I spent the morning at Web 2.0 Strategies which turned out quite interesting.
I was at the equivalent conference two years ago and things have clearly changed a lot since then. Then it felt like corporates were staring at things like Blogs anxiously and often barely concealing their anxiety. Today it like the room was full of converts to the cause, more concerned with swapping war stories on how to speed things up.
The morning panel was great (and that’s the first time I’ve ever really enjoyed anything in panel format). Euan chaired a chat with three people at the sharp end of implementing social media in organisations. A few snippets confirmed my sense of the new normal.
Christophe Langlois revealed that he prefers to use LinkedIn as his directory for contacts inside his bank (Lloyds TSB). He said they needed an internal version of LinkedIn but I agreed with Euan who said, in effect, why bother?
Jeremy Gould is an early adopter within the Ministry of Justice. It was good to hear him explain that he’s a dabbler and that his dabbling with Web 2.0 stuff, coupled with other enthusiasts, had driven adoption so far. Not a top-down initiative.
And Salvatore Reina of PwC suggested that partners there were being triggered to get into social media by their children!
Again, it feels to me that the technology and the enthusiasm to use it, is stronger outside the formal structures of organisations.
