Author Archive
by Hylton Jolliffe
April 10, 2008 at 2:56 pm · Filed under
Search, semantic
FAST invites you to join a hosted conversation between Graeme McCracken, Chief Operating Officer at Reed Business Search, and Kate Worlock, Director, Market Intelligence Service, Outsell.
When: Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 2:00-3:00 pm EDT
Register Now by clicking here.
Learn how Reed Business, a member of the Reed Elsevier Group and largest B2B publisher in the world, is winning the premium content war by transforming their business from content creator to a leading vertical search provider. Graeme McCracken and Kate Worlock will discuss the approach Reed has taken to strategically leverage search and semantics across its portfolio of properties to provide a superior information discovery and consumption experience for its community and a flexible foundation for Reed Business.
Some Key Topics in the discussion:
- How publishers are bypassing Google and instead delivering their own state-of-the-art search models to showcase premium content, generate new revenue, and deliver precise and relevant content to build a loyal user base
- How positioning search as a platform, both push and pull, can help alleviate typical search pain points and drive traffic across sites to create a consistent and improved experience for users
- The role of search in unifying internal and external sources for a 360-degree view of information
- How search experiences can be segmented to meet the needs of different end user communities.
Register Now!
by Hylton Jolliffe
February 22, 2008 at 11:25 am · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, FASTForward '08, Interviews
Below is the full list of video interviews conducted over three days at FASTforward 08. We encourage you to find the time to listen in - those interviewed had many insightful things to say, as did Jerry Michalski, our excellent host for the series, about Enterprise 2.0, the user revolution, search, and much, much more.
- Liv Brahin: UBS
- Gerry Campbell: president, search and content technologies, Reuters
- Michael Cleary: Reuters
- Bob Coxe - chief information officer for Criterion Systems
- Tom Davenport - consultant, author
- Jorn Ellefsen - CEO of Comperio
- Sue Feldman - research vice president, content technologies group, IDC
- Charles Fiesel - Roundarch
- Brooks Gibbins: vice president and general manager, financial services at FAST
- John Hagel - consultant, author
- Clare Hart - EVP, Dow Jones & Company
- Jon Husband: author, blogger, consultant
- Bill Ives: consultant, blogger
- Sandy Kemsley: consultant and blogger
- Kiyosh Kurihara: President of Japanese analyst firm TechVisor JP, Ltd.
- John Markus Lervik: CEO, FAST
- Jevon MacDonald: blogger perspective
- Jim McGee: consultant, author, blogger
- Joe McKendrick - analyst, blogger
- Bjørn Olstad: CTO of FAST
- Robert Paterson - Robert Paterson, consultant, blogger
- Mark Pfeiffer: SAILLABS
- JP Rangaswami: CIO of British Telecom
- Safa Rashtchy: speaker at FASTForward’08
- Jan Paul Raven: Knowledge Concepts
- Benjamin Rudolph: Search Discovery
- Jared Spataro: group product manager, Microsoft
- Tim Stay: Perfect Search
- David Sutija - SVP of enterprise products, FAST
- Kyoko Suzuki: Computer World Japan
- Don Tapscott - strategist, author of “Wikinomics”
- Paula Thornton: experience design strategist
- Nate Treloar: SVP, Interaction Technology, FAST
- David Weinberger - speaker, consultant, author
- Zia Zaman: executive vice president, global marketing, FAST
Keynotes:
- John Hagel: The Impact of the User Revolution on Your Organization
- David Weinberger: The Information Mess – And Why You Should Love It
by Hylton Jolliffe
February 20, 2008 at 5:39 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
We’ve heard from some of you that those tuning in to the site via RSS are not being signaled that there are videos attached to the posts. We’re working to fix but in the meantime we’ll point you again to the many excellent interviews that took place today.
- Gerry Campbell: president, search and content technologies, Reuters
- Zia Zaman: executive vice president, global marketing, FAST
- Safa Rashtchy: speaker at FASTForward’08
- Jan Paul Raven: Knowledge Concepts
- Jared Spataro: group product manager, Microsoft
- Benjamin Rudolph: Search Discovery
- Jim McGee: consultant, author, blogger
- Mark Pfeiffer: SAILLABS
- Bill Ives: consultant, blogger
- Jon Husband: author, blogger, consultant
- Paula Thornton: experience design strategist
- Bjørn Olstad: CTO of FAST
- Sandy Kemsley: consultant and blogger
- Tim Stay: Perfect Search
- Liv Brahin: UBS
- Michael Cleary: Reuters
Keynotes:
- John Hagel: The Impact of the User Revolution on Your Organization
- David Weinberger: The Information Mess – And Why You Should Love It
by Hylton Jolliffe
February 20, 2008 at 2:19 pm · Filed under
FASTForward '08
The description: “With The User Revolution upon us, it increasingly becomes critical to be able to measure the potential impact of this powerful change trend on the future of your business and its role in the industry. Unfortunately, the value of many of the intangibles that power The User Revolution – skills, information, social capital, etc. – cannot be captured and measured with traditional metrics such as Return on Investment (ROI). In this session, John Hagel, widely respected author and business strategy guru, introduces us to a new set of leading indicators that can be used to measure and predict the impact of The User Revolution on your company.”

