After years of being seemingly alone in the corporate wilderness, resources are flying at us from all directions, urging us to come out, act up and join in as gay employees. For example, we now have three books on workplace issues.

One of the first salvos was the publication of the Corporate Closet, by James Woods and Jay Lucas a survey report. Its weakness is the 80s belief of its WASP interviewees that gayness doesn't matter. The strength of the book is the clarity with which this message is reported, with no filtering, no critique - probably (and hopefully) the last time everyone believed this.

Read it before coming out; in some companies the closet may very well be the only safe place to be gay. Or read it to realize how self-sabotaging this belief can be. Apart from its thoughtful first two chapters, this reportage demands a counter-argument which isn't there. Perhaps when it came out there were no alternatives to its interviewees' belief that changing our behavior is less difficult than changing their behavior.

A book that does address issues vs survey facts is Gay Issues in the Workplace, by Brian McNaught. Its treatment reflect the consulting that McNaught does in this area. It's well reasoned - and well written.

What we've found out in the 90s is that gayness does matter - in many more significant ways than we'd ever understood. And there are alternatives. This is the premise that Ed Mickens' book is based on, The 100 Best Companies for Gay Men and Lesbians: Plus Options and Opportunities No Matter Where You Work. As such it combines fact with how to create a coming out strategy. That Mickens actually found 100 organizations that met his criteria makes picking it up worthwhile. If your inner self rebelled when reading the Corporate Closet or if when you blasted off the closet door via McNaught only to find it wasn't worth the effort, this book will help you match your out self to an out company.

The bonus of Mickens' book, absent in the survey-bound closet book, lies in the criteria used to screen and rank candidates. For in those criteria lie targets, values, standards, measures by which Corporate America can ratchet itself up to practical equality.

How much is changing was strikingly confirmed at a recent gathering of the corporate tribes during Gay Pride week in New York. Gay employee groups converged on the New York's Community Center to tell their stories: stories of coming out, of finding each other, of how to, of what works, of we have found the enemy - and we are often it.

One poignant part of the gathering was when the experts gave the floor to those whose gathering it truly was. Each one who took the mike told a personal tale, raised personal questions. Unionized employees questioned the well-intentioned, do-gooder but possibily exclusionary approach of their white collared friends. A bold founder related how the rush to come out nearly passed him by. The frustrated told of meetings with corporate gods who could change the macropicture but who reminded them of their microresponsibility of educating by example and personal action.

No one spoke of taking spouses to corporate picnics - the favorite topics of many experts and writers. Most were totally focused on coming out to each other - and oblivious of the need or interest of coming out to management. Often there seemed to be such delight in finding each other there was little focus at this time on rights and political action. In fact most encouraged baby steps like offsite meeting places to accomodate concerns about coming out.

The digitized spoke of the dazzling day their electronic forums could be up and running. In fact one of the most practical measures appears to be getting e-mail up and running, partly because of its ability to mask identity, insert gayness into corporate social life, and unite our farflung "points of light."

The great import of the meeting, and these books, may be in fact in what they are not yet talking about. Benefits as yet to be designed to encourage and accomodate gays & lesbians. Redesign of policies that inadvertently discriminate against those with HIV in addition to those of differing sexual orientations. Moving our natural networking past e-mail to industrywide communicaitons. Coordinating and cooperating across corporate boundaries, within professions and through industries. And the endless examples of how to help each other navigate corporate life as brothers & sisters, no longer isolated, no longer on our own, sharing life experiences, making it better for those yet to come. Books about that remain to be written, but if more meetings occur like the recent one in New York it will not be for lack of material.