I am about to hop into the car, to quickly catch a plane to get to Rome for the IBM Information on Demand EMEA conference – an event focusing on information management and analytics (including a heavy leaning towards Enterprise Content Management and Enterprise 2.0, yes, too).

The agenda is clear: Detailing information strategies that bring or sustain competitive advantage.

Yes, providing just the right information timely and accurately (well, I expect to hear about business intelligence, reporting, decision support systems, management information systems et al.) to provide business insight and wisdom (how do we get from data to information to knowledge to “I know and know how to act and decide”). Collaboration is essential here – it’s got a place in adding meaning, insight, experience and eventually connected, shared understanding to information. While this “socially intermediated knowledge” may be more tacit and fuzzy (mustn’t be a bad thing) it’s also potentially quite trustable (a whole bunch of interesting questions are popping up here, ie. how do we tell which source of infomation is trustworthy? how do we evaluate, tag and classify our social sources? does social proximity mean more than perceived level of expertise? on and on …)

I am really happy to be able to participate in this event*, and the opportunity to hear keynote speaker Magnus Lindkvist:

[who] will address the challenge of having too much information, suggest new filters to extract useful information, and explore new lenses with which to see the world that, in turn, can be used to go above and beyond market expectations.

Hmm, new lenses sounds interesting – I assume this will mean a combination of principles, methods and tools, of which the tools are probably the most easy to grasp (not to say that the Cognos Business Intelligence cloud doesn’t sound impressive)? Applications and processes are another perspective to check out, and I think that’s where the conference is kicking in, ie. exploring “independent foundational information tools”, “enterprise information plans and roadmaps”, how to leverage “industry specific expertise and assets for rapid time to value” (sic!), “centralizing best practices by establishing competency centers” and all in all “getting [us all] started on [our] information-led transformation journey”. All “quotes” were snipped from the information agenda obviously:

What is the information agenda?
IBM’s Information Agenda approach has a proven track record of helping companies in your size and industry respond and adapt quickly to unpredictable, up-to-the-minute changes in information, whether it’s on a global level, or the next cube over.
Utilizing IBM’s best-in-class software and consulting services, this approach is designed to help your business develop a customized implementation roadmap in a matter of weeks. What’s more, our solutions can also help you reduce IT spending by leveraging existing investments.

And there’s also a part on social media, I guess here we’ll explore the relations between internal social media, konowledge and innovation management and the tweaking of business models (by leveraging cute technologies). And that’s exactly my cup of tea, so I am looking forward to joining the discussions:

Social media are platforms for interaction and relationships, and have the potential and power to affect everyone in your business – sales, marketing and technical employees – as well as your customers, investors, analysts and the press. Meet some of the social media experts from IBM at IOD EMEA 2010 who can help you better understand social media, decide whether or not it’s appropriate to use in your business model, and if so, how to get started using key tools to grow your business.

So follow the official blogger blog, search for the hashtag #iod2010,  watch the livestream of general sessions and keynote speakers and if you’re there don’t hesitate to stop and say hello. I am not sure what and when I can share stuff, obviously the wifi needs some kind words.

* Disclaimer and disclosure – 1. IBM invited me to the event and covers T&E 2. I know and like both geeks and suits at IBM – trust me, I will disclose if it’s important for you to know …