Thoughts on the Boston Conference Agenda

Today we take the wraps off of our conference agenda for Enterprise 2.0 Boston. Our program will be a bit larger this year but more importantly, it has been organized differently, and now has track chairs for each of the major conference themes. By doing this we hope to create a more complete and cohesive set of sessions within each track on important trends, challenges and opportunities. This agenda also reflects an Enterprise 2.0 life-cycle approach, from strategy setting and vendor selection to application deployment, adoption and performance analysis. Below are my thoughts on the tracks we''re announcing today but we''re not done yet! Over the coming weeks expect some additions to our Keynote program, the start of our Enterprise 2.0 Launch Pad program and some evening fun we have in the works as well.

Strategy: From a "track" view on the agenda we plan to set the tone for the week with a newly created "Set Your Enterprise 2.0 Strategy" series of sessions. This track tackles the "why" of Enterprise 2.0 with an underlying theme of how to use Enterprise 2.0 to bring specific value to business, how to execute on a strategy and how to measure the results. The track explores the intersection of Enterprise 2.0 with different functional areas in business, from sales to supply chain to HR and product development. As an industry we have made tremendous progress in introducing social and collaborative strategies into business. The good news is that businesses are taking notice and making initial investments in people and technology. The better news is that this is just the beginning. Now that social and collaborative initiatives are showing up on the corporate agenda, the next opportunity lies in applying them to the traditional applications and processes that form the backbone of business. There''s a tremendous amount of ground yet to cover in Enterprise 2.0.

Tools: With clear objectives established we can explore the options for "Social Business Applications and Platforms". As our industry has matured, so too have the tools and platforms that drive it. Enterprise 2.0 is rife with vendors and applications to pick from - from startups to major vendors, point solutions to software suites and full-blown platforms. Navigating this ever-changing landscape of innovation, software features, partners and platform ecosystems is no simple task. This track is invaluable in helping you avoid missteps and future-proof your technology investments. Within the social applications and platforms theme, we''re also calling out two related tracks on search and video. Search is often overlooked in Enterprise 2.0 but is ever more important as the volume of information explodes. Search in the context of Enterprise 2.0 is extremely powerful and is an area we wanted to dig into a little deeper this year. Be sure to check out our track on how to "Use Search to Tame Complexity and Discover Opportunity." And there''s no question that video continues to grow in importance in business as it already has in the consumer world. Our track on "Emerging Video Applications and Enterprise Collaboration" looks at the latest trends from "YouTube" style video usage to high-end telepresence systems.

External Community: Now more than ever businesses are looking outside their organizational boundaries for a competitive edge. The track on how to "Integrate Social Media and Community Approaches" into an Enterprise 2.0 framework addresses this head-on. While most social media discussions tend to revolve solely around marketing and PR, we believe the value of social media goes well beyond these functional areas into other parts of the business such as customer service, sales and product development. Extending social media for marketing, PR and beyond is a key theme this track explores.

Application Delivery & Integration: With a well thought out strategy and a complete understanding of the available tools, we shift to a track we''re calling "Delivery Strategies: Deploy, Connect and Mobilize." This track weighs today''s application deployment options such as the cloud and SaaS against traditional, on premise hosting. There''s no question that the software world is going through a radical transformation as enterprises gain acceptance of infrastructure, platforms, software -and everything else as-a-service. Understanding these changes in the context of deploying social and collaborative applications is vital. With new choices comes increased complexity and more heterogeneous application environments. Connecting these applications requires new skills and an understanding of development environments, APIs and the integration glue required to make it all work together seamlessly. And with the volume of Smartphone devices being used by the workforce, businesses must also understand how vendor choices and deployment options affect the availability of applications to a mobile workforce. This track explores important developments in mobile but from a deployment standpoint, assessing the options across native mobile enterprise applications, mobile middle-ware, web-based and widget-based access to applications. The development of this track is in direct response to attendee requests for more technical sessions.

Adoption: There is no better way to learn than to hear from practitioners. These are the pioneers of Enterprise 2.0, forging a path that can often lead to unforeseen challenges and frustration but also to great lessons learned and hopefully success. The "Adoption in the Enterprise for Practitioners" track is chock full of case studies and best practices on all aspects of Enterprise 2.0 with the goal of driving executive and user support and deeper integration into the fabric of the business culture.

Workshops: The tracks are each complimented by related workshops. We have some fantastic new workshops this year as well as a couple of the most popular courses from our last conference. These are deep dive sessions and generally more instructional in nature.

Call for Papers: Lastly, a big congratulations to the people selected to present from our call for papers. We have announced the following sessions and have a couple more awaiting approval. We also have a number of panel discussions in the works and will be sure to consider the people who submitted through the call for papers for those sessions.

Extending MITRE's Reach: Business Networking for and Beyond the Enterprise- Donna Cuomo, Chief Information Architect, The MITRE Corporation and Laura Damianos, Lead Artificial Intelligence Engineer, The MITRE CorporationUsing Chaos Theory Principals to Overcome Information Overload within the Enterprise and on the Web- Thierry Hubert, President, Darwin Ecosystem and Bill Ives, VP of Social Media, Darwin EcosystemJoining E20 Apps Together for Better Integration, Productivity and Measurement - Lee Bryant, Director, HeadshiftEnterprise 2.0: It's no Field of Dreams (CSC Case Study)- Claire Flanagan, Senior Manager, KM and Enterprise Social Collaboration, CSC, and Simon Scullion, Service Development Manager, CSCEnterprise 2.0 Lock Down in a Highly Regulated Environment - Abha Kumar, Principal, Information Technology, Vanguard and Andrew Lazzaro, Manager, Information Technology, VanguardThe Dark Side of Enterprise 2.0 - Redux - Greg Lowe, Social Media, Alcatel-Lucent and Kathleen Culver, Transformation Architect, Alcatel-LucentInnovation Through E2.0: Three Case Studies that Make the Business Case - Mark Fidelman, EVP, MindTouchSocial Learning 2.0 - Marcia Conner, Senior Enterprise Strategist, Pistachio ConsultingWe'll have many more updates in the coming weeks. I look forward to seeing you all in Boston!