Enterprise 2.0 Boston  is only a few weeks away and our agenda is looking great.  As a preview into the many compelling tracks and sessions at the conference, you’ll be hearing from a few of our advisory board members and track chairs on the E2 blog in the days and weeks to come.  

The first is Rachel Happe, the track chair of the Community Management: Engaging External Audiences track, who just wrote a great post on what she’s looking forward to, and what attendees can expect from her track. 

See everyone soon!

Seems like just yesterday we finished the agenda for E2 Boston in June, and now it’s time to start planning for Santa Clara, coming up November 14-17, 2011.  Last year’s Santa Clara conference exceeded expectations with over 1400 attendees, and I’m confident this year’s agenda will attract many more.

We’ve partnered with Spigit again for the Call for Papers but changed a few elements.  For starters, there is no longer a community vote component to the process or a separate group of “Crowd Favorites” submissions which are reviewed by the Advisory Board. As many of you are aware, there were mixed feelings about the community vote within the E2 community. Many felt that it was the equivalent of a popularity contest, while others were disappointed when their submissions were not selected even though they received the top number of votes.  These issues came up no matter how clear we were votes did not guarantee selection. What we hoped the community vote would do was become another way for the E2 community to provide feedback about submissions, and give us and our advisory board a clearer picture of what should be included in the conference.  What we didn’t totally anticipate was people who weren’t invested members of the community, trying to cheat the system in a variety of ways, and the confusion and suspicion it would produce around the whole process.  So we’re simplifying things.

The point of partnering with Spigit for the Call for Papers was for the process to become about idea management and innovation and include anyone and everyone interested in the Enterprise 2.0 Conference; not just a boring online form where no one else saw great content submitted except our advisory board, where no one could actively participate in refining and improving submissions. We want potential attendees and thought leaders to have a voice in this process.  As submissions come in in, we’d like everyone to provide feedback via comments on individual submissions or categories, about the content of the submission or the speaker.  If you see a way to improve a submission or know of a relevant speaker, speak out!  Network with fellow members of the fellow community and create unique content to submit for the conference! If a certain submission really resonates for you, “Like” it.  And no, “likes” are not the same as votes, and have no bearing on whether a submission is selected.  What they do is engage the E2 community, provoke conversation and hopefully stimulate the kind of idea generation we need to make this year’s Santa Clara conference better than ever.

So all submissions made will be reviewed by the Advisory Board, not just ”Crowd Favorites”. The Board will look at the amount of collaboration via feeback/comments, edits made to submissions because of comments, and general activity around a session when making their selections.  And as always, they’re looking for high quality,  unique and compelling stories of innovation, case studies, and speakers/thought leaders with the kind of expertise and experience our audience has come to expect.

We hope these changes will encourage more of you to submit and participate in the process, and that we’re eliminating any confusion, anger or disappointment surrounding the voting element. 

Looking forward to checking out everyone’s submissions so keep them coming!

Thank you to all who submitted proposals and have participated in the Call for Papers process.  Next up: the Community Vote!  We encourage all who submitted and all who plan on or are considering attending Enterprise 2.0 Boston to review the submissions, provide feedback via comments and vote.  This is not a popularity contest.  So please don’t cheapen the voting process by sending your entire company or PR firm to vote for your submission.  Vote for a submission or idea because you want to learn from it in Boston!  Vote for the case study that changed your perceptions of E2.  Vote for the best E2 innovations in UC, video and mobile, the ideas that are the future of social tools and apps, and the most inspirational stories of leadership and organizational change.  Vote for the submissions you want us to consider for inclusion in E2 Boston Conference agenda.  Last year over a third of the conference agenda and speakers were selected from the Call for Papers and we hope to equal if not increase that number this year.

Submissions are searchable by category, speaker or keyword, and votes received by each session will be viewable by all participants. Sessions advance to the “Crowd Favorites” stage based on community votes, after which they will be reviewed by the E2 Advisory Board. All submissions’ comment and feedback activity will be considered during the review process. Submissions selected by the Advisory Board will then proceed to the final “Selected Sessions” stage and speakers will be contacted in March.

