profile has already produced multiple benefits. Now I must admit that I originally did so as more of an experiment than anything else. I was curious to learn about what these services were all about and how EDR should be using these services to our advantage.

The results so far have been positive. LinkedIn has produced several contacts for us with people in related fields that have led to research projects for the company.

For those of us who are generally 40 or over, I think there's a tendency to quickly disregard these new platforms as simply toys for a younger generation. This is a mistake. While MySpace and FaceBook are probably not going to generate business leads for a company, these business social networking site will if you are an active participant and spend some time in the community. Conducting a search for "environmental professionals" in ActiveRain and LinkedIn produces hundreds of findings which then lead to plenty of background information on each profile. EDR is currently using these sites in several ways, including recruitment and business development.

As for the person who found me in ActiveRain, I was able to refer him to a local environmental consultant (and EDR customer) who got the job and was very appreciative of the referral....not bad for 5 minutes of my time.