Intuit Labs, after a period of inactivity, is back at work.

The Lab from the financial software vendor has launched a number of intriguing experiments recently, among them a QuickBooks widget for accepting payments in bitcoins, and another called the Social Innovation Hub.

The Social Innovation Hub is particularly interesting. This product is an online community for sharing innovation ideas. It contains a discussion thread for sharing links and stories, and multimedia tools such as video with teachings and training. It also features chat functionality for quicker takes and less-formal conversations. It is essentially a social media network for small businesses.

While the hub currently has just 12 members, it offers useful tools for the small business owners that make up much of Intuit’s customer base.