What makes conferences special? Is it the athmosphere, is it people, is it food? Is it after-conference provision of videos or blog posts?

Well, even when I say that it’s easier to scan through blog posts after conferences sometimes having video content available is just cool. TED is in fact offering many cases in point (and I am waiting for the idea of organized TED video screenings to take off), reboot videos are probably a good example too. Then there’s the LIFT conference, a

[…] series of events built around a community of pioneers who get together in Europe and Asia to explore the social implications of new technologies. Each conference is a chance to turn changes into opportunities by anticipating the major shifts ahead, and meeting the people who drive them.”

Some of the talks are free to see, like the one from John Thackara on Changing the Planet:

[…] gives a provocative talk about the role of design in finding solutions to the ecological crisis. After inviting us to avoid terms such as “future” or “sustainable” as they maintain a certain distance to the problem we face, he shows a rich set of projects he participated in. He makes the important point that the resources to be put in place already exist and that they might not necessitate complex technological developments.

And there’s also Bruce Sterling, who talks about the “Internet of things”:

[if it was] just about adding chips, antennas and interactivity to the things we own, it would be no big deal. Discover a wholly different perspective: Open, unfinished objects which can be transformed and reprogrammed by their users; Objects that document their own components, history, lifecycle; Sensitive and noisy objects that capture, process, mix and publish information. Discover an Internet of Things which intends to transform the industrial world as deeply as the current Internet transformed the world of communication and media.

From an collaboration (or shall I say organizational structures and design, or even more cheekily, Enterprise 2.0) point of view this little talk by Lee Bryant is most interesting, take 5 minutes of your time and see if you’re a traditionalist like him:

Equally interesting (but with no video to be checked out so far) are the talks by Marc Giget (Cnam) and Catherine Fieschi, Counterpoint/British Council on Changing Innovation:
First one on the end of IT (#yesyesyes), where Euan Semple got involved obviously (as living and walking proof for “Social computing for the business world”), second one on “Innovating with the non-innovators”:

• Today, corporate information systems are innovation’s worst enemies. They set organizations and processes in stone. They restrict the enterprise’s horizons and its networks. They distort its view of the world. But ferments of change emerge. Meet those who breathe new air into current organizations, those who design tomorrow’s Innovation Systems.
• Innovating used to be a job in itself. It has become a decentralized procès which includes, in no particular order, researchers, entrepreneurs, designers, artists, activists, and users who reinvent the products they were supposed to consume. Why is that important? What does it really change? And where will it stop? WILL it stop somewhere?

I think that both points are of interest to Enterprise 2.0 practitioners (who are – when they understand their job right – designing tomorrow’s IT systems, err, innovation systems), while catering for both the needs of their corporate users and allowing for the freeform emergence of user-contributed solutions. And yes, it’s funny in a way that “old and basic” tools like wikis excel at both of these tasks …