We are bombarded with the idea its good to talk and its good to text. But is texting and other forms of mobile phone interaction a useful form of communication? Or is it even a form of communication at all or something totally different? In a mini-book "Heidegger, Habermas and the mobile phone" the author invokes some key thinkers of the twentieth century to offer an essential alternative to the new doctrine of 'm-communication': Martin Heidegger, who saw humanity as ‘the entity which talks’ and Jürgen Habermas, current-day advocate of authentic communication.

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In a previous article, Avoiding remote software collaboration disasters, I shared my experiences of virtual software development and offered four golden rules I now use. Heres the sequel.

The most amazing things are happening in our rural communities enabled by broadband and digital technologies. Yesterday’s story was about the exodus of young workers having to move to the towns and cities to find work. Today’s story is about the influx of workers leaving the cities and relocating in rural areas as full-time and part-time digital teleworkers.

Just over two years ago Nick Cater, writing for The Guardian Newspaper, Virtual communities can boost charities, suggested that Internet-based group tools offered charities and voluntary organisations an important new channel to re-energise the engagement with their staff, supporters and clients. He also noted that this could require significant investment in time and resources. It would be interesting to see how much, 2 years on, charities have exploited this opportunity?