I consider Office 2.0 to be sort of a sobriety check for those of us who regularly drink the Social Media KoolAid too deeply. Last year, I was scurrying all over the US and Europe talking about a conversational revolution, and then attended and spoke on a panel at Office 2.0.
The first thing I had noticed was the paucity of real corporate types at the gathering. There were 600 folk, all wanting to tell the enterprise about the bevy of wonderment headed there way, and there were far too few enterprise decision makers there to listen and even consider what we had to say.
Not so this year. There were at least 100 people representing Global 2000 companies. And they were not just there to pick up the free iPhone or PlayStation you got as a registrant, they were there working the problem. They were not their considering IF they should adopt some social media. They were even past the "how part. They were working the problem of how to make social media programs more strategic, more effective, more responsive to customers and collaborative internally.
Just when people like me feel like we have been hollering in a hurricane, it is heartening to see that maybe we were being listened to after all.
I was fortunate to moderate a panel on social computing that seems to have been well-received. JD Lasica gave a great summary here and Forrester senior analyst Jeremiah Owyang had some kind things to say here as did Tris Hussey at Blognation.
Gotta go stir up some KoolAid now.
