Is there space for MySpace in the energy space?

''Companies are dealing with several trends right now, not only the aging workforce walking out the door with decades of knowledge, but also experienced hires coming into their businesses who need to understand a new corporate culture,'' said Claire Markwardt, senior executive at Accenture's energy practice. ''Companies have an opportunity to supplement their existing collaboration capabilities with newer tools such as podcasts and social networks to accelerate the sharing of knowledge, increase teaming and augment communication between their workforces in different regions.''

While the study focused on petroleum extractors, it doesn't seem a stretch to extrapolate the findings to the rest of the energy industry as well. After all, the electricity, coal and nuclear sectors, among others, face the same challenges as those in the fossil-fuels business and could certainly employ new Internet-based technologies to make themselves more efficient.

The Microsoft/Accenture survey found that 41.5% of those polled said they could save at least an hour every day by using newer collaboration tools, including photo-sharing, blogs, podcasts and even wikis. How interesting it would be to know whether that percentage is just as high across the energy spectrum.

Perhaps Microsoft and Accenture should expand the scope of their next survey to find that out.