We look forward to discovering the topics and ideas you want to see incorporated in the E2 Boston 2011 Conference Agenda. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at mfarrell@techweb.com or (415) 947-6250.

Last week’s Enterprise 2.0 Santa Clara was a huge success and I’d like to thank all of our attendees, speakers, exhibitors and sponsors for their participation and support. The conference agenda’s new focus on leveraging collaborative tools to support a variety of critical functional areas in the HR Strategies and Social CRM tracks was very well received. We also had packed classrooms and active twitter discussions around all sessions in the Community Management, and Business Tools tracks. Lastly, we announced the creation of a news and community site for E2.0 professionals- The BrainYard (launching early 2011). The BrainYard is an industry news, opinion and community site for business and IT leaders interested in sharing information and learning about the enterprise collaboration and social software industry. Sign up today at www.thebrainyard.com to be alerted when it officially launches. And while Enterprise 2.0 Santa Clara is still fresh in our minds, it’s time to start thinking about and planning for Enterprise 2.0 Boston 2011.

Boston conference dates are June 20-23, 2011 at the Hynes Convention Center. We’re sorry to say good bye to the Westin Waterfront where E2.0 has been held for the past 6 years, but the growth of the conference necessitated a change and we’re excited for the move. Registration will open in late January 2011.

And first on the planning agenda, is the Call for Papers which is open now through December 22nd, followed by a community vote January 3rd – January 15th. This time around we want the Call for Papers to be a forum for the generation of good ideas and speakers, not simply a portal where submissions are made and then voted on. The Proposal Collection stage should be a collaborative process and we highly encourage all to participate from the beginning via proposal or topic feedback and comments. Submit your best ideas or suggest ways to improve a submitted proposal. If you have a speaker who could bring a new perspective to a submitted topic, let the submitter know. The point is to work together to create the conference content that will be featured in Boston next year.

If you participated in the Boston or Santa Clara 2010 Call for Papers, you’ll receive an email inviting you to the new Call for Papers. If it’s your first time submitting or participating, simply sign in and create an account. We’re debuting several submissions topics which reflect feedback we received from the agenda in Santa Clara and the growth of Enterprise 2.0:

Internal Community Development
Customer Engagement
Social CRM
HR Collaboration
Case Studies
Leadership and Organizational Change
Social Tools and Applications
Governance, Risk and Compliance
UC, Video and the Mobile Enterprise
Standards and Interoperability
Analytics & Metrics
Learning and Development

For detailed information on the submission process, go to the Call for Papers.  We haven’t changed any requirements of the Proposal Collection stage so the process is quite simple.  As always, submissions made will be immediately viewable on various discussion forums where we encourage everyone to provide as much feedback as possible. Submitters can also attach files with supporting materials to submissions. And inviting friends/colleagues to view submissions and publishing them to a variety of social networks is made easy.

After the Proposal Collection stage closes on December 22nd, the Community Vote will begin on January 3rd and end on January 15th.  Receiving the most votes does not automatically mean your submission will move on to the final Selected Sessions stage and be included in the conference.  The vote is just another step in a process meant to engage the E2.0 community and give us a sense of what people want to see at the conference, and we hope that it is treated that way. The amount and depth of feedback and collaboration around a particular proposal will also be strongly considered.  As always, the feedback of the community will be one of the primary criteria for selecting sessions for Boston 2010. However, all sessions are subject to final review and approval by the E2.o Advisory Board.

I encourage everyone to submit their best ideas, experiences and speakers, collaborate to improve these submissions, and tell us what they want to see in Boston next year.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at mfarrell@techwebcom or (415) 947-6250. I’m looking forward to reading your submissions, participating in discussions around them, and cultivating a meaningful dialogue around the tools and ideas that are the future of Enterprise 2.0.

Two exciting developments regarding the Enterprise 2.0 2010 Santa Clara Conference today. First, the agenda is now online and features brand new tracks including Business Tools and Technology Decisions, Community Development and Management as well as two tracks dedicated exclusively to Social CRM and HR technology strategies. This is a first for the conference so take a look at the lineup and start planning how you’ll spend your time at E2 in November. We also have a few more conference sessions coming, and we’ll continue to confirm additional panelists and speakers in the next few weeks.

