I'm not Derek, but as a remote-working team member for a business that has many other remote-working team members, this is a similar problem I've been trying to solve by encouraging use of a private twitter-like network through Status.net (free) or Yammer (paid).

It provides that ambient awareness of what coworkers are up to / thinking about, gives you an easy way of soliciting helpful but non-essential feedback without adding to email overload, and allows for realtime information sharing. It's potentially a good substitute for in-office community when that's not an option.