This is the first of eight posts on the recent Unicom conference “Social Tools for Business Use: Web 2.0 and the new participatory cultures”.

 

Somewhat belatedly after this conference in London on 21 and 22 February, I am writing up some of my notes from the conference, together with a few further thoughts, in a series of eight posts for the benefit of those in professional services firms, who may be wanting to find out more about this subject.

 

I really enjoyed the two days I spent in London last week, where the delegates were entertained by a great caste of speakers, who are listed at the foot of this post by way of attribution.

 

February was month 3 of my first Blog and my least productive in terms of published Blogs, although my most productive in terms of half-written but as yet unfinished posts!  On reflection, I think I was just learning too much new stuff every day, as I started to read a broader range of material, and ran out of time each day to distil my thoughts into published posts.

 

This conference on social tools was one of my highlights of new learning, particularly so as the legal sector generally lags many other business sectors in terms of reacting to meet the changing technological times we live in.  I was, therefore, keen to understand how the building blocks of social tools and Web 2.0 might unfold over the next few years within a law firm to law firm working relationship or a law firm to client working relationship.

 

Speakers and Thanks To:

Dave Gurteen, Conference Chairman

 

Day 1

Euan Semple, ex BBC

Lee Bryant, Headshift

Phil Bradley

Darren Waters, BBC

Ian McNairn, IBM

Roo Reynolds, IBM

 

Day 2

Suw Charman

Ruth Ward, Allen & Overy

Kevin Anderson, Guardian Unlimited

Justin Patten, Human Law

Nick Kings, BT

 

I hope my series of short posts on this conference adds some useful summary, in addition to other posts you will find from Roo Reynolds, Paul Coyne of Emerald Insight, Lee Bryant and Ben Wild of The Campaign Company and short video clips on Dave Gurteen on “what are social tools?” / “what is Web 2.0?” from Lee Bryant, Ian McNairn and Nick Kings.

 

For me, every speaker provided an integral part of a larger whole.  Personal insights were many and include:

Social tools are a subtle means to unconscious continuous personal learning.

The amazing inter-connected world within IBM (around 310,000 workers) and what they are doing with these tools.

Virtual Worlds and Second Life.  The opportunity to earn a living in a virtual world.

Work is hard enough and getting harder.  If there are tools out there to make the job easier, let’s get hold of them and use them.

Without expertise and brand, it will be difficult to reach a critical mass of audience through online.

If social tools are an instant success within the workplace, what does that say about existing IT systems on the desktop and their fitness for future purpose?

If software tools are fun to use, then people are more likely to use them.

Imagine if just a small percentage of the passion shown by gamers in their love of games could be transferred into the workplace because the technology used in business was made more friendly for users.

The use of social tools within a closed and trusted community within a Magic Circle law firm (Allen & Overy) was regarded by the head of KM systems development as the most successful KM project in her current seven year tenure.

There is far more to search and expert search than Google.

There are some really clever people out there developing some amazing applications.  It will be a major job to keep up with what is happening out there and what this means for me in my business sector(s).