Enterprise 2.0 Conference

This week I attended the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston. It may be that after 15 years of going to events like this with something to pitch, I was shocked by the experience of going to an industry event with the perspective of someone who had lots to learn and nothing to sell. But the vibe I got from the others at the show was that there was an exceptional sense of "you're trying to do that too?" And that was cool.

In other words, the event had focus. Not because of the vendors or speakers -- the spectrum of vendors and "panel discussions" was as broad (and consequently as intermittently irrelevant) as most industry events. Rather, the (non-vendor, nothing to sell) attendees were essentially all people within large organizations that were trying to figure out how all these Web 2.0 thingamabobs could work inside their organizations. And whether guerilla IT would work, or the only way to pull this off was to spike the CIO's coffee just before the demo.

So here's the ironic part of the show. Cool attendees, all from serious companies, all with a strong belief that there's something big here, and yet, and yet, who do they think is rocking the house? #1 is the CIA. Yes, the Central Intelligence Agency. Closely followed by rabble-rousers like Lockheed Martin, Wachovia, IBM, and so on. It was an eye-opening experience for all of us. Some people have managed to get this participatory, community-oriented, social-computing thing started within big organizations; and most importantly, have started to work out the kinks of demonstrating benefit (ROI), figuring out end-user involvement, and driving senior management buy-in. But the big buzz at the event was the incessant conversations between people encountering total strangers that were attempting to accomplish the same thing within their organizations.

A great number of bloggers were at the event, and many of the presentations (in video and ppt) are online at the event site, so if you missed it (and even those of us who attended missed quite a bit) you should take a look. And maybe we'll see each at this event soon.

One last note. The poor Westin Waterfront was completely unprepared for the wifi requirements of the hundreds of attendees. However, when wifi was working, I was impressed with the "back channel". This was the second event I've attended that provided a back channel (chat room) for each session. I wasn't convinced at the Web 2.0 conference (even though their wifi never failed) but by the end of this event I was convinced that providing a back channel for chatting among attendees really enhances the experience of being in a presentation (even if it's not the one where someone chats "I want to run up and kiss this guy").

All in all, a good event, with some significant logistical snafus, and a lot of promise for next year.

I'm Baaaaaack

Brief explanation: I've been on hiatus while changing jobs, finding my bearings in a new situation, and blogging inside a firewall. (Which this week I learned is called a "dark blog". However, I kind of beg to differ, because a blog outside the firewall can usually be much "darker" than one inside, but let's not go into that.)