It’s a little sad to come to these last few days and weeks of summer.  After all, many of us remember our childhood and summer vacations.  For me it was Block Island off the tip of Long Island or my cousin’s farm in northern Virginia.  Hot lazy days on the beach or at the local swimming hole with family and friends.   Both places hold such wonderful memories. 

Those seemingly lazy summer days are really a transition to a new beginning - to the next grade in school, the entry into college, the work force or military, or even a wedding.  Summers are a pause - the ‘in between time’ - to what is next in the journey.

Summer movies reflect these transitions  – Summer of ’42 (1971), A Summer Place (1959), Summer Stock (1950), The Long Hot Summer (1958) and countless others speak to a new season in life, be it career, love, friendship, family.    

This summer we have been tweaking and upgrading the usability of our community. Not quite as dramatic as a film, but still getting ready for the next big things coming out in September and October.  Here are some changes you might want to check out.

The Forums section has been updated to make it easier to quickly view all activity.   The new Subscribe feature allows you to specify the frequency with which you want to be notified of posts – daily, weekly, or monthly.

Our Podcast tab has been renamed to Media.  Radio interviews from Technology for Business $ake, podcasts from PodTech.net, recordings of WebEx webinars and recordings from the Work 2.0 Conversations with Phil Wainewright can be found there.  Look for video to be added later this year.    

We have long held the belief that our users know things about using our services that we don’t.  Our new wiki component enables our users to collaborate with one another to build best practice and ‘tips and tricks’ documents.  We have started 4 sections, Navigating and Using a Wiki, Tips on Using Community Features, Social Networking in the Community, and Meeting Best Practices: Recording and Audio.  Check these out and add your expertise and knowledge to that of your peers.  Let us know if you find this useful, or what other topics you might want to cover.

WebEx’s new release, WBS26 (also called the Fall Release), is out.  Look for information in the WBS26 folder in the document section.  Also, check out the Network Based Recording information in the Recording and Audio folder.

With Global Warming and the ever present potential for business disruption, we have added two new topics - Business Continuity and Green.  Jan Sysmans in the blue and green face blogs about Business Continuity.  Expect to see increasing emphasis on these two topics are we head into Fall. 

An ‘Invite a Friend’ link has been added so you can share the community with colleagues you think might be interested.  Our community is open to anyone interested in web collaboration or Software as a Service (SaaS or on-demand).  No need to be a customer. 

Finally, we encourage you to use the ratings feature to indicate what is most useful and helpful to you.

Fall heralds a flurry of activity at home and at work.  For those of us with children, the return to school or college brings that bubble of activity of getting them ready, ‘Back to School’ night, the return of homework, school activities, etc.  At work, it’s the season of tradeshows, product launches, etc.  In short the blogisphere will be humming with perspective, analysis, commentary, etc.

Labor Day is my annual pilgrimage to Ashland, Oregon to the Shakespeare Festival, this year to sit outside under the stars for Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew.  A wonderful place, with wonderful friends, and wonderful theatre.  As for my favorite summer film – I think I have to vote for To Kill a Mockingbird.  It starts in the hot summer, ends in the cool of Autumn at Halloween.  Atticus Finch is regarded as one of the top 5 movie heroes of all time.  The film documents a time and a place in our history, before the Civil Rights movement, before that great transition.  And it shows us the transition from young child to adolescent, of coming to grips with the complexities and challenges of life.  In my mind it is a near perfect film.  Wishing all of you a wonderful and safe holiday.  Would love to hear from you about your favorite summer film.