Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston: Workshops, June 14th

I have been going through my notes and the presentation slides from the various workshop sessions I attended on June 14th, at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference— a TechWeb Live event, held recently at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel (connected to the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center), from June 14th through 17th.

(I attended the Workshop Day on a free media pass; I wasn’t able to attend the entire conference, due to scheduling conflicts that very busy week in Boston, and at my own work-place. Next year, I will try to schedule more time off, for this very worthwhile four-day event.)

According to the E2 Boston Conference site, “Enterprise 2.0 is the term for the technologies and business practices that liberate the workforce from the constraints of legacy communication and productivity tools like email.”

“It provides business managers with access to the right information at the right time through a web of inter-connected applications, services, and devices. Enterprise 2.0 makes accessible the collective intelligence of many, translating to a huge competitive advantage in the form of increased innovation, productivity, and agility.”

Cutting Edge Sponsors, Presenters, and Participants

Through sponsored presentations and keynotes (still available online), I am in the process of learning how major vendors like Cisco, IBM, Infosys, and Microsoft are making Enterprise 2.0 a reality in the work-place through their respective products, as well as learning about the significant innovations of many smaller, up and coming companies.

All I can say is—wow, the depth of information I received, and the quality of the presentations I now have access to through the Enterprise 2.0 site, is really first-rate, and takes time to absorb, because of the sheer volume of information, and its comprehensive nature.

1,400 Business and IT Professionals in One Place

According to TechWeb’s Natalia Wodecki and Joylyn Tanner, Enterprise 2.0 Boston was “a successful event, presenting [its] largest program yet, with 120 speakers in over 60 sessions, and welcoming nearly 1,400 business and IT professionals.”

[Enterprise 2.0] had more than 40 exhibitors, 27 of which were brand new to the event, from the leading start ups to the big-name vendors, including IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Novell, and Cisco.

As you know, Cisco made major news at the event demoing Quad’s capabilities, while other vendors also made some major announcements, proving the Enterprise 2.0 Conference was the choice event to introduce their innovative products that are helping businesses transition to Enterprise 2.0.

In addition to attending the workshops, I also met some very smart, fun people, in a lively environment, with lots of opportunities to connect, over lunch-time, or after hours, at various events for attendees, including cocktail receptions (sponsored separately, by Microsoft, Cisco, and Saba), not to mention the opportunity to take an early summer cruise on the Spirit of Boston (sponsored by IBM).

Given all of the above, I understand why Dion Hinchcliffe (my favorite workshop presenter) praises the event, so enthusiastically, at his Web 2.0 blog:

I’ve been attending (and speaking) at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston since before it was called that (years ago, it used to be called the Collaborative Technologies Conference.)  It remains the only must-attend event in the enterprise social software space for a number of reasons.  It’s not that there aren’t plenty of good Enterprise 2.0 conferences out there that compete, there certainly are. Yet none of them has quite achieved the iconic status of the Boston edition of the event, which has gone on in the last year to spawn West Coast and online instances.

Kicking Off an Enterprise 2.0 Series

Here are the workshops I attended on Monday, June 14th:

• Implementing Enterprise 2.0: Exploring the Tools and Techniques of Emergent Change #e2conf-2
• Insider’s Guide to Evaluating and Selecting Social Software #e2conf-5
• The Microsoft Social Computing Workshop: Everything You Need To Know #e2conf-7
• Evening in the Cloud #e2conf

I’ll be sharing information from these and other excellent E2 keynotes and presentations, in a series of related posts this summer. Stay tuned.

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