(As previously shared over in elsua – The Knowledge Management Blog at ITtoolbox)
Tags: Unicom, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Networking, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Web 3.0, Lee Bryant, Suw Charman, Euan Semple, Phil Bradley, Ian McNairn, Roo Reynolds, Ian Hughes, Virtual Worlds, Second Life, IBM
Phew! I am back ! Last week was one of those weird weeks that I guess I have been having in the last few months. It surely was a very busy at work, trying to figure out where I am with my team as far as activities are concerned for the remaining of the year. Lots of great stuff, indeed, that I am hoping to be able to share with you all as time goes by as some of it has got an external exposure as well.
However, what nearly knocked me down completely was a nasty stomach bug that didn’t leave me with much more energy after work and the usual catchup with everything. So I have been neglecting this weblog a bit since I first needed to get that out of my body, get back in shape and back in full force! Which is what I am actually going to be doing with this new weblog entry.
A big thanks to the few folks who have been contacting me offline asking me what was happening. It is greatly appreciated to find out that there are some folks out there who keep reading off this weblog, who take an interest when I disappear for a few days without no apparent reason. So thanks much, folks! As I said, very appreciated and touching!
Ok, so, back to business. Lots of stuff have been happening all along around the area of Knowledge Management and I am hoping to continue sharing some of that as we move along, but one of the things that I am actually trying to figure out, specially now that we just got started with a new year, is to actually find out which conference events I would want to go this year that would be really worth while attending. And then from there onwards follow up on other events that although I cannot make it to them I am still interested in finding out some more about their outcome and what people thought about.
One of the latter conferences mentioned above that I am surely going to be checking out every so often is one that the folks over at Unicom are organising this very same month in London, February 21st to 22nd. It is titled Social Tools for Business Use: Web 2.0 and the New Participatory Culture and you would be able to find more information about it over here. As I said, this is one of those conference events that I would have loved to make it, but that, alas, I will not be able to.
Reason why I would be very interested in attending, and if you are in the area during that time, I strongly suggest you try to make it, too, is because the agenda put together for it is rather impressive. There are a few folks whose pitches look very interesting since it is all around the subject of social software and Web 2.0. Like Lee Bryant‘s on "Enterprise 2.0 – towards a social infrastructure for collaboration and collective intelligence" or Suw Charman on "Fostering Adoption: A strategy for encouraging use of social software in business" or John Davies on "Combining Wikis and the Semantic Web: moving towards Web3.0".
But then again, there are also some other folks who I have been following up on for a number of years, some of them I have already met in person and some others I am hoping to be able to meet them in real life pretty soon ! Like, for instance, Euan Semple who will be talking on the opening keynote on "What will "businesslike" mean when business isn’t like business anymore?" or Phil Bradley who will be talking about "Practical Uses of Web 2.0 Technologies in a business environment".
At the same time it would have been a great opportunity to be able to meet up with two IBM fellow colleagues: Ian McNairn and Roo Reynolds who will also be presenting at the event. Ian will actually be putting together a case study on "An Inside View On How IBM Uses Social Networking to manage its own precious knowledge." I am sure that this one is going to be really interesting for everyone, but I for sure would love to see that one and catch up with Ian once again ! Last time we saw each other was way back in 2003 ! Too long, I am afraid!
Roo’s session, on the other hand, is about "Web 2.0 and Virtual Worlds" and I am sure that is another must-attend session. Why? Well, not only because Roo is actually quite a fun guy who knows lots of stuff on lots of different subjects, but also because he, along with Ian Hughes (Over at Eightbar), were the first couple of folks who brought the world of the metaverse, yes, indeed, Second Life, into IBM and from there onwards it has been an incredible experience! I would suggest you subscribe to Eightbar if you haven’t done so already to check out what is going on in IBM around this very same area of virtual worlds.
So as you can see from the above text Social Tools for Business Use: Web 2.0 and the New Participatory Culture would have been an incredible event that I would have loved making it in the end. Plus it would have given me the opportunity to catch up with one of my favourite world cities: London. I guess it cannot get any better than this, so I am looking forward to catching up with it all virtually as I am sure that quite a few of those folks would be telling the whole world what it was all about and how it went, but one thing for sure is that if you are going to be in London during that time I would suggest you try to make an extra effort and try to attend the event, because I know for sure that it would be really worth while all the money!
(Sigh, I guess I will have to wait for the next one…)
