This isn’t a Minnesota story – but it caught my attention as a truly innovative use of Facebook. I learned about it on SocialBrite; they track great nonprofit use of the Internet, which can be a great place for small businesses to pick up ideas too. The video really tells the story…

The project is so innovative. It takes the inherent power of an interconnected society to prove that old saying – many hands make light work. Only with the Internet (and increasingly with broadband) distance and location don’t matter and it’s easier to reach a niche segment of society – because as Brian Sidlauskas explains in the video – there are only so many ichthyologists to go around!

My other favorite line from the video…

It’s speeding up how we do science.

And really the solution was simple – use Facebook tagging to reach a special interest group and build a virtual community or virtual brain. Our challenge is – how can we use the power to reach our goals?