Here is my KMWorld 2006 Wrap-up that covers some good talks and some interesting conversations I had at the conference.
KMWorld 2006 Wrap-up
I did my profile in http://kmi06.pbwiki.com/SeanMurphy in the form of a FAQ
Q:Why do you come to KMWorld?
This is my third year, so it’s something of a triumph of hope over experience, but I believe that there are a number of techniques and technologies in the “knowledge management” space that are going to have a profound impact on business. This conference is one place to listen to bona fide practitioners and see vendors with innovative technology you don’t see in many other venues and certainly not all together.
Q: Are there specific technology issues that you are interested in?
- How are wikis, blogs, and instant messaging (IM) tools going to merge into content management systems on corporate intranets?
- How can the very powerful text analytics tools available for enterprises be scaled down so that they work for personal information management: I am thinking of a number of things like latent semantic indexing, recommendation and group lens systems for small teams and ad hoc groups, and e-discovery tools that I could use for my e-mail and IM (instead of by a corporate compliance officer or outside counsel).
Q:If you could merge this conference with another one which would it be?
Two choices: Techdirt Greenhouse and Office 2.0:
- Techdirt Greenhouse (see also the wiki for the Jun-10-2006 event) fosters a level of discussion among the attendees that would be very energizing at KMWorld. Have 3 people come up and present a current challenge in their organization related to knowledge management. The group breaks into six teams, two each working on the three issues. There is small group discussion, a report back to the larger group by each team, and then a large group discussion
- Office 2.0[1] had a number of vendors aimed at replacing PC based apps with web services, the net effect was to focus on enabling group process and communication. Many of these applications have a strong potential to enable much more effective knowledge sharing at least in a team setting than any of the “top down” enterprise class portals that make the same promise.
Q: Any sessions in particular you plan to attend?
I missed Tuesday because of a prior commitment but today I plan to listen to Dave Pollard, whom I find to be consistently insightful, talk about “Adding Meaning and Value to Information (Sep-12-2006)” (Final presentation (Nov-14-2006)) in Session A203
Q: Did you see any new vendors on the Exhibits Floor that are worth mentioning.
The Abbrevity folks look like they have a very interesting and very scalable file classifier that is extremely low cost, designed to be run in parallel, and could scan an enterprise intranet and attached file systems overnight. It may form the basis for some interesting vertical applications when they find the right partners.
One under-appreciated company is Traction Software which offers a richly featured blogging / content management system that has seen uptake in environments with complex security requirements (e.g. a number of three letter government agencies). But they already ten years old, and may not be willing to make the changes (or perhaps take the risks) to gain wider acceptance.
I spent a lot of time in the adjacent hall in the “Streaming Media” show where there was an interesting mix of technologies for video and audio broadcasting that struck me as very applicable to enterprise training needs. One company that I was interested in there in particular was Blogtronix looks like it would be very useful for mid-size and larger corporations with rich internal blogging ecosystems that they want to keep inside the firewall (or perhaps only publish via extranet/VPN), it offers a mix of functions that others are sure to follow but I was still excited to see it. I chatted briefly with Dave Sifry last year after an AlwaysOn breakfast and asked him why Technorati didn’t offer an appliance for intranet blogging ecosystems: “off strategy” was his reply. Probably the right answer for his firm but there is clearly a need. (Update Nov 7: Intel seems to think so as well with SuiteTwo)
Q: Any advice for the Conference Organizers?
It sure would be nice if each session had a permalink and trackback function, if it’s available I haven’t found it).
Q: What else can you tell us about yourself?
I have a backgrounder here: https://www.skmurphy.com/about/
Related Blog Posts
- Blogging From KMWorld 2006
- Knowledge That Is Not Written Down, Yet
- Born with a Face Made for Podcasting
- Sean Murphy – I Don’t Read Him Regularly, But I Hear That I Should
- Improving the Techdirt Insight community
[1] Update Jan-18-2011: Office 2.0 website www.office20con.com has been taken over by spammers, links deleted.
Update Aug-6-2026 Notes from archive of Techdirt Greenhouse
Techdirt Greenhouse: An Idea Workshop
At Techdirt, our core belief is that ideas are living things — and that by getting smart people to think about and discuss various ideas, they can often be made much better. It’s what we try to do on Techdirt — presenting ideas and getting people to discuss them — as well as with customers of our Techdirt Corporate Intelligence service. We now want to take that same concept and try it in a live environment… the Techdirt Greenhouse.
Techdirt Greenhouse is a different kind of event. It’s designed to be fun, interactive and thought provoking. It requires participation, rather than passive listening, but has enough structure that it’s not a total free-for-all. In fact, the structure is quite similar to the Techdirt blog.
A group of pre-selected companies and individuals will present ideas in quick, five minute presentations. Unlike a standard product showcase, this is not the “final word.” After a group of presentations, the attendees are split up into breakout groups, and given a specific issue from one of the presentations to “workshop.” For a company with a new product, this could be anything from “what new features should be added” to “what target market should they focus on” to “is there a business model here?” Other presentations may not be about products, but ideas, and the workshops will be related to those ideas.
After a short period of time, everyone will reconvene and discuss some of the findings and takeaways for the presenters (and the attendees) to consider.
Think of each presentation as a Techdirt post — and each breakout group as the comments around that post. This allows us to create an event where many different interesting topics gets discussed among a diverse group of people with a wide range of perspectives and opinions — all in a short period of time.
Leave the Powerpoint and the sales pitches at home. Here’s a chance to interact with some of the smartest folks around, while helping to solve real and interesting challenges facing the technology business today
“It was a great place to be. It is probably one of the best events I have been to in a long time. Its charm was that it was very, very interactive.” Dorai Thodla
Techdirt Greenhouse: What’s in it for me?
- See and hear cool new ideas that can help you with your own projects and spark new ideas.
- Meet and interact with some of the smartest people around
- Ponder and solve fun and interesting problems
It would have been interesting to see something like this at KMWorld where a team would present a knowledge management challenge and then have ad hoc groups interview them an brainstorm approaches, culminating in a presentation back to full assembly.