Executive Summary
The current circumstances and challenges are unparalleled in recent times. Changes in business culture are accelerating to satisfy the individual demands of customers, employees and collaborators.

In recent years Web 2.0 technologies have facilitated individual participation in generating web content and reflect a demand from internet users and at the same time acting as a catalyst for further empowerment. Enterprise 2.0 covers the deployment of these technologies for collaboration and knowledge management within the organisation.

Organisations that have already embraced Enterprise 2.0 find it contributes to many if not all areas of their business including; improved employee, customer and supplier relations; enhanced resource management and cost containment; marketing edge and perhaps most importantly innovation.

The increasing value of knowledge amid capital devaluation highlights the need for a culture change embracing the key business drivers of an organisation; their customers, markets and resources.

Enterprise 2.0 can provide solutions to enhance the performance of these key business areas, using tools that can be easily tested and verified for their Return on Investment.

KP Lite – Sneak preview from Knowledge Plaza on Vimeo.

Pic and Mix aims to increase public access to Kent-related datasets including those generated by Kent County Council (KCC). For the purposes of the pilot, we have brought together a sample of the most useful information. Where possible, it’s been provided in a format that allows it to be ‘mashed’ and customised. Please help us shape this initiative by suggesting additional data and ways in which we can improve this site. And if you do anything clever with the data, we’d like you to share that with us too! …more

Initially Applied Trends was involved on the training side, and designed and delivered a training and informational package to the pilot group of users.  Later on we redesigned the public facing site and launched what you see today as Pic and Mix.

Rather than offer my own glowing views on the project, here are some excerpts from Simon Wakeman’s blog who is Head of Marketing at Medway Council in south east England.

The site (picandmix.org.uk/) has two main parts. First up the data section shows all the different data sets that the council has managed to make available – as RSS or Excel downloads.

The second part of the site allows users to post mash-ups that they’ve produced with the data – for example using Google Maps or Yahoo Pipes.

It’s early days so there aren’t all that many mash-ups posted yet, although some early ones do give an obvious nod to the potential of this kind of thing in the future – for example the “schools by postcode” map is a simple mash-up that I would have found useful this time last yer when looking at primary schools for my son – in fact there’s no reason why this shouldn’t be on the main council site before long I expect.

At the moment most mash-ups are combining a single data set and a visualising tool (mainly maps). It’ll be interesting to see when someone posts a mash-up of multiple data sources as for me this is where the value of open data really starts to be demonstrated.

Hats off to Kent County Council for doing this – hopefully it will show other public bodies the potential for open data and we’ll start to see this kind of functionality appearing more often on main council websites.

I couldn’t have said it better myself, thanks Simon.

Ed – the SlideShare presentation has been removed for some reason.

The word vendor often has negative connotations especially when you’re exhibiting at conferences and trade shows.  The default people expect is lengthy and bullshitty sales talk, removed from the realities of what people actually want and smooth talking guys just pushing a square peg into a round hole.

As an example a few weeks ago I attended Knowledge and Content UK (KCUK) with Gregory Culpin and manned the Knowledge Plaza stand.  We were one of only 4 or 5 ‘vendors’ in attendance who’s sponsorship money helped to make the event a reality.  Things started off well, and as usual we stood out with our slightly different stand, stance and general approach.  We were there not just to promote the product, but to network, meet people share our experiences (good and bad) as practitioners and to have a good time.  To be honest, sales talk comes a definite second to conversations and sharing.  If only the other vendors were the same.

We were due to present a case study and general informational presentation on Social Software and Information Professionals in the afternoon.  However by the time we got to our designated slot the audience had already endured at least two terrible sales pitches by the other vendors.  In fact they were so bad and so blatant that people were seriously avoiding all the vendors.  Wild product claims, a lack of useful information and general ignorance of the subject matter pretty much alienated the audience.

Luckily we did manage to pull in half of a large room for our talk and we started as we would normally start by introducing ourselves, covering our personal professional backgrounds in relation to the conference and reassuring the audience this was NOT a sales pitch.  Over the next hour we shared our views, experiences and relevant product information with the audience.  We initiated dialogue, invited challenges and generally had a good time!  The aim was to educate, share and of course raise product awareness but not at the expense of the former.  The reaction?  Excellent, we immediately had people come up and congratulate us on a ’superb’ presentation which stood out from the crowd and the other vendors.

So as a summary here are my personal do’s and don’ts for vendor presentations at conferences:

Don’t;

• invent new terms around your product i.e Knowledge Management 3.0 – it’s not credible
• just talk to the audience and not converse – people get bored
• only talk about your product  – people are there to learn stuff so offer some insights into the industry at least
• be arrogant – bold arrogant claims are often sneered at whether they are true or not, so if you do make them, back them up with customer references or comments

Do;

• teach people stuff – as stated above, people are there to learn
• discuss your wins and failures – transparency is great to get the audience on side
• engage and encourage feedback and discussions
• be flexible with the approach and style – be prepared to adapt
• be seen as individuals and experts in a field – not just sales people from XYZ corp

For our next trade show and conference appearances we’re trying to find a way to present our stand and ourselves as individuals as well as product representatives.  We want to engage, educate, discuss and have fun, not just push a message!  Maybe we’ll do something like the Geek Squad and present our personalities alongside the product merchandise….I’ll let you know how it goes!

