Announcing Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum: Sydney, 19 February 2008

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Future Exploration Network is running an Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum in Sydney on 19 February 2008. The event website is at www.futureexploration.net/e2ef.

The official description and current speakers are below. I also thought it was worth providing a bit of background to the event.

The genesis was at our Web 2.0 in Australia event, which was such a big success that it was clear we should do more on related topics. The event was at complete capacity, and we had to turn away all applications for two weeks before the event. Having been deeply involved in the enterprise space for many years, including working extensively on corporate knowledge management strategies in the 1990s, writing about corporate blogging in 2002 in my book Living Networks, organizing the Collaboration in Financial Services conference in New York in 2003, and applying network analysis to organizations globally for many years now, Enterprise 2.0 was an obvious topic to move on to. For well over five years now I have closely followed the application of Web 2.0 and social media tools inside organizations. This is now not only a mainstream business topic, it is also a phenomenon that over the next years will help transform how organizations work.

Close to two years ago I wrote a blog post on The sorry state of Australian corporate blogging, reflecting on how slow Australian organizations have been in taking up these tools. Progress has been slow since then, though I believe we’re reaching a turning point now. The main intention of the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum in Sydney is to accelerate the pace of uptake of social media tools by organizations in Australia. This will require a few things:

Clarifying the meaning of Enterprise 2.0. This will be assisted by tools such as our Web 2.0 Framework, as well as the extensive content from ourselves, speakers and partners that will be featured on the event blog and website.

Showcasing relevant case studies. These will be of Australian companies that are actively engaged in Enterprise 2.0. They preferably shouldn’t be technology companies, because it is too easy for other companies to say that they’re different. They also need to be Australian, so there is no excuse about different conditions here. However we will also have access to international experience through the participation of Andrew McAfee of Harvard Business School and Euan Semple, who has overseen a very successful Enterprise 2.0 project at the BBC.

Addressing concerns. Particularly in a conservative corporate culture, concerns on control and security needs to be addressed. One of the most fundamental aspects of successful Enterprise 2.0 implementation is governance, both in a traditional IT governance sense, and also in gaining comfort with the role of new tools in organizational work and activity.

Identifying success factors. The Forum is very much targetted at executives, who are interested in how business results are achieved. While there is no easy five step plan to success any company can implement, we expect to clarify how the chance of valuable business outcomes can be maximized.

I’ll be posting a lot more about this both on this blog and our Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum blog, which will also include content from our speakers, partners and event attendees. This has just kicked off, but will see a lot more activity soon.

I will be speaking on getting business results from Enterprise 2.0 at KMWorld in Silicon Valley next week. The conference this year is titled KM 2.0: A New World for the Enterprise, positioning the event squarely in the Enterprise 2.0 space. I have spoken at a number of KMWorld conferences before, but not for a few years now. It is the largest event of its kind globally, so it will be great to get an overview of some of the best practice currently. I’ll report back after the event.

For now, here’s a quick overview of the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum event.

About Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum

Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum will provide a pragmatic overview of how Web 2.0 and social media technologies are being applied inside the enterprise to create business value. This unique half-day event will be centred on case studies of how leading Australian and global organisations have benefited from these technologies, and the key factors in successful implementation.

Enterprise 2.0 tools include:

• Blogs

• Wikis

• Online applications

• Social networks

• Podcasts and video

• RSS

• Tagging

• Mashups

• Virtual worlds

The line-up of speakers and presenters is far from complete, but already includes:

• David Backley, Chief Technology Officer, Westpac Banking Corporation

• Ross Dawson, Chairman, Future Exploration Network

• Joshua Gliddon, IT Editor, Australian Financial Review

• Brian Haverty, Editorial Director, CNET Australia

• Andrew McAfee, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School (by video)

• Sheryle Moon, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Information Industry Association

• Euan Semple, Independent Advisor, Social computing for the business world (by video)