John Hagel keynote:
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by Hylton Jolliffe
February 20, 2008 at 12:13 pm · Filed under
David Weinberger, FASTForward '08, Information Management, Messy World
David’s keynote from Tuesday.
The description from the program: “Reality has sold us a bill of goods: Because we’ve had to keep our physical stuff neat and orderly, we’ve assumed that the ideal information system also is neat and orderly. But that type of organization actually excludes more information than it makes available. As information – and, importantly, metadata – get digitized, we have to unlearn millennia of lessons reality has taught us. The changes affect not only the basic principles of organization, but also who gets believed and why. In this session, David Weinberger explores what happens to experts, authorities, and the business and institutions that depend on them as we move to social knowledge, rich in connections but often uncontrolled and uncontrollable.”

David Weinberger :
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by Hylton Jolliffe
February 19, 2008 at 6:56 pm · Filed under
FASTForward '08, Interviews, Podcasts
Below you’ll find links to the many great interviews we’ve posted so far. Tune in, pass them around, and feel free to follow up on the interviewee’s remarks in the comments.
- John Hagel - consultant, author
- Joe McKendrick - analyst, blogger
- Bob Coxe - chief information officer for Criterion Systems
- Robert Paterson - Robert Paterson, consultant, blogger
- Clare Hart - EVP, Dow Jones & Company
- David Sutija - SVP of enterprise products, FAST
- David Weinberger - speaker, consultant, author
- Tom Davenport - consultant, author
- Jorn Ellefsen - CEO of Comperio
- Charles Fiesel - Roundarch
- Don Tapscott - strategist, author of “Wikinomics”
- Sue Feldman - research vice president, content technologies group, IDC
by Hylton Jolliffe
February 18, 2008 at 4:18 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, FASTForward '08
Over the next few days you can expect to see the blog humming with activity with analysis and reporting, audio and video interviews, photos, and more. Attending the event, held this year in Orlando, are all the contributors to this blog, numerous speakers readers will know well - e.g. Andrew McAfee, Tom Davenport, Don Tapscott, John Hagel, David Weinberger, and J.P. Rangaswami, myriad partners and press, and well north of a thousand attendees. All of which should make for some rich commentary and conversation over the coming days.
Stay tuned, tag anything relevant with “fastforward08″, and come say hi if you’re here. Also keep an eye out for Jerry Michalski and the interviews he’ll be conducting throughout the event of speakers, panelists, bloggers and interesting attendees. (Those of you who were tuning in to the FASTforward Blog at this time last year will remember an excellent such series from David Weinberger.)
by Hylton Jolliffe
January 11, 2008 at 3:40 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, FASTforward08, Webinars
Attached is the audio recording of today’s debate between Andrew McAfee and Tom Davenport, moderated by our own Jim McGee. As you’ll hear, we missed the first 30 seconds of the intro and it’s a little hard to hear the participants at one point but it still makes for good listening and clocks in at about 54 minutes.
Listen to it in place or download for listening later and feel free to weigh in on this blogpost with follow-up comments or reactions. (And for those interested in hearing more from Andy and Tom, as well as many other great thinkers in the field, find out more about and join us at FASTforward ‘08.)

Davenport McAfee E2.0 debate:
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by Hylton Jolliffe
May 18, 2007 at 9:55 am · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Rave 2.0
A quick note to remind readers that the Enterprise 2.0 Rave is now a virtual event that can be attended, for free, by all who register. The program, organized by Longworth Venture Partners and sponsored by FAST, kicks off at 2 p.m. on Monday in discussions led by Euan Semple, John Musser, Jevon MacDonald, Susan Scrupski, Joe McKendrick, and Bill Ives.
Join us again on Tuesday May 22nd at 11 a.m. focused on adoption issues with Enterprise 2.0 projects. Speakers include Andrew McAfee, JP Rangaswami, Euan Semple, Jenny Ambrozek and Jim McGee.
Find out more and register.
by Hylton Jolliffe
May 9, 2007 at 7:55 am · Filed under
Enterprise Rave 2.0, event announcements
In preparation for the Enterprise 2.0 Rave, now being run as a virtual event, the co-conveners of the event have put together a brief survey on market readiness that we hope you’ll take the time to fill out. We’ll be gathering responses and sharing the results with those who take the survey.