And the Call for Papers winners have been selected! As always, we were very impressed by the quality of submissions we received and the selection process was not an easy one.

Congratulations to the following proposals and their speakers:
Communities 101: Planning and Executing Award-Winning Communities
Community Managers: Why do you need them and what do they do
Patterns of Observable Work
Governing Social Collaboration for the Enterprise: A Delicate Balance
People, Culture, Behaviors…
The Coming Social Software Backlash

Additional Panelists selected from the Call for Papers:
Ellen Feaheny, CEO, AppFusions
Sam Ramji, VP of Strategy, Sonoa Systems
Esteban Kolsky, Principal and Founder, ThinkJar LLC
Adam Blum, CEO, Rhomobile
Brian Kellner, Vice President of Products, NewsGator Technologies, Inc.
Mark Tamis, Associate, Social CRM and Social Business Strategist, NET-7
John Pavolotsky, Counsel, Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Thank you to everyone who submitted and voted. Your contribution to the creation of the conference agenda is greatly appreciated and we hope to see many of you at the conference in just a couple of months. If you have any questions about the agenda or the Call for Papers, feel free to contact me.

Thank you to all who submitted proposals and have participated in the Call for Papers process. And now the Community Vote! Tell us which submissions are your favorites. Tell us which submissions address the E2 topics, issues and questions your enterprise is facing. Tell us which submissions you want us to consider for inclusion in the E2 Santa Clara Conference agenda.

We encourage all who submitted, all who plan on attending Enterprise 2.0 Conference Santa Clara, and anyone interested in Enterprise 2.0, to review the submissions, and vote for their favorites. Submissions are searchable by category, speaker or keyword, and votes received by each session will be viewable by all participants. Sessions advance to the “Crowd Favorites” stage based on community votes, after which they will be reviewed by the E2 Advisory Board. Submissions selected by the Advisory Board will then proceed to the final “Selected Sessions” stage. Selected speakers will be contacted in August.

We look forward to discovering the topics and sessions you want to see incorporated in the E2 Santa Clara 2010 Conference Agenda. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at mfarrell@techweb.com or (415) 947-6250.

Enterprise 2.0 Boston 2010 is just around the corner and I’m looking forward to a conference filled with compelling speakers and sessions, and getting to know more of the Enterprise 2.0 Community personally. Before the conference begins, however, I’d like to get Enterprise 2.0 Santa Clara and its Call for Papers on your radar and in your calendars.

E2 Santa Clara is scheduled for November 8 – November 11th, and the Call for Papers is open now through Wednesday, June 30th. We’ve partnered with Spigit, Inc. again to create a collaborative and transparent Call for Papers submissions and voting experience. You’ll find all of the following information about how to submit on the Call for Papers site but here’s some important items to remember.

First off, if you participated in the Enterprise 2.0 Boston Call for Papers, you should already have received an email inviting you to the Santa Clara Call for Papers. If this is your first time participating, you’ll need to sign in and create an account to either make or review a submission. Submissions can be tagged with one of our pre-populated technology topics or a unique topic of the submitter’s choice.

Technology areas include:
Strategy, Planning and ExecutionCase Studies
Driving Adoption and Organizational Change
Social Tools and Applications
Technology Foundations of Enterprise 2.0
Social Media, Marketing and Customer Engagement

The form requires the usual information including a title, description, session format, and all pertinent speaker information. All submissions made will be immediately viewable on a discussion forum, allowing for increased transparency in the Call for Papers process.

We encourage all who submit, all who plan on attending E2 Santa Clara, and anyone interested in Enterprise 2.0, to review the submissions, and give us feedback. Submitters will be allowed to edit their submissions based on this feedback, and can also attach files with supporting materials to submissions. Inviting friends/colleagues to view submissions and publishing your submission to a variety of social networks is also made easy. Lastly, submissions are searchable by technology area, keyword or speaker.

