I wish to extend my congratulations to my friend and colleague, Alan Lepofsky on his new career move from IBM to SocialText.

There has been quite a range of blog entries about what his move means... and what it means (to me, at least) is that  those of us in the CSCW (remember that acronym? Computer-supported cooperative work) community have a collective mission to support and improve how people collaborate-- by giving them new computer tools and capabilities. It does not matter if we work for Lotus, IBM, TeamStudio, Socialtext, Lotus911, SNAPPS, Pavone, Joe's garage, BinaryTree, or whatever...  we are all motivated by trying to use computer technology to help people collaborate.

.. and that's what it is all about. And I think that is one of the great parts of the whole social network "revolution." I interact with Rocky Oliver just as much now that he's with Teamstudio as when he was an IBM employee... and I can say almost the same about Bob Balaban... and I am hopeful that I will be able to say the same thing about Alan Lepofsky. He's a resource -- and a friend -- and when I ask for assistance, he'll provide it... not because he's "an IBMer", but because he  and I are both members of a community that shares a vision of supporting collaboration via computer technology.