Quick @e2conf Recap

Posted by gussvendsen - 11/09/09 at 07:11:24 am

e2conf

I attended one day of the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco last week, and I got a little more out of it than I expected. Keynotes were good, breakout sessions were dialed in, and for a relatively small show, the expo floor had some good players. (Personally, I enjoyed seeing all the Macs presenters and exhibitors were using.)

Show Themes

  • Enterprise 2.0 is not a crock. It is a valid and real cultural shift in the workplace.
  • Success lies with adoption, not executive approval.
  • Enterprises are becoming more bottom-up than top-down.
  • Technology facilitates, not replaces.
  • Collaboration is king.

By now, we all know that “The World is Flat.” After this conference, dare I say “The Company is Flat.” Sure, hierarchy will never go away, but the dynamics and communication chain have been upset. Just look at how Twitter has upset the celebrity-fan communication chain. Celebrities are approachable now, and the same can be said for the top brass at Fortune 500s. Now take microblogging internally into the enterprise, and the corporate communication structure becomes as flat as Nebraska.

Sound Bites

“We built this application without knowing the full implications of it.”
-Gregory D’Alesandre, Product Manager, Google Wave, Google

No kidding. You have also presented it to the market with these clear question marks, and we’re just as clueless about what to do with it, too. On one hand, it seems brilliant and completely logical, but on the user experience side, I can see a lot of human obstacles and reprogramming of old habits. Beyond those challenges, it certainly is an exciting product because it boldly confronts the status quo of email. At the end of the day, I walked away thinking about the similarities of Waves and Wikis, albeit different tools.

“Facebook is CRM for individuals.”
“We’re becoming people-centric vs technology-centric.”
“Today we use friends as social filters to navigate content on the Web.”
-Clara Shih, CEO, Hearsay Labs (author of The Facebook Era)

Clara Shih was clearly my favorite speaker for many reasons, but primarily because she spoke my language. You cannot look at this trend without crediting the impact social networks like Facebook have had on contemporary culture. The social Web (aka Web 2.0) is the driving force behind Enterprise 2.0, and for the first time the consumer world is bringing its technological expectations to the workplace.

“15 years ago, my distribution list was my social network.”
“We generally believe in the idea of social everywhere.”
- Jeff Schick, Vice President, IBM Software Group, Social Software, IBM

IBM gets it. Their recent products reflect an alignment with cultural business trends. I love how the first quote shows they can claim a little old school in their blood, but they make it current by comparing an older concept to today’s standards. They have a knack for staying relevant, and I enjoyed the insight into how this mega corporation eats its own dog food and finds ways to connect on an individual level. Good things from them.

Exhibitors
It was no surprise to see that “collaboration is king” at this show. It makes a lot of sense. Enterprises consist of people. If people can work together more efficiently, the bottom line improves. There were TONS of collaboration services on the floor. Back in the day, we used to call these “intranets.” Then we called them enterprise portals. Now we call them collaborative platforms. Notables:

There were also many wiki vendors. I still struggle to find a use case for wiki’s with what I do, but I left the show with a deeper understanding of them. Maybe I’m just not the right market.

Question: do you use wikis and what’s your use case?

Overall, the Enterprise 2.0 Conference was well worth attending, and I look forward to the next one. Thanks to the folks at TechWeb for making a free pass available.

I would love to get your comments. Thanks.

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