Look around here and you'll see the first of various design improvements we'll be flowing into the hubs over the coming weeks and months. The goal: to provide readers easier access to the tools and depth of resources here that allow them to better track, discover, understand, and organize the thinking and writing of the Corante Network contributors.

The first such tweaks:

• The employment of tabs in the main hub section to allow users to more easily access the network posts and toggle between kinds of content. We've got more on the way and this interface provides the foundation to accommodate those.
  
• Click on the Network Posts tab above and you'll see a new treatment which should make the entries easier to scan as well as do a better job of pointing to related commentary.

There are some other subtle design tweaks you may notice. We're very interested in your feedback - feel free to share in the comments or email me directly at hyltonj@gmail.com.

A warm welcome to Paul Conley, who blogs about B2B media at http://paulconley.blogspot.com. Paul, who started his career in journalism as a paper boy at age six, has worked as a reporter, editor, bureau chief, producer, and executive and worked at companies such as Knight-Ridder, CNN, Primedia and Bloomberg. To learn more about Paul, visit his website.

Recent posts of Paul's worth noting:

Communities build themselves: "I've been thinking a lot about community of late...and how B2B media companies can foster it. Community is, in a very real sense, the goal of publishing. Or at least it should be. We create content, share it with others, and together we consider that content's meaning. To an old-media guy, community is the trade show that his B2B magazine sponsors. To a new-media guy, it's the feedback function on his blog. But put those differences aside and note the similarity -- both of those guys are in the business of fostering connections. And that's a tough business to be in..."

Why are so many products so bad?: "Sometimes I wonder what people in B2B media are thinking. Much of what we do in this industry seems to be so ... crappy.
Certainly those of us on the editorial side of the game tend to blame the folks on the business side when our products are less than compelling. We complain that we are underfunded and understaffed. But I'm coming to believe that most of our problems aren't caused by slim budgets and greedy bosses. Our problems are caused by unambitious and unskilled journalists..."

Required reading vs. required interaction: "The simple truth is that although I continue to love the Journal, I find far more material of value to journalists in BusinessWeek. While much of the mainstream press has learned to adopt the tools of new media, only BusinessWeek has mastered them. As others struggle with understanding what conversational editorial is, BusinessWeek has adopted it..."