On my way to my office this week, I was listening to the latest episode in what I think is a very interesting podcast, Cisco's Executive Thought Leadership Series (which, I admit has become more relevant since the announcement that we at WebEx will soon become part of Cisco).

Carlota Perez, Senior Researcher at Cambridge and Sussex Universities in the UK and a professor at the Technological University of Tallinn in Estonia was talking about the waves of technological change and how macro-disruptive events evolve and how the deployment and adoption cycle take place.

She compared the industrial revolution (the invention and wide deployment of factory equipment), the computer revolution (the invention, evolution and adoption of computers from room-sized mainframes to today's small personal computers) and the internet revolution (still happening).

Her conclusion was that the '90s (the dot-com boom) was the invention cycle, and we are now entering the adoption and deployment cycle, which she forecasts will take 20-30 years to run its course (as a technology optimist, I believe it's much less, but, then again, I'm an optimist!).

The interesting point I got from all of this is that we've only just begun to really use in productive and game-changing ways the power that the internet and all of the capabilities we've built on top of it. We are now just at the beginning of the period in which we will invent not just really cool, but really productive ways to use the powerful communication and collaboration capabilities that exist - and probably many that don't yet exist.

If you look at how business changed in the last two "revolutions" (not many of us work on farms anymore!) I'd suggest that we need to expect that a similar degree of change will happen in the next few decades.

The process of business will change, as will the nature of the jobs we hold. So will our relationships with our markets and our customers.

My goal in this context is to create a conversation about how those relationships outside our company will change. We are creating collaboration, which leads to community development. WebEx enables this with our range of products and services.

My thinking is that community development and involvement leads to a much deeper level of customer, prospect and market engagement than we know today. The tools we create, but more importantly, how you use them, will in large part determine how and when this happens.

I am hoping that this conversation creates a community right here that helps define how Collaboration, Community Development and Customer Engagement will develop. What works and what doesn't? How do you know? How do you measure it? and how are you leading the effort to change your business to take advantage of it?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts, ideas and stories.