My Webcom 2009 in a few words

You may have a few ideas of what I liked at webcom if you followed my twitts yesterday, but before going deeper into each topic into future posts, here’s what I found really interesting. Some thoughts, ideas, favorites in a jumble

• Don’t refuse abnormality because it’s tomorrow’s normality. Cycles from the one to the other are getting shorter and shorter. Companies have to understand what something that is abnormal today means. It’s, once again, a matter of culture and its impact on decision making and organizational performance.

• “Open is the future”. Open stack, open mesh, open social.. But there are cases when, according to me, it can be counter productive. Anyway it’s the best (and only ?) mean to fight against personal fragmentation on many social platforms, private or corporate, and to turn into a platform centric world into a people centric one. Everything can be portable, not everything must be. Toward an “open governance” ?

• Turning the pyramid model into a network. Nice, I wrote about that this morning. But this just don’t happen by luck and a preliminary analysis is desirable. I was really impressed by Jessica Lipnack (Netage) presentations and the use of the l’Orgscope. According to me it’s an essential approach to design an enterprise 2.0 project, knowing that it as to articulate with the actual corporate structure and its purpose which is to produce, deliver processes. But it implies a deep understanding of how things are actually getting done today.

• Then came the “usual suspect”. Companies are facing challenges that will force them to adopt new tools. Even if there’s nothing new for those who know him, Claude’s approach, relying on demographic, sociological elements and cross-generation dynamics is still relevant. More than the “2.0″ dream that relies on unexpected serendipity miracles. Another traditional issue is open innovation about which Innocentive is still relevant according to its deep experience and their record of achievements.

• And a little “family touch to end. The very refreshing presentation made by Cyrille de Lasteyrie (CEO  Hellotipi) had two interests. The first was to show how a strong message could be delivered through storytelling without mentionning a product or service. The second is that he made us think about the sociological dimension of social media, about people’s concerns about privacy an about cross-generations dynamics that are made possible by massive social media adoption within the society. I have no doubt that businesses will have a lot to learn  to what will happen in these family networks because the person that walks though his office’s door is the same than the one who shares pictures of his baby with his family. Beyond constrained behavioral changes, his expectations and fears remain the same in his mind.

A last word about the conference itself. Wifi worked perfectly well what does not happen so often in such events. But it was a pity for all those who couldn’t attend that the streaming didn’t work (but all the videos will be put online soon).

It was my second time at webcom (always in may…I’m affraid of the weather at the november session ;-) ). I attend very few conferences to protect myself from the “bowl” effect : always being with people who think like you often makes you forget the “real enterprise”. Here, a lot of “real” people, looking for answers to their concerns, I really had the impression that something is transmitted instead of self-contragulating among “experts”. Of course, there were the speeches (interesting, no bla-bla that only highlight the speaker without any value for the audience), the business contacts…but also a human contact with the people, the city, I hardly find elswhere. A business event that makes you feel well is so rare…

It’s really worth crossing the ocean. Anyway, we don’t have such a “web, business and enterprise” conference in France. A real pity.

Entreprise 2.0, hiérarchie, innovation participative, montreal, netAge, open innovation, organigrammes, organisation, orgscope, réseaux-sociaux, web-2.0, webcom, webcom2009,décision,performance organisationnelle,

Webcom 2009 : My schedule

As promised, this is the schedule of the speeches I’ll attend tomorrow. We shared the work out with the other bloggers.

We will all cover the plenary keynotes, and I’ll focus more particularly on :

• 8h50 : Case Study : Who do you think we are? Opening our information architecture to the outside world.Maybe you’ll wonder what’s in it for me. My purpose will be to rely on this case in order to understand if it can apply to an internal problematic and to what extent employees can be involved in the design of the corporate information system.

• 10h00 : The New Normal: the Web as a High-Performance Tool in a Shifting Economy. You can guess why I will attend just by reading the summary. At the same time, I would have liked to hear Caroline Allard speaking about Corporate Indentity through Social Networks for obvious reasons. It doesn’t matter since Caroline promised me an individual interview, what will make it simplier for me to have her insights on more specific issues.

• 10h40 : Real intranet tools to boost communication & innovation in the enterprise.  No need to explain….

• 11h20 : Open Innovation – the fuel for growth and change. Essential, isn’t it ? It’s been such a long time I’ve been looking at what Innocentive is doing…

• 14h10 : Knowledge, skills, and information-sharing: balancing new technology and human potential to add value to your organisation

• 14h50 : Panel: Data Portability does this means something for YOU ! ? My purpose here is to get the essential basics in order, afterwards, to widen it to internal corporate issues and, later again to think about data portability between personal and business platforms. People are more and more torn between many platforms to the same things in different contexts although they are only one unique person. I don’t think this unproductive situation will be able to last a long time at the current pace.

