Enterprise 2.0 as a field under construction

The Enterprise 2.0 conference is over and it was all worth it. I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere, the talks and above all meeting so many people whose work I value and follow. And Boston as a town is fun too, I am now sitting in the lovely Coop Bookstore at Harvard place, hooked up on the Wi-Fi to see how Denmark is doing against Cameroon and to blog and tweet. So what’s the score for Enterprise 2.0, now that another important event has passed?

Well, I think it’s still a field under construction, all systems normal – but it’s also promising and rapidly evolving. This industry is forward-looking and the value of the field is now validated (not by numbers or cases – 1.500 attendees are pretty impressive still, as are the numbers of exhibitors – but rather by the quality and matureness of the talks and discussions and by the case studies and experiences of those engaged in it). It’s now necessary to really show and tell companies how to leverage it (less complicated for tools, way more complex in terms of Enterprise 2.0 paradigms, principles and methods) to improve business performance, processes and overall company fitness. Now, more companies begin to make significant investments in Enterprise 2.0 platforms, following the early adopters. And they all know that they are in this for the long haul (and plan for a longer journey without shortcuts, avoid cargo cult imitation and thus may head for sustainable success).

Some of my other learnings include:
– I like this town, its systems of public transportation and the attitude of its people, though there are times when you wonder a bit. I don’t like that you have to pay the equivalent of 6€ for a regular beer, on the other hand this is probably a good thing too …
– a new acronym – HiPPOs – the Highest Paid Person in the Organization via Andrew McAfee’s keynote (on the four tensions of Enterprise 2.0). I like funny metaphors.
– live-waving and -documenting during a conference is demanding (I either need more collaborators on this or a time-machine, hint). Some more thoughts on this later.
– interesting that both sessions I probably enjoyed the most were kind of “sandwiching” the actual conference, ie. the Monday all-day workshop of the 2.0 Adoption Council and Thursday’s Enterprise 2.0 townhall meeting. This mustn’t worry the people in between like the keynote speakers – the format of discussing in a smaller group like on Monday is very hard to beat.

In the townhall meeting (acting as both “time to look back and review” and forum) we agreed that integration, processes, (organizational) culture and finally metrics and the corresponding approaches to (understand) the measuring of success must be topics to watch more, as they were spared a bit from this year.

Besides this, what was missing from the mix at #e2conf that can be dealt with next time? Legal and technocratic aspects of Enterprise 2.0 (or they were sailing out of my sight, hmm, I heard some small mentioning of compliance). Dealing with the technological underpinnings (good thing). And more interestingly: Tackling the complexities of organizational psychology and the changing nature of leadership in a social web world. Organizational development and its established and able set of methods and tools (this one really should be a natural fit as its paradigms and principles are very fitting to those of Enterprise 2.0 and it may inform and help us dealing with that big, hairy thing called culture).

So I am now planning for the next #e2conf planned for Santa Clara in November (the call for papers is open). I would love to be there again and am thus thinking of handing in a proposal (there’s an idea that emerged between the european crowd in a pause outside the Westin, it needs some flesh but it sounds interesting so far 😉

ps. Yes, visiting the refurbished frogpond has to wait till next time in Boston. Above the sad reality of my trip there on Friday, all empty and no ducks or frogs in sight. But construction work is necessary at times, and it helps in building a nicer environment for us all …

Enterprise 2.0 conference day 3 keynotes

OK, more live-waving in here – actual blogposts coming up too (but these need more time than this reckless note-taking):

Live-waving the #e2conf keynotes

Not many words in the actual blogpost, but many more in here:

Workshop Day at #e2conf

It’s the first day at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston and the place is buzzing (alas, only literally). I am in the Blackbelt Practitioners Workshop, designed and held by members of the 20 Adoption council, agenda is like this:

Planning and executing a comprehensive Enterprise 2.0 program requires an honest assessment of your organization and strong strategic planning. In this full-day workshop meet the vanguard of those who are currently engaged in implementing Enterprise 2.0 within large organizations. Learn firsthand from practitioners who have tackled adoption, architecture, change management, community management, education, governance, and the realities of living an Enterprise 2.0 transformative experience.

Besides a lot of Twitter updates some action is happening in the designated wave for the workshop, so far it’s restricted to the participants for writing (and they really should do this more, it’s basically me doing the typing …) but anonymous read-only access should work out too:


Shipping up to places, this time: Boston

For most people I know travelling is a hassle best avoided. Not so for me. I am still pretty fond of it, even when it isn’t normally the most productive of times for me (which opens up the side question of why airports, train stations and most hotels don’t offer some free wifi as a complimentary service?). Some of the good things include:

– free newspapers on planes (and I do enjoy sifting through paper not screens at times) and if you’re kind you may even get a few free drinks
– depending on airline even the food is good on the planes (Iberia was pretty neat this time)
– on a 7 hour flight one can write some blog posts drafts – provided you’re able to take a capable laptop with you

And travelling can provide you with some very welcome inspiration, perspective and (sometimes) outright mind-blowing stuff you learn when you look and observe closely (this guy caressing his Kindle on the airport in Madrid – and a total absence of iPads so far; getting a cold douche refresher on how different we Europeans are after all; how easy-going and nice-to-have the regular traveling American can be; how I enjoy the coffehouse-bookstore hybrid, pictured left is the Trident bookstorecafé).

