On June 9th and 10th, Milan has become the Enterprise 2.0 capital of the world.
More than a thousand delegates have attended what many consider the most important Enterprise 2.0 gathering after the Boston E2.0 Conference.
Both conferences share many of the keynote speakers and although the Conference in Milan is of a significantly smaller scale, it confirms that in Europe Enterprise 2.0 is starting to reach mainstream.
The opening remarks by Emanuele Scotti and Rosario Sica, partners at Openknowledge, made an interesting connection between the first Enterprise 2.0 pioneers and explorers of the 15th Century like Cristoforo Colombo. What lies ahead of us is not completely known, but the potential rewards for everyone are very compelling.
The conference was then divided in three main tracks:
HR 2.0 chaired by Emanuele Scotti
Marketing 2.0 chaired by Emanuele Quintarelli
Innovation 2.0 chaired by Rosario Sica
These three tracks map very well with Clearvale’s 3 main ROI areas:
The Hidden Economy
Incremental Business
Innovation
In my opinion, there still some work to do to bridge the gap between the pioneers of Enterprise 2.0 (companies like Barilla who built a new business model using Social Networking interactions) and the followers who still fail to completely grasp the various opportunities that lie ahead of them.
There were many questions on how to change company culture, how to obtain the necessary resources and how to measure the ROI, and some of them remained unanswered.
Among the many interesting cases, the one brought by “Centro Nazionale Trapianti” (National Center for Organ Transplant) is definitely one of a kind.
It provides in fact a very compelling message to all Enterprises and Public Institutions: “It is possible to change the way we do business. It can be achieved with limited resources and an apparently conservative organizational culture”
With a team of only 2 community managers, 1 project coordinator and the assistance of 1 BroadVision consultant, CNT has been able to set up a collaborative network for hundreds of professionals in less than 10 days.
The network aims at creating a collaborative workspace for all personnel involved in the organ donation and transplant process: doctor, nurses, surgeons, volunteers and local staff.
All users of the CNT network will finally be able to meet virtually to exchange ideas, best practices, to standardize procedures and increase the engagement level especially for those more isolated in remote locations.
This project sets a very good example for future initiatives. A clear strategy, realistic expectations, executive sponsorship, thought leader participation to moderate the dialogue and a clearly perceived reward form a very good recipe for Enterprise 2.0 success.
A closing remark for the conference organizers: In the decade of open leadership, knowledge sharing and on-line social interactions, it looks very old school not having a virtual meeting place where all participants can review the keynote speeches, download presentations and follow up with the presenters.
I highlighted this disconnect in my previous blog post, “Events 1.0 to support Enterprise 2.0?” I am afraid it is still there. Fear of sharing too much perhaps? Making future events less attractive when you can find everything online?
I think this too is a cultural change we still need to go through.