At places I visit, I find that many of the local folks comment about the weather: "If you don't like it, wait 10 minutes and it'll change." The same can be said about technology: Every few years there's a new gadget or system or approach to leveraging technology that's the latest crave.

Recently the hottest topic has been how to use social networking to build relationships with your customers and staff. Another big topic of discussion is cloud computing–a cool new name for something that's been around in one form or another for awhile.

Very simply, cloud computing features a virtual operating platform and applications that reside somewhere on the Internet (often depicted as a cloud in charts). Some of you might be thinking that this sounds very familiar, and you would be right. Several years ago, many companies touted themselves as being application service providers (ASPs). Using an ASP model, the company provided applications over a network often called on demand software or software as a service (SaaS).