At last week’s conference in Washington (where Tony Byrne did a great job with the program), we had a lively discussion in the opening keynote panel after I made a disparaging comment about “Web 2.0”. Of course I was referring to the term not to the various technologies or concepts that the term may or may not include depending on who is attempting to define it as a “thing-in-itself”. But somehow I wasn’t clear about that and, judging by the reaction, there appeared to be a generational-like difference of opinion, which was complicated by this classic problem of confusing a name with an object. In any case it was fun, and the debate carried on through some of the other conference sessions. I also brought up “Enterprise 2.0” which I’ve discussed before, but for some reason couldn’t remember Andrew McAfee’s name when I was recommending further reading, so here is his blog.
For those of you attending the Enterprise 2.0 conference next week, or who are local, there will be a debate between Andrew and Tom Davenport, who have different opinions on Enterprise 2.0. The debate itself is open to the public even if not registered for the conference. Here is more info. We are media sponsors of the conference and have a special discount available. Just register and use discount code MLQTEB16 when you register.
Also keep in mind our own annual Boston conference in November where we’ll be continuing our coverage of “enterprise social software” technologies.
Author: Frank Gilbane (Page 58 of 75)
On Wednesday, June 13 at 1:00 EST, Senior Analyst Bill Trippe will be doing a Webinar with Medtronic and the XMetal folks at JustSystems.
While documentation is a necessary deliverable for all companies, its value and contribution to bottom-line business results is often underestimated and overlooked. For Medtronic, one of the world’s most innovative medical device manufacturers, documentation is much more than a checkbox on a product release timeline – it is a direct link to customer satisfaction and patient well-being. Medtronic’s Rob Kimm will discuss Medtronic’s approach to delivering a better customer experience while also ensuring compliance with regulations that impact technical documentation.
Prior to using DITA, Medtronic had a decentralized, heterogeneous environment that slowed production and resulted in redundant workflows. Seven project deliverables were developed in 5 different tools, and the mutually-exclusive tools allowed for little to no ability to achieve true reuse of common content. They now can reuse common content across deliverable types, which has led to great efficiency, accuracy, and consistency.
To register for the Webinar, please visit here.
Looks like some really interesting stuff will be coming out of Google that will profoundly change both enterprise and consumer search experiences and markets. Lynda Moulton’s post over on our Enterprise Search Blog is a good place to start on what, as of last week, has emerged – thanks to Steve Arnold – about Google’s nearer-than-you-might-think plans.
The deadline for submitting proposals for Gilbane Boston, November 27 – 29, 2007 is May 15, 2007. Instruction for proposals are at: https://gilbane.com/speaker_guidelines.html We will still accept proposals after tomorrow, but chances of acceptance start to diminish quickly as we start designing the program in the next couple of weeks. Remember that we always receive many more excellent proposals than we can fit into our program. Please do not be discouraged if you are not selected. We do multiple events, and may be able to fit your presentation into another conference.
Of course I had every intention to blog about the highlights of Gilbane San Francisco, but our attention has already moved to our upcoming Washington, and even our Fall Boston conference. Here are some quick notes on what’s new:
- There was a lot of activity at Gilbane San Francisco, but what got the most press was the second part of our opening keynote where we had Google and Microsoft facing off over enterprise search. A little web and blog searching will turn up some of the reaction.
- Join us and CMS Watch in Washington DC June 5-6 for Gilbane Washington. That’s right, a little over 2 weeks away. The instructions for submitting proposals can be found at: https://gilbane.com/speaker_guidelines.html. We will be covering our usual topic areas with a focus on content and enterprise web technologies (including versions 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 etc.). If you’ve never been to our Boston conference you can view all the info from the 2006 event at: http://gilbaneboston.com/06/. For this year’s conference see: http://gilbaneboston.com
- We have 2 webinars coming up in the next 2 weeks:
- Webinar: Bill Trippe talks with Minette Norman of Autodesk. Wednesday, April 25, 2:00 pm EST. Registration is open. Sponsored by Idiom.
- Webinar: Bill Trippe and Michelle Huff from Oracle discuss multi-website content management. Wednesday, May 2, 12:00 pm EST. Registration is open. Sponsored by Oracle.
- See our latest case study: Building an Enterprise-Class System for Globalization: Autodesk’s Worldwide Initiative by Senior Analyst Bill Trippe
- See our latest white paper: Strategic eMarketing: Converting Leads into Profits, by Lead Analyst Leonor Ciarlone
- Remember we have 8 blogs in addition to this one (see the links in the left column) all of which have recent content, even the CTO Blog, which was quiet for some time has a new entry from Eric Severson.
- Reminder: All our blogs support multiple types of tagging as well as comments and trackbacks. Subscriptions to all of them are available via FeedBurner which provides additional features. We are adding additional FeedBurner plugins, for example, as of yesterday you can even “Twit” items from our News Blog if you are into Twitter (see http://feeds.feedburner.com/ContentManagementNews). I am not sure how useful this is, but was easy and free to add and I know some of you Twitter.
I haven’t been very good at blogging about this conference as it has been a busy Winter and early Spring. In any case, there is still time to join us, especially if you are in the Bay area. Registration is still open online as of this post, and is also available on site at the Palace hotel through Thursday. If you can only get away for one day, make it Wednesday for the keynote with Adobe, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. The technology showcase is also open on Wednesday (with a reception) and Thursday.
In response to a semi-rhetorical question I posed in my post on Enterprise 2.0 research last week, Niall Cook comments:
You ask: “…what will be lost or gained in the process of force-fitting the “engage and collaborate” functions and culture into the “command and control” of top-down IT directives?”
Simple. The users.
Well, yes, but it is more complex than that. Just as there are good and not-so-good uses of, e.g., wikis (or any technology of course) in enterprises, there are also good and not-so-good uses of policies, procedures, and organizational structures in enterprises. While I agree that there is usually way too much command and control, there are situations where it is just what you want (nuclear plant safety procedures, etc.). We are in the early days yet of figuring out where and how all these 2.0 technologies can be usefully applied, and what corporate culture changes will result.
Part of the debate is continuing with a bit of back and forth between Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport.
Join us on April 11, 8:30 am at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco for Gilbane San Francisco 2007
We have expanded our opening keynote to include a special debate between Microsoft and Google on Enterprise Search and Information Access, in addition to our discussion on all content technologies with IBM, Oracle & Adobe.
You still have time to join us for this important and lively debate at the Palace Hotel, April 11. The keynote is open to all attendees, even those only planning to visit the technology showcase. The full keynote runs from 8:30am to 10:15am followed by a coffee break and the opening of the technology showcase, and now includes:
Keynote Panel: Content Technology Industry Update PART 2
Google and Microsoft are competing in many areas on many levels. One area which both are ramping-up quickly is enterprise search. In this part of the opening keynote, we bring the senior product managers face to face to answer our questions about their plans and what this means for enterprise information access and content management strategies.
Moderator: Frank Gilbane, Conference Chair, CEO, Gilbane Group, Inc.
Panelists:
Jared Spataro, Group Product Manager, Enterprise Search, Microsoft
Nitin Mangtani, Lead Product Manager, Google Search Appliance, Google
See the complete keynote description.
Gilbane San Francisco 2007
Content management, enterprise search, localization, collaboration, wikis, publishing …
Complete conference information is at http://gilbanesf.com/07/conference_grid.html