Take the survey at the URL below and feel free to spread the word or point to it from your own blog - the more people we can get to participate the more useful it’ll be:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=937203810006
by Hylton Jolliffe
May 7, 2007 at 9:53 am · Filed under
house business
As you’ll see if you survey the surroundings or pop over from your RSS feed to the site, we’ve instituted a re-design of fastforwardblog.com.
A few more pieces and new features will fall into place over the coming days but you’re looking at the general look and feel of FASTforwardblog 2.0. Please feel free to comment on it as well as make suggestions for elements you’d like to see included. Also let us know if you see any funkiness or features not working by emailing us at fastforwardblog@gmail.com.
by Hylton Jolliffe
April 17, 2007 at 10:50 am · Filed under
EIU Report, Enterprise 2.0, Sponsored Post, house business
The EIU report that you’ve heard mentioned here numerous times in recent months as well as at FASTForward ‘07 has just been released. The study, as described below, included a survey of more than 400 senior execs as well as interviews with individuals responsible for Enterprise 2.0 initiatives and implementation.
From the email from FAST that went out this morning:
“The report takes the Economist presentation at FASTforward ‘07 to greater detail and provides an interesting view into this fast-changing phenomenon. The report, based on original survey-based research, uncovers the current perspectives of senior managers, spanning from their understanding of the definition of ‘Web 2.0′, to the specific ways it will impact their firm’s revenues, expenses, and operations. Download the paper now.
And, in case you missed Jeanette Borzo, Contributing Editor, Economist Intelligence Unit, present at FASTforward ’07, we also invite you to Download the video presentation.
About the report:
Serious business: Web 2.0 goes corporate, a newly released Economist Intelligence Unit report, sponsored by FAST, examines how Web 2.0 is being applied – and will be applied in the near future – by large corporations, across a wide range of industries, throughout the world.
The report is based on a survey of 406 senior executives, as well as interviews with Citigroup, JWT, Global Crossing and other major corporations.
Register for access to the report and stay tuned for commentary from our contributors as well as from FAST (we’ve added a new category for all report-related posts).
by Hylton Jolliffe
April 11, 2007 at 8:16 am · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
We wanted to alert you to an upcoming event we’re guessing you’ll be interested in: the Enterprise 2.0 Rave. Spearheaded by Longworth Venture Partners, produced by Corante, and sponsored by FAST, your hosts here on this blog, the event convenes leading thinkers from the Enterprise 2.0 space for an intense and intimate conference in New York City on May 21-22.
The program, about which more here, brings together experts in the areas of collaboration, knowledge management, e-learning, and social media with practitioners from a variety of industries - your peers - for a 24-hour brainstorming session on the challenges and opportunities related to Enterprise 2.0 deployments. Among those speaking and leading workshops are many names familiar to those who tune in to this blog including Andrew McAfee, Euan Semple, Susan Scrupski, Jim McGee, Joe McKendrick, Bill Ives, Kathleen Gilroy, Jevon MacDonald, John, Musser, and Jenny Ambrozek.
If you or anyone on your team is thinking of setting up or is involved with deploying Web 2.0 tools within your enterprise, you cannot afford to miss the Rave. The event will be chock full of opportunities to network, meet and talk with some of the field’s leading lights, and build an informal support community to share best , and just as importantly worst, practices.
Register now, using this link, and you’ll get $250 off the price of admission.
by Hylton Jolliffe
February 28, 2007 at 11:18 am · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
Most of our readers surely tune in to the blog of Andrew McAfee, the Harvard Business School professor who keynoted and led numerous sessions at FASTforward earlier this month (here’s an interview by David Weinberger with Andrew [added later: also check out Kathleen Gilroy's longer interview with Andrew from before the conference]). For those of you who don’t or aren’t aware of it, a few pointers, in reverse reverse chronological order, to recent posts that follow up on some of the conversations that took place at and after the conference:
FastForwarding to a Better Understanding, part 1
In speaking about two of the roundtable discussions in which he was involved: “…they caused me to start rethinking some of my most deeply held convictions about Enterprise 2.0…”
FastForwarding to a Better Understanding, part 2
In his second post about the event, to which many great comments were added, Andrew lays out the thesis of his second-day keynote and adds “…At a lunchtime discussion that same day, I heard a very different view.”
Tear Down These Walls!?!?
Andrew notes the openness of the Web and how it’s given rise to the “elaborate” and emergent nature of today’s Web and ponders how effective the closed, “walled gardens” of corporate intranets can really be in surfacing good information and ideas. As before, be sure to catch the comments.
by Hylton Jolliffe
February 12, 2007 at 11:26 am · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
A “table of contents” for those catching up on the posts and discussions that took place here last week. In this post we pull together quick pointers to video interviews conducted over the three days of the conference.