So it’s fitting that travelling is a prerequisite to meeting most people from my Enterprise 2.0 consulting industry – for instance when I was at Lotusphere 2010 in January I’ve met Marcia Connor in person (after following her on the internets, esp. twitter for a while) – and we’ll meet each other again, when I was in London for the Social Business Summit meeting people alone rendered my trip worthwhile. It’s an easy formula: No travel – no meeting my worldwide peergroup. And hanging out together on the internet has some obvious time-zone downsides you only avoid by travelling.

So it’s a good idea to make the trip cross the pond at times to meet these people that don’t come to Europe regularly. Valid for the US share of Enterprise 2.0 people (practitioners and vendors both don’t care so much for travelling to Europe in E2.0 business, for the latter ones this is a bit strange. With consultants and thought-leaders it’s a totally different story).

And this time it’s the Enterprise 2.0 conference, starting here in Boston on Monday. For this I’ve got a lot of mails and contact requests by vendors in the last days. Sorry guys, I haven’t reacted that much, one reason is that I don’t know yet what my schedule will look like (I am registered as press and sometimes press they’ve got some press appointments, treats or who knows – I would bet on it being here similar), the other reason being that I planned to browse around the exhibition venue on my own terms, check out what’s interesting and seek more information when necessary. So I may turn out to be not a totally lost contact, OK?

OK, my timetable for Monday to Thursday is filling with sessions and things to see and do quickly (starting with Dion Hinchcliffe early Monday morning), some peer-group socializing, tweet-ups and odd small-talk in the halls. I am probably waving a bit, too. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with me and the others there or in real life – I traveled a long distance for exactly this 😉

Upcoming: BarCamp Bodensee 2010

Well, buzzing a lot prevents me from blogging more – sad truths of an ever evolving digital smarter work knowledge worker’s lifestyle. But then again, other than with Google buzz (and this movie we all know and love) the first rule of BarCamp is “You talk about BarCamp”.

And the http://barcampbodensee.mixxt.eu/ this weekend is something we better talk about – an international event, attracting people from France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark et al.

Denmark? Yes, I am happy that Kim Bach is making the trip from Copenhagen. I met him last year at reboot – another international event drawing geeks in literally droves – and we had the great time that’s facilitated by an athmosphere of kindness to strangers and intellectual curiosity. Yes, my reboot experiences are fueled by both the shared understanding and the sparkling contrarian discussions – it’s a very special climate and I am sad that this year will be a year of breath-taking and pausing (there’s a substitute for those that can’t live without their yearly rebooting fix experience). And for crying out loud I can’t even make it to the Ersatz because I’ve got a major event lined up. More on that later.

For now, let’s blog about the proposed sessions at #bcbs10, there’s some interesting stuff in there, my selection:

You see, I am cheating a bit about the interesting proposed sessions, but I really do hope that we can do some collaborative, live-documenting the BarCamp in Wave this year:


Yes, that’s the second rule of BarCamp: You blog wave about BarCamp …

Upcoming: DNUG Workshop am 9. Juni

Ja, das steht auch vor der Tür – nächste Woche in Berlin bei der Frühjahrskonferenz der deutschen Notes User Group:

In dem Social Media Workshop am 9. Juni gehen Stefan Pfeiffer, Marketing Manager Lotus, IBM Deutschland,  Thorsten Zoerner, Solution Architect Business -Experte bei der IBM, Martin Koser, Enterprise 2.0-Berater und Blogger, und Lars Basche, Social Media Consultant bei Text 100, auf diese und weitere Fragen ein und geben Antworten. Die Teilnehmer erhalten einen Einblick in die Möglichkeiten, die Social Media ihnen im internen und externen Einsatz eröffnen und bekommen Tipps für ihre konkrete Situation.

Ich freue mich darauf die Notes & Connections Familie wieder zu treffen und bin gespannt welchen Verlauf der Workshop dieses mal nehmen wird (hier der Blogpost zur Diskussionsrunde bei der Herbstkonferenz in Fulda 2009). Spannende Fragen gibt es ja genug, Stefan hat hier einige davon gesammelt: “Wie sollten Unternehmen anfangen mit Social Media? Worauf sollten sie achten, um nicht in Fettnäpfchen zu treten? Welche Relevanz haben Social Media im B2B-Umfeld? Wie bereitet man seine Mitarbeiter vor, welche Hilfestellungen benötigen sie? Was ist machbar und was nicht? Wie behält man bei der Informationsflut den Überblick und trennt Relevantes von Unwichtigem? Welche Ziele können erreicht werden und wie lässt sich Erfolg messen?”

Mein Part wird es sein, die Implementierungs- und Change Management Aspekte herauszuarbeiten, und damit den Teilnehmern Wege aufzuzeigen, die gangbar sind. Natürlich sind die Erfolgsfaktoren von “Corporate Social Media” abhängig vom Kontext des jeweiligen Unternehmens, dennoch lassen sich hier schon einige generische (und eine Reihe von praktischen) Erfahrungen und Best Practices vermitteln.