Anyway, here’s our presentation from KCUK.

Below I’m sharing a presentation format I’ve been using with Knowledge Plaza. It’s based on my original Meet Charlie and Daniel Siddle’s Meet Charlotte follow up.

This version is based on an imaginary Pharmaceutical company.

I’ve adopted this presentation style when visiting a client’s site after discussing their aims, ecosystem and aspirations.  Each slide-deck is customized to include their own tools, terminology and vision.

The feedback has been amazing.  Apparently most vendors go in with narcoleptic slide-ware without considering how their solution plays with a broader strategy.  I’m not blowing my own trumpet, merely highlighting a successful presentation style and somewhat naive but well received approach.

If you use these slides please credit me/Sid, unlike a few large consultancies I could mention who embedded my slides into their own narco-deck without a mention :-0

* the number or E2.0 projects underway
* the way people are looking at ROI in light of the financial pressures
* how vendors are positioning themselves against very tight corporate budgets

The number of companies currently running collaboration and KM2.0 initiatives is definitely down on last year, there’s no question of that.  However on the flip side people’s radars are more finely tuned for identifying potential projects when budget restrictions are finally lifted.  So it will be interesting to see where the most interest is shown and who’s case studies inspire the most discussion.

The one thing I’ve heard about past Enterprise 2.0 conferences is there has been too much hype about the ‘potential’ of social software and not enough about the real business benefits.  I don’t think that will be the case this year.  Companies don’t have the time or patience for hype, so expect to hear frank discussions on the real power of Enterprise 2.0.

I’ll be sure to attend Lee Bryant’s  session “Transition Strategies for e20 Adoption”. It’s great to have a UK ambassador like Headshift at an such a high profile conference.

The other topic I will be closely watching is how Sharepoint is discussed.  Will it get the bashing it has at previous conferences? Or will there be a widespread but reluctant acceptance of it’s enterprise 2.0 abilities?

If you are attending from the UK give me a shout, it would be good to meet up.

Note: picture courtesy of ITSinsider

One of the most annoying habits of self-appointed technology gurus, sheikhs, czars or experts is that they take their own behaviour as the basis for extrapolation to predict how the rest of the world will/could/should use tools. A side effect of this is an inability to empathise or understand the needs and culture of non-geek workers in non-technology companies. What they do as individual consultants sitting in their pyjamas in a home-office, eating Granola and ego-surfing is regarded as a template for people trying to get things done inside a corporation or a government department.

I’m glad someone is putting these sort of views out there.  I’ve been struggling with the ’scene’ for some time now in that every other person you meet nowadays is an independent consultant on something or another, often without a grounding in big company politics or IT that brings balance to their views.  I recently met a CIO of a very large company that told me that he’s sick and tired of ‘fresh’ independent gurus telling him that he needs tools like Twitter to run his business and that things like RSS are ‘dead’.

Lee also very eloquently and insightfully highlights the current state of enterprise RSS adoption, noting that it’s still motoring up the adoption curve and we’re a long way off seeing it’s wide spread ROI being realized across the corporate world.

I am convinced that enterprise RSS is only just beginning it adoption curve, and it has tremendous value to offer both individuals and groups. Solving the information needs of an individual is pretty easy. Finding better ways to co-ordinate the activities of thousands of people is a lot more difficult, and flocking from new tool to new tool every six months is not an option. Weaning people off the Outlook or Blackberry inbox for actionable information and intelligence is widely recognised as an important need, but it will take time. RSS and similar syndication approaches will be a key part of that solution.

I encourage you to read Lee’s full post.

I’m particularly looking forward to seeing R. Todd Stephens take to the stage and hear about his work at AT&T.  It’s billed to be a great event and well worth the trip from the UK.

If you are going to be in town on these dates please do let me know and say hi!

Info:

• Keynotes and General Sessions
• 30% off Standard Price

We are very pleased to be able to bring you the second ScotWeb2 event on June 19th 2009 once again taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Have you heard of twitter, Facebook and You Tube and want to know more ? This event will appeal to the following

• ICT people ; teachers ; life-long learners ; communications ; marketing ; PR
  
• ICT Developers. programmers ; social media ; digital enablers
  
• Campaigners from NGO and third sector
  
• Public, private and third sector employees
  
• Business and social enterprises
• Academics ; students ; FE and HE
• Health ; Police ; Fire services
  

This follows on from the success of our first ScotWeb2 event last October

The event showcases enterprising, innovative and entrepreneurial behaviours in the web 2 world