Interviews by David Weinberger, in no particular order:
- Chris Anderson, editor of Wired and author of “The Long Tail”
- John Battelle, author, blogger, editor, media entrepreneur
- Jeanette Borzo of the Economist Intelligence Unit
- Matthew Brown, a senior analyst at Forrester Research
- John Markus Lervik, founder and CEO of FAST
- Carl Frappaolo of the Delphi Group
- Stephen Gallagher, Senior Director at Accenture
- Susan Feldman, IDC
- Dorothea Herrey of Dow Jones Consumer Media Group
- Bill Inmon of Inmon Data Systems
- Dan Keldsen of the Delphi Group
- Zia Zaman, FAST
- Lydia Loizides, former exec of tech and emerging media at Interpublic Media
- Andrew McAfee of Harvard Business School
- Tom Mandel of ConnectBeam
- Kathleen Gilroy, Otter Group
- Hadley Reynolds, FAST
- Jim McGee of the Huron Consulting Group
- Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media
- James Robertson of Step Two Designs
- Michael Schrage, MIT
- Euan Semple, consultant, formerly of BBC
- Sandeep Swadia, FAST
- David Watson, Digital Media at Disney/ABC
Interviews by Kathleen Gilroy:
- “The meaning of search“
- a montage of statements by conference participants on the meaning and future of search
- Tim O’Reilly:
- Web 2.0 is defined by building systems that get better as much people use them. This means asymmetric competition in the information business. But there are opportunities to work in the global information commons. O’Reilly hosted a panel where he interviewed the search person from Reed and the head of business development for Fast. They discussed producing more contextual search and looking at federated search where the data coming from multiple customers was combined and made available.
- Andrew McAfee:
- Enterprise 2.0 is about new forms of collaboration and unlike previous enterprise computing efforts, e20 enables the expression and capture of judgement.
- E20 will not happen just by building new technologies and expecting people to use them. It is hard to get e20 to become part of the DNA of a company and it will require sustained management and leadership through coaching, rewards and incentives, leadership, and building a culture that is attuned to the benefits of working in this new way.
- E20 is very different from groupware (Notes, Sharepoint) in that it is very unstructured. Groupware often failed because it demanded too many rules and the terms of interaction were defined from the start.\
- Ray Lane on the “interpersonal enterprise”
by Hylton Jolliffe
February 8, 2007 at 1:27 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
For those blogging from here as well as tracking the conference please use the tag “ff07″.
by Hylton Jolliffe
January 31, 2007 at 8:51 am · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
Wanted to alert you to the release of a case study by Andrew McAfee and Karim Lakhani on Wikipedia. Says McAfee, on his blog:
It’s focal point is the articles for deletion process on Wikipedia’s “Enterprise 2.0″ article, but I’ll use this focal point and the other information in the case for a much broader classroom discussion. Using this case, I’ll talk with students about:
* Why Nupedia (Wikipedia’s more formal predecessor) failed to gather momentum, and why Wikipedia has gathered so much.
* Whether Wikipedia’s highly egalitarian and freeform editing processes and policies yield good results and, if so, how this happens.
* How decision rights are allocated in Wikipedia.
* The merits of the Inclusionist and Deletionist perspectives.
* Whether Wikipedia really has become a “post-revolutionary Bolshevik Soviet, with an inscrutable central power structure wielding control over a legion of workers.”
* Whether the Wikipedia community practices the ‘right’ level of deference to the opinions and judgments of subject matter ‘experts.’
* If Wikipedia’s policies are being correctly followed, what the fate of the “Enterprise 2.0″ article should be.
See his blog post for more and for the link to the case study itself - it’s available for free and available under the GNU FDL.
by Hylton Jolliffe
January 29, 2007 at 5:24 pm · Filed under
Enterprise 2.0
Mike Gotta picks up James’ challenge to come up with 5 tips for gaining adoption for next-generation enterprise applications. His first:
“Define what Enterprise 2.0 means for you: I often feel like we’re back in the nineties debating what Knowledge Management is or is not. To overstate the issue - it really doesn’t matter what I think E2.0 is or what some other pundit, expert or analyst thinks it is — or is not. What matters most is for an organization to take ownership of the term and define for itself what Enterprise 2.0 means based on its own structural dynamics, culture, institutions, market pressures, human capital needs and so on. There is no universal truth here (perhaps some common scaffolding but no complete right or wrong). By taking ownership of the term, it allows people within an organization to put Enterprise 2.0 into a context that they can understand and relate to it in terms of change management, transformation complexity, risks and opportunities and so forth.”
Read the rest…
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