If there is one consistent theme of this conference it is that the enterprise is now being driven by changes in the consumer web. This is a complete reversal of how software used to get made: businesses got it first and then it migrated out to the rest of us. But that’s all changed: now every single speaker here has emphasized that they are working on moving the consumer web inside the firewall.

Ross outlined how his wiki software has evolved in terms of how it is being viewed and used:

2002: project communication and lighweight documentation
2004: general collaboration

2008: specific business processes

Ross hates business processes but he believes in the idea of management by exception. For enterprise 2.0 to take hold, It has to be about problems that are being solved. And wikis can solve the problem of managing mass collaboration so that the exceptions to standardized business processes can be managed efficiently.

Opportunities abound in the area of collaborative Intelligence: too often feedback from field is broken. Search and browse by tag and solve exceptions to business processes.

Ross believes the goal of enterprise 2.0 software is not automation to drive down business costs. Rather the goal is augmenting people to get better productivity. In this I wholeheartedly agree with him.

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This presentation from Rishi Chandra, Enterprise Product Manager from Google was one of the best I’ve seen so far. Again, the starting theme is the importance of the consumer web. He sees what he calls the rise of the “power collaborator” as a key to business success. And this next generation of collaborative employees are going to want and need the freedoms they have experienced on the consumer web: completely distriuted working virtually with internal, customers and suppliers.

Rishi makes the argument that this type of distributed work is best supported with cloud computing. The cloud is the only place where you can achieve the economics and scalability needed to have global solutions built on open standards.

Of course the big bugaboo is the issue of security. Rishi counters with the notion of false security under today’s “behind the firewall paradigm.” Huge numbers of lap tops are stolen. Data sticks are lost. At the same time the cloud computing providers need to prove that you are secure. Rishi asks: are your five to ten security experts more adept than the hundreds of security experts at google?

The era of the cloud has arrived: All innovation that is relevant to the enterprise will happen in the cloud. Because this software is built on open standards, there will be lots of competitors. The move to the cloud will be driven by the needs and desires of the under 30 generation who are dependent on team productivity not individual productivity.

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I sat in on most of the Implementing Enterprise 2.0 tutorial at the Enterprise 2.0 conference. While the tutorial was a good introduction to the topic of enterprise 2.0, I felt that it was overly descriptive and not at all prescriptive.

Dion Hinchcliffe clearly knows his stuff but I find his presentation to be overly complicated and his graphics, while rich, are complicated to the point of fussy.

The presentation began by mapping the terms enterprise 2.0, social media, and km 2.0 on Google trends. This is a good way to show how 2.0 tools are now entering the collective mindset if not the enterprise. Dion related a story of how 2.0 tools pushing the other tools out of the realm. AOL was using Documentum and mediawiki just blasted documentum out of the water.

He also cited a statistic from Forrester Research that 50 % of Global 2000 are planning to adopt e20 — a $4.6 billion market in by 2013.

I felt one of the key moments of the presentation was Dion’s presentation of the newest compact definition of web 2.0 from Tim O’Reilly:

“Networked applications that explicitly leverage network effects.”

Thus it follows that social networking will be the largest e20 app in terms of dollars spent (although this was not covered in the part of the tutorial I saw).

One of the audience members raised the notion that “individuals become hubs of their own personal networks.” In my opinion this is controversial and at the core of why e20 finds so much resistance behind the firewall. But it is also at the of the key value that can be created by e20 services — that is a network of talented individuals who share knowledge and collectively raise the intelligence of an organization. Unfortunately most e20 platforms don’t recognize this as the core value and are built around generic services rather than people.

I did not get to see the case study portion of the meeting. (The set up was awful. We were packed into tight rows in a small room.) This is the kind of session that needs to be set up classroom style so that people can spread out and interact with one another.

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Starting tomorrow, I will be working as a blogger covering the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston.

I’m looking forward to hearing about the state of the industry, as I’ve spent a number of years developing web 2.0 solutions for enterprises.

I plan to cover the keynotes and a number of the sessions. I also plan to interview people as much as possible.

Given my experience, my interest (and bias) are towards looking at enterprise 2.0 not as a general “platform” but rather as a solution to problems that cannot be solved by other means. So I’ll be exploring and writing from this angle.

If you have questions and/or topics you’d like to see explored, please email me at kathleen@ottergroup.com and I’ll do my best to cover them.

