Podcasts are truly catching people's attention. You may listen to books, radio shows, school lessons and others, all with your media player and/or PC. This is why firms are learning to use podcasts for corporate functions such as meetings, staff announcements and maybe speeches of the company bigwigs to be heard by the employees.

The Social Media Forum for Internal Communicators, being held in London, is a forum dedicated in engaging employees through new technology. Researchers say that most firms still hold "improving employee engagement" as a top item in their To Do agenda.

Now, most of us who are part of the labor force may cringe at the thought of the boss being our daily chat pal. That would be like talking about work 24/7 while already living it. But the Media Forum says that some of the new social media communication tools such as blogs, podcasts and videos are catching on because employees can filter them through Really Simple Syndication (RSS).

Podcasts are also deemed to be more popular to employees, because they could listen to downloaded company news at a leisurely pace. With the help of blogs, that are accessible to the staff via intranet, workers may also give feedback as much as they want, and not be inhibited by the public setting of a corporate meeting.

Not only employees but also investors and customers benefit through company podcasts. Well then, it's nice to hear that technology is again being used to advance the society, the way it should be used.