Tags: Emanuele Quintarelli, InfoSpaces, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Software, Web2.Oltre, Web2Oltre, Dion Hinchcliffe, Lee Bryant, Jeff Nolan, Richard MacManus, Italy, Startups, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Collaboration
A couple of weeks back, Emanuele Quintarelli, one of the folks in the social computing space whose weblog I have been subscribed to for quite some time now, and also a good friend, shared an article on a conference event that he is putting together for Reed Business Information and which will be taking place on the 13th and 14th of June 2007 in Milan around the subject of Web 2.0 and how business can take the most out of it. The title of the conference is Web2.Oltre, Business and Opportunity for the New Web and you would be able to read some more about it over here, although in Italian.
I must say that on the various conversations we have been having through e-mail and Skype I have actually been admiring the incredible piece of work Emanuele has put together thus far into making something like that happen. Not only has he managed to provide a very compelling program for the two day event (In English), getting together some of the most knowledgeable individuals in the Web 2.0 space at the moment (Dion Hinchcliffe, Lee Bryant, Jeff Nolan, amongst others), but also he has managed to draw some more attention from different businesses around the subject of social computing and successfully managed to get them into the conversation of why they cannot longer ignore the social computing space.
Now, I am sure that for most folks reading this weblog entry out there this may be something that you would consider a piece of cake, or, at least, relatively easy, specially given the huge amount of different social software events currently taking place all over, but Emanuele’s merit, and you would have to agree with me on that, is the fact he has managed to pull this together in Italy where perhaps social computing has not taken everything by storm, pretty much like it has in the U.S., for instance.
I mean, I seem to recall a weblog entry published by Richard MacManus some time ago where he talked about the healthy status of Web 2.0 in Italy, yet, somehow I am missing how the enterprise world is trying to adapt most of that Web 2.0 experience into the corporate world. And this is where, indeed, Web2.Oltre kicks in, because not only will it bring forward the conversations around the subject of social computing, but it would also get businesses talk about it, share experiences on whatever they may be doing, learning and leveraging what others have been adopting thus far, share lessons learned and whatever other experiences in how it all may have improved the way they are sharing knowledge and collaborating across the entire business.
Indeed, something to follow up on. They have even set up a weblog for the event itself, which you can find over here, so that they can start sharing some more information about the different challenges and how to overcome them. And although I do realise that it is in Italian it will certainly help people understand how this conference came together to be perhaps one that will kick things off and help accelerate the adoption rate of social computing in Italian businesses. Who knows. One thing for sure, is that if you check out the official homepage, you would be able to see how much effort, involvement, commitment, excitement and passion has been put into it to make it happen.
It would certainly be one of those events that I would have loved to make, for sure. I told Emanuele already that, unfortunately, I had other commitments to attend to, but if you have a chance to be in Milan around the 13th of 14th of June I would certainly encourage you to be there, because there is a great chance that not only you would be learning a whole lot more about Web 2.0, but also how to apply all of that knowledge and expertise to a business environment, which is where, I guess, most of us would want to end up in at some point. Or, at least, get the conversations started.
So, from here, a big thanks to Emanuele for putting together such a fine event and wishing him lots of great success ! And many many more events like this one to come, for sure! Why not? The more exposure we have to it, the better for us all.