Stay tuned….

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I just had a great experience with LinkedIn’s question feature. I use LinkedIn as a kind of extension of my desktop Address Book. Every six months or so I’ll update my LinkedIn account to make sure that all of my new contacts are “linked in.” I have used LinkedIn’s inmail, which can be effective but is pricey at $20 per month. When I’m really in sales mode I’ll turn that feature back on again.

Now I’m looking for a select group of companies interested in co-developing the next version of our SWIFT platform. Yesterday I put out a request to my connections on LinkedIn:

Can anyone introduce me to conference producers who would be interested in working on our next version of SWIFT? We are looking for independent owners who are innovative and entrepreneurial.

I received about 10 responses from my network (thank you guys!) and found some very interesting new connections.

I have only used this feature once before and it is something that I would use sparingly. I don’t want to bombard my network with what could become irritating requests for help. But in the right context, this is a very useful feature.

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Sylvia Marino and I ran a half-day boot camp last yesterday at the community 2.0 conference.

Our boot camp was built around developing plays for your 2.0 community. Plays are tactical maneuvers that achieve a foundation built on strategic goals.

II. The Plays

The Promise – your social media strategy must offer a higher value than other services out there - this values is what will drive interest and adoption. This value may be given to the group or perhaps to the individual first and then to the group.

Tools – there are a myriad of social media tools out there - social networks, blogs, RSS aggregators, microblogs, bookmarking sites and so on. You must select the tool(s) designed to fit the job, one appropriate for large or small groups and appropriate for the mode of interaction you want to foster. Tip: new tools are not always better.

Bargain – What will you and your audience get in return for participating? How will the investment be repaid? Users must agree to the bargain (the deal). Tip: the more complex the interaction you are fostering, the more complex the bargain will be.

We covered some sample plays and then had the group of 60 break out into four groups and work on developing their own plays. The break outs were tremendous with some really terrific plays emerging.

Sylvia and I will be running the boot camp in a day-long format for clients at their businesses. If you are interested in driving utilization for your 2.0 efforts, this is a great way to get going. Email me: kathleenceo-at-gmail.com for further details.

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I will be running a Boot Camp on Building 2.0 Communities at the upcoming Community 2.0 conference in Las Vegas.
This half-day session will take participants through a step-by-step process of building a 2.0 community. The boot camp is designed to be both interactive and hands on: I will be joined by Sylvia Marino (Edmunds.com) and Tara Hunt (Citizen Agendcy) to guide participants through a planning process and share our experience about each phase of community development. At the end of the Boot Camp, participants will take away a development plan they have completed during the course of the session.

Building a Community 2.0 Boot Camp
Phase 1: Planning
Phase 2: Technology
Phase 3: Start up Marketing and Management
Phase 4: Growth and Measurement
Tara and Sylvia are two of the smartest people I know on this topic. We plan to roll up our shirtsleeves and work intensively with the group to uncover the keys to success and the likely pitfalls at each stage of the process. We’ll encourage you to bring your stories and challenges. You’ll work with one another to forge these ideas into the beginnings of a plan for your community.

So please plan to join us for the boot camp and bring your stories. Collectively we’ll forge them into a narrative of a successful community.

Technorati Tags: community2.0-bootcamp, community2.0

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120269162692857749.html

The new model creates a more trusted environment for reaching high-value, frequent purchasers, whether of airline tickets, electronics, clothes or other items. Where does that leave the less-frequent purchasers? Probably looking to their friends rather than to advertising for advice. I’m an expert on travel; my friends may look to me for hotel choices. When I’m in the mood to buy a book or a new computer, I’ll check out what my friends on Facebook are doing.

This does not mean that traditional online advertising will go away, just that it will become less effective. Value is being created in users’ own walled gardens, which they will cultivate for themselves in real estate owned by the social networks. The new value creators are companies — like Facebook and Dopplr — that know how to build and support online communities.

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Alloy Media + Marketing commissioned a study by Harris Interactive toward the end of the 2007 school year. Social networking ranked highly, and was listed as a daily activity by 54% of respondents, second only to e-mail.

More than one-quarter of respondents also said they viewed online video daily, which explains why many students listed YouTube as their favorite Web site.

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Tim O’Reilly has a great interview with Kathy Sierra about her philosophy of creating passionate users.

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