LinkedIn at Office 2.0

Adam Nash Sep 11, 2007

Last week, I had the opportunity to join a great a panel at the Office 2.0 conference in San Francisco.  The Office 2.0 conference is dedicated to exploring the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise, and I was excited to see the dedication and passion that many of the attendees and fellow panelists had for the topic.  The website self-describes the event as follows:

The Office 2.0 Conference is a collective experiment organized every year in San Francisco, CA and aimed at discovering the future of online productivity & collaboration. It is a unique gathering of visionaries, thought leaders, and customers using innovative online services for getting things done at the office, at home, and on the go.

Shel Israel, who moderated the event, is a well know consultant in the Social Media space, and has written a book on business blogging called "Naked Conversations" with Robert Scoble.

The panel featured great representatives from some of the key companies that are defining ways for people to use social media in the enterprise:

• Anil Dash, Vice President, Evangelism, Six Apart
• John McCrea, Vice President of Marketing, Plaxo
• Adam Nash, Senior Director, Product, LinkedIn
• Shiv Singh, Enterprise Solutions Director, Avenue A | Razorfish
• Athena von Oech, Director of