Yesterday was the Oceanic Time Warner Business Class Tech Expo at the Blaisdell. It was my first time going to it, so wasn’t sure what to expect. While the exhibitors seemed somewhat limited, and I didn’t win ANYTHING despite entering what seemed like hundreds of contests (!), there were two seminars that stood out for me. keyboardThe first one was by Steve Bretches with IBM on Enterprise 2.0 Bringing Web 2.0 technology into the Enterprise. Steve went through what “Web 2.0″ is — things like blogs, social sites (linkedin, myspace), tagging sites (digg), RSS feeds, wiki’s, AJAX, etc. — where the CONSUMER of the product, the person actually USING it, creates their own experience.

From there he discussed IBM’s intranet and how they are helping groups collaborate more easily and meaningfully using those Web 2.0 tools. This is something I’ve personally been trying to do at our organization. And as Steve pointed out, there are some organizations (like the one I work at), that look at “risk avoidance” only — trying to avoid ANY risk (that someone might post something negative, for example). His recommendation is to guide the organization to “risk minimization” — putting rules into place that, once broken, action can be taken, but otherwise allow creativity and collaboration to happen.

The other seminar I particularly enjoyed was by Craig Dewar from Microsoft entitled, Sustainability — “It’s Just Good Business”. Craig explained that while global companies (such as Mattel), have a bottom line of profit for their business, and must abide by the laws of the country in which they operate, sometimes (as in the case of children’s toys coming from China with lead paint), choosing the cheapest means of production is NOT the answer and can cause a company a lot more in damages (to its reputation, recall, etc.) after the fact. Patagonia Footprint site Businesses are wising up to the a “Triple Bottom Line” — economic (profit), environmental (things like carbon footprint), and social (did they help or hurt their communities). Those three items can even be reported using G.R.I. (Global Reporting Initiative) principles. Using these principles, a company can look at the entire “footprint” of a product. An interesting example of this is Patagonia’s site showing their products and how they were created.

So, two very interesting ideas of emerging trends in businesses — giving me (an IT guy for many years) excitement about the future…

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