So, see you tomorrow on twitter, starting at 8h00. I think I’ll make live coverage, trying to add a thought here and there. I’ll try to mix french and english in order to please all my followers. Afterwards I’ll try to provide you with more deeper analysis. It may take a little time since my days are unfortunately only 24hrs long ;-) and I want to take the most from my vacation week in Montreal and see all my friends here.

Humm…. and don’t limit yourself to me. On twitter (and elsewhere) the official tag will be… webcom2009

conférence, Entreprise 2.0, montreal, web2.0, webcom, webcom2009

Webcom is next wednesday

After having been a speaking last year, I’ll be attending Webcom Montreal as “official blogger”. This year again the schedule is very promising.

I’ve almost decided what speeches I’m going to listen (some choices have still to be made because some of them will occur at the same time).

Since I’ve never liked live blogging (no need to write deep analysis, lack of hindsight), I think I will :

• Make a live coverage on twitter (make sure you’re follwing me at  http://www.twitter.com/bduperrin if not done already).

• In the following days and weeks, deeper analysis of things that grab my attention.

• Maybe some interviews of….whom I want

I’ll try to publish my own schedule on tuesday evening in order you know when you need to follow me…or not.

By the way, which speeches would you attend if you were there ? Which of them are right into you concerns ? Maybe your inputs will help me to make my choices…

Web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0 : two healthy corpses

An interesting trend in a tough context when, just the once won’t hurt, many people are predictingt the death of what’s nor been mainstream for at last half a century.

Claude told me this afternoon that  Webcom Montreal will break its record with more than 450 attendees tomorrow, making it the biggest french speaking web event worldwide.

• 400 people from the biggest international companies registered to attend blueKiwi 2009 version launch event (with  Jon and Stowe as special speaking guests).

• Registrations are not closed yet but the web08 conference still attracts hundreds of attendees from all over the world.

My opinion ?

Like I said a few days ago, when crisis come, comapnies focus on business. Comme je le disais il y a quelques temps, en temps de crise les entreprises se recentrent sur le business. And their thoughts take them to consider new levers as the old ones recently showed their limits. And they find some interesting tracks in the dynamics enterprise 2.0 makes possible. What was previously mainly about curiosity is now more vital, what may explain the success of more business centric events compared to more general public ones.

In brief, business now see in web 2.0 and its declinations new supports for new business approaches instead of tools that may be experienced.

Ps : for those who want to attend LeWeb08, you can have a 20% discount by clicking here.

Enterprise 2.0, Management 2.0, HR 2.0 and Culture 2.0 according to Jon Husband

As I wrote earlier, for most of Webcom audience, Jon Husband’s Keynote was the most impressive (actually it seems he enjoyed it too)

Jon had the kindness to send me his slides so I can share some of them with you.

[Read more...]

Webcom in review

Here are the key ideas I’d like to point out from the Webcom conference in Montreal.

Honor to whom honor is due, let’s start with Andrew McAfee. I’m not sure people who have been following him for years did really learn anything new. But those who just begin to try to get into the enterprise 2.0 must have had an excellent global overview of the new challenges their companies will have to face in the coming years.

Well, anyway there are some points I found interesting.

Perharps I’m being mistaken but it seems to me he improved if definition of enterprise 2.0 from “use of web 2.0 tools within the enterprise” to ” use of emergent social software within companies or between companies and their partners or customers”. I think it makles a lot of sense. First because “social” seems to be more relevant than “web 2.0 ” since they don’t define tools by their origin but by what they make possible. Second because including partners and clients is more realistic in a global context which force enterprise not to be standalone players anymore but make them a part a of global ecosystem.

[Read more...]

Let’s meet at Webcom Montreal on May 14th

That’s not a fresh new but late is better than never. I’ll speak at the Webcom Conference in Montreal on may 14th.Ca n’est pas une information de première fraicheur mais mieux vaut tard que jamais. Je ferai partie du plateau des intervenants lors de la prochaine conférence qui se tiendra le 14 mai à Montréal.

The schedule is very promising with generalist keynotes and three tracks dedicated to enterprise 2.0, marketing 2.0 and solutions 2.0. Note it’s the first time enterprise 2.0 has it’s own track at Webcom.

Speakers are also very interesting : I will finally have to see Andrew McAfee in the flesh, as well as Scott Gavin, John Husband or Brian Eisenberg. On the french side, Fred Cavazza, Xavier Aucompte and Vincent Berthelot will be there too.

You still can register,it think it’s worth the trip.

As good news never come alone, I’ll be on vacations at this time so I’ll have time to meet those who want (leave me time to go sightseeing…). I’ll be in Montreal from the 13 to the 18th. Before that I’ll visit my family in Toronto (8-12) and will take advantage of the opportunity to visit my “friend” Rex Lee.

It seems that Claude is planing a Yulbiz on the 13th. It would be a great idea.

This will be a very special day for me. As a matter of fact I started my french blog on may 14th 2005 and I was far from thinking it would take me so far… At this time I even didn’t new about the “Enterprise 2.0″ word and I was only focused on HR issues…serendipity makes wonders !