IDC Enterprise 2.0 event - my impressions

I was present at the event organized by IDC on enterprise2.0 and the influence on “web2.0” on the corporate world 5th sept in Herzlyia. A few impressions

• Good organization, good attendance (in quality but not big) and good buzz (good relay on blogs), no need for big USD to have a quality event. wish there was more time for networking too. Congrats to Gilad Naas anyway
• I wished presentations could be also downloaded online and that wifi was working…I heard video would be somewhere
• the event was seriously attended both by VCs, Startups, entrepreneurs, bloggers and IT guys from corporations.
• Everyone is fed up with the expression “web2.0” (like me) but everyone keeps on using because its just easy but also because there is no real alternative (although i like the idea to talk about THE NEW WEB)
• It is striking that consumer internet is progressing much faster than the corporate internet and the use it can be done of new web applications within corporations. it was not said in the presentations but it is clearly the case.
• There is interest for a change within corporations: workers use internet at home and want to have the same experience at work, wherever their work is
• There is no clear understanding (probably because not enough best practices) on how to import web2.0 in companies. My bet is that the need and practice will come from the basis, meaning users
• There was an interesting presentation of an Israeli company called Serenpidity (could not find the URL, recently funded by Genesis) and what they do to help companies to import web2.0 to companies.
• I was a bit disappointed that presentation were not practical enough. It is true that  enterprise 2.0 is not so developped but on the other side there are good companies that could have been presented, analyzed and discussed (linkedin, zoho, basecamp, recent Amazon s3 initiative, Google hosted applications,thinkfree,…).
• I was disappointed that this important issue did not raise more interest from non directly related companies to understand what is going. An event like this should be more attended as it will concern eventually nearly everyone.
• I wished also more differentiation were made between type of entreprise and acceptance of web2.0. Small companies already use web2.0 or better said workers do because those services are just easily accessible and applicable. Big companies will come to it to because simply you want the comfort you have at home be replicated at work.
• I wish he content be more polemical as web2.0. Enterprise2.0 is not happening because of many internal political issues. This issue should have been raised more clearly.
• I liked also the small dictionnary of introduction to web2.0. It has the vertue to give a newbie a good overview on what is going on in that world (pic below)

 

• The important learning for me was that enterprise2.0 applications will be mostly built with its users and not (only) with IT departments to make sure those applications will be used and liked as opposed to enterprise1.0. the other learning is that (for technical AND political reasons) it will take time to move existing systems to new systems.

I also video podcasted a few participants (a VC, entrepreneurs, a blogger). Below the videos. Pics from the event on Flickr here

 

 

 

More events like those should happen in Israel. I think lgilab will try to contribute to that.

update: zoho and others were mentionned at the end, but too slightly in my view

Comments

[Gilad Nass]

Thanks for the feedback, Ouriel. We felt the quality of the attending parties was very appropriate for the event - as you said, a lot of start-up CEOs, founders etc..

This event was considered a "pilot" by me, for it is uncommon for IDC to produce conferences with such (relatively) limited number of participants, but I felt there should be a begining of a debate about web 2.0 (yeah, I hate it too, but just like Microsoft Office, it has become too common to try to replace...) being integrated into the enterprise.

We appreciate any feedback, and although some of your comments refer to things we actually stated at the event (the presentations, and hopefully an audio version of them should be up on our site within the next few days; the panel discussed several companies directly; the "politics" proble was discussed at length), but there is always room for improvement, and we learn from each event, big or small.

Again, thanks for spreading the word, and for attending, and I hope there would be more start-up oriented event we can push (either actively or just by keeping the buzz alive) in the future.

Gilad.

[ouriel]

Gilad

I think for a pilot, this set up was good. I agree that some of my points were addressed but i believe there was room for more as those very important. Specially to learn from there practice

I think your next event will be even better specially if you manage to get audience that is not aware at all of what web2.0 is.

[Mayer Reich]

Ouriel:
I liked the post and I agree with most of your points. No internet was a big no no since we couldnt look up examples while speakers were presenting.
One thing that struck me as kind of odd, was a question asked by one of the viewers. He asked Shachar how to get consumers involved in buying the Web 2.0 technologies? The answer was through direct sales and corp. relationships. This perspective just shows how we in Israel just don't yet understand the power of strong focused internet marketing strategy. I hope that this will all change in the near future so Israeli companies can become the next YouTube, Flicker or many others.
Mayer
itsontarget.com

[Gilad Nass]

Hi Mayer,

You are right about the Wi-Fi - there was Wi-Fi avaliable, but it required a username/password. I gave the first few people the needed info to operate it when I realized this (this was just as people were sitting down for the start of the event), and asked the local IDC (IDC.AC) guy to open the network for all. I assumed he did so, since I got no other requests from other people. I'm sorry he didn't. Next time let one of our people know about this (we'll double-check anyway). Hope you had a good experience.

Gilad