Web 2.0 for Business: Innovation, The New New Internet, and Change

It's been a whirlwind week of Web 2.0 events and I've had a chance to meet a lot of new folks in the last few days and discuss Web 2.0 and how it applies to life and business.  The biggest and most significant event was undoubtedly Wednesday's The New New Internet: Web 2.0 for Business which I helped organize and run here in the DC/Virginia metro area.  Held at the Tysons Corner Ritz-Carlton, the event showed clearly the sustained interest there is in Web 2.0 strategies for business and related topics , and I'm pleased say we had a terrific bunch of speakers and a great audience both.

Though Web 2.0 as applied to business definitely interests a smaller group of people than a general Web 2.0 discussion, it was felt that the topic is still just in the beginning stages of growth, has been underrepresented due to the general consumer hype Web 2.0 gets, and was especially suitable given the conference's proximity to the nation's capital, particularly given the number of large companies and government agencies locally which have expressed interest in how Web 2.0 might apply to them.

It's worth giving a run-down of the particulars of the conference and some of the terrific blog and news coverage of the event for those that weren't able to make it.  Also, I'd like to thank leading-edge Web 2.0 technology firms JackBe and Nexaweb for their terrific support of the conference as well as numerous other sponsors which helped make it possible.

A Fast-Paced and In-Depth Day of Web 2.0 and Business

The day opened up with a rousing speech by Secretary of Technology for the State of Virginia, Aneesh Chopra, who gave quite a talk about technology, the state government, and how they are Web 2.0 capabilities on the state's Web sites for things like online support communities for Iraq veterans and improving job prospects for the less affluent in the south of the state.   Aneesh introduced the day's first keynote speaker, Jobster CEO, Jason Goldberg.

Jason provided a pretty compelling video introduction of the television coverage Web 2.0 has been getting on major media including CNN and then launched into an exploration of Web 2.0 and what it means to him.  His layperson explanation of Web 2.0 (Web 1.0 = Get it online and Web 2.0 = Make it work) came in at a good level for an audience that seem squarely mixed between business folks and technical people.  See below for more details about Jason's talk from Web 2.0 local Ken Yarmosh.

Jason was followed up by Rajen Sheth of Google Enterprise who gave quite a lucid and far ranging overview of the way Google looks at Web 2.0 as well as where the online software market is going including open platform-based application hosting, something Google has been getting increasingly involved with as they release more and more business software online that range from Writely to Google Spreadsheets. Best Concept Discussed: Search has become the most effective navigation paradigm.

After this and right before lunch I hosted a panel to discuss where Web 2.0 is taking business.  We had a great cast of Web 2.0 CTOs and CEOs including Chris Heidelberger of Nexaweb , John Crupi of JackBe , David Temkin of Laszlo Systems , and Jeff Crigler of Voxant .  Our hour-long discussion ranged far and wide and included how rich Internet applications are fairly resistent to indexing and search, to the trend of businesses using software as a service and outsourcing over the Web to solve business problems instead of asking IT deparments for help.  We also touched on whether adding social features to business applications is considered too at risk for distracting employees and much more.

To keep the energy level up, the conference didn't break for lunch and had it served while Web 2.0 ubberblogger and up-and-coming "media 2.0 baron" Michael Arrington of TechCrunch spoke to the audience on "What's Next".  Mike gave one of the more humorous presentations of the day that was also packed with informative analysis on the good, the bad, and ugly of Web 2.0 software today (Good: Digg , Bad: Jigsaw ).  He also presented some terrific analysis of how to be successful in the Web 2.0 era (unfortunately, being lucky topped the list).  Best line (paraphrased): "Be warned that I tend to make blanket incendiary statements when someone asks me a question about something I said in my presentation."  See links below for more coverage.

After lunch, Hart Rossman of SAIC gave an in-depth presentation on Enterprise Web 2.0 and its convergence with service-oriented architecture (SOA), a topic that I find important and write about frequently.  Ross especially dived into the details of how mashups and bringing outside Web services into the enterprise are going to have unique and difficult security challenges and he tackled a tough subject head-on and introduced the new SafeSOA initiative to the audience, which aims to solve, among other things, the issues around using Web 2.0 APIs and platforms within the enterprise.

Microsoft's Michael Platt , from their architecture strategy group, came up next and gave an hour-long tour that ranged far across the landscape of the Internet, the history of computing and how things like Web 2.0 (like the PC and minicomputer revolutions) are recurring phenomona.  Mike talks about user generated content, mobile Web 2.0, Microsoft's Live intiative, the Red vs. Blue videos that young people are generated by recording XBox Live games, and much more including the Chevy Apprentice campaign, one of my favorite social computing stories.  Microsoft has the responsibility of successfuly guiding hundreds of millions of consumers and millions of businesses through the increasingly social jungle that is the Web's next generation and Mike gave a great overview.  And given the time, Mike wasn't even able to discuss major MS-related Web 2.0 news like Soapbox , Microsoft's new YouTube play.

After that, Jeremy Geelan hosted a highly-interactive panel on Web 2.0 and monetization that featured TJ Kang, founder & CEO of ThinkFree , Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint , Robin ‘Roblimo’ Miller, Editor-in-Chief of OSTG , and Sean Frazier of KnowNow.  The panel provided a "front row seat" to leaders in the Web 2.0 space and Robin Miller, inventor of the Slashdot new format, was clearly in fine form on the panel.

The last speaker was Harvard Business School's Andrew McAfee , whom I'd invited as one of the leading thinkers of how to apply Web 2.0 to the enterprise , a vision he currently calls Enterprise 2.0.  Andrew gave a riveting talk on Enterprise 2.0 and freeform, emergent tools like blogs and wikis to truly enable collaboration and capture discoverable enterprise knowledge, and more.  Citing the success of Wikipedia and its early experiments that encouraged them to make it as easy as possible to contribute and edit entries, McAfee went on to discuss the challenges of getting users to adopt technologies more difficult that e-mail, currently the easiest way for most people to collaborate, and unfortuantely also one of the most private and non-scalable collaboration models.  See blog coverage below for more details. (MP3 Recording)

News and Blog Coverage of The New New Internet

Blog and news coverage of the event was very good, here is some of the best write-ups I've been able to find so far including some good video.  Be sure to add others in the comments below.

• Ed Yourdon writes up his impressions of the conference with plenty of details.
• Dennis McDonald did a bunch of coverage, here's one of the best.
• Ken Yarmosh did a series of great on-the-spot blogs from the event including coverage of Jason Goldberg, video of Rajen Sheth, an exclusive video interview with Michael Arrington, and great coverage of Mike's talk.
• Andrew McAfee did a terrific roll-up of the conference on his HBS blog.
• CNET did a round-up of speakers and panels in Web 2.0 entering corporate world slowly.
• Michael Wade has graciously posted recordings of most of the speakers here.

Turnout was great and interest was high so it looks like we'll do this again next year as well.

Are you looking to apply Web 2.0 to your business? Why or why not?