Megan, our Director of News & Media Research, is always reading. Is that a great job, or what!? Last night (at some crazy hour) she sent me this article, When Is Social Networking Kosher In The Office? from NPR. You can read it or listen to it.

I had to share this one, because we hear companies discussing this all the time – the pros and cons of social networking. This story talks about Yammer as one workplace solution for team microblogging.

Findownerssearch.com is one of those sites that makes us think: “Why didn’t someone invent this sooner?”

Findownerssearch allows you to:

Find the owner of a brand name
Find all the brands owned by an individual or company
Find brands in a given area/category

Just think of the possibilities. You can use this site to do competitive analysis, provide information for a new business pitch, research a new product development. I typed in “Pendaflex” (mostly b/c I am sitting next to many items that need to be filed). I got the parent company name, address, and a list of all the other products they make. Oh, I also got descriptions of the products as well. So simple, yet so very useful.

Research tip borrowed (with permission) from Third Hand Secretarial, the best virtual assistant in the world. (She didn’t say that, we did.)

Ever visit a Website that contained some information you wanted to share with someone – if only you could highlight the information. Well. . .you can and here is how to do it:

Visit Awesome Highlighter

• Enter the blog or Website address that you wish to highlight
• Click highlight page
• The blog or Website will appear, with the “Awesome Highlighter” tool bar across the top
• Highlight the applicable content. You can even change the highlight color by using the color chooser on the top right corner of the toolbar
• Add a note to the highlighted information if you choose
• Click on Done
• You are redirected to a page that contains the content you highlighted and a customized URL
• Send that customized URL to your colleagues, business associates, friends or family to show them the parts of the blog or Website you want them to see.

Voila! We can think of some great applications for this. Bet you can, too.