After the Call for Papers closes on June 30th, a Community Vote will begin on July 5th and end on July 16th. The feedback of the community will be one of the primary criteria for selecting the sessions for Santa Clara 2010. However, all sessions are subject to final review and approval by the E2 Advisory Board. Receiving the most votes does not automatically mean your submission will be included in the conference. In addition to the wisdom of the crowd, creation of a balanced program for the different Technology Areas will be considered.

There are three stages defining the selection process:

Proposal Collection: This is the opening stage. All proposals start in this stage. Community feedback is encouraged.
Community Vote: This is the second stage. After the Call for Papers closes on June 30th, the official voting period will begin on July 5th and close on July 16th. Proposals will advance to the voting stage when they achieve certain levels of community feedback and approval.
Selected Sessions: This will be the final stage. Advancing here is based on community votes and the approval of members of the Enterprise 2.0 Conference Advisory Board. The Advisory Board will only review the session with the most votes. Top number of votes does not mean automatic inclusion in the conference.

We want the E2 community to collaborate, give us their most exciting ideas and experiences, and tell us what they want to see in Santa Clara in November.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at mfarrell@techwebcom or (415) 947-6250. I’m looking forward to reading your submissions and cultivating meaningful discussions around the tools and ideas that are the future of Enterprise 2.0.

Registration for E2 Boston 2010 opened a couple of weeks ago and we’re now deep in the process of finalizing the E2 Conference agenda. First off, this week we announced several keynote speakers including:

• Eugene Lee, CEO, Socialtext
• Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist, Center for Digital Business, MIT Sloan School of Management
• JP Rangaswami, CIO and Chief Scientist, BT Design
• Murali Sitaram, Vice President and General Manager, Cisco’s Enterprise Collaboration Platform
• Gentry Underwood, IDEO

There will be more several more keynote speaker announcements in the coming weeks so stay tuned.

This year the conference agenda will cover the entire Enterprise 2.0 lifecycle including strategy, execution and performance monitoring. It will focus on business value and will feature conference sessions organized around the following brand new tracks:

• Set Your Enterprise 2.0 Strategy
• Social Business Applications and Platforms Track
• Using Search to Tame Complexity and Discover Opportunity
• Socializing With Video: How Emerging Video Applications Will Impact Enterprise Collaboration
• Integrating Social Media & Community Approaches
• Delivery Strategies: Deploying, Connecting and Mobilizing
• Adoption in the Enterprise for Practitioners

Conference sessions for each of these tracks will be announced in the coming weeks. For those of you who made submissions via the Call for Papers and made it to the Community Selected stage of the process, thank you for your patience. Our Advisory Board is reviewing the E2 Community’s 100 top voted for sessions, and winners will be contacted very soon.

While creating and selecting conference sessions for these seven tracks, we’ve focused on providing practical steps and case studies that will drive business value inside the enterprise. We plan to examine the entire Enterprise 2.0 lifecycle, focusing specifically on how deeply Enterprise 2.0 is able to permeate the many layers of business processes and the people that comprise them.

Looking forward to announcing the winners of the Call for Papers and sharing the finalized agenda for the Conference with everyone. Feel free to contact me at mfarrell@techweb.com or (415) 947-6250 with any questions or concerns.

Thank you to all who submitted proposals and have participated in the Call for Papers process thus far. We received 466 submissions, our highest number yet! The level of collaboration and communication happening within the E2 Community on the Call for Papers site has also been very impressive. Comment threads and discussions around submissions were common, and several participants have let us know about meaningful connections they’ve made with fellow participants. We’re thrilled that our partnership with Spigit, Inc. to provide the E2 Community with a more collaborative submission and voting experience has been well received.

Now comes the next stage: the Community Vote! Your feedback will be a primary factor in selecting sessions for Boston 2010.

We encourage all who submitted, all who plan on attending Enterprise 2.0 Conference Boston, and anyone interested in Enterprise 2.0, to review the submissions, and vote for their favorites. Submissions are searchable by category, speaker or keyword, and votes received by each session will be viewable by all participants. Sessions advance to the final “Selected” stage based on community votes and final approval by our Advisory Board, and will be announced upon completion of the vote.

We look forward to discovering the topics and sessions you want to see incorporated in the E2 Boston 2010 Conference Agenda. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at mfarrell@techweb.com or (415) 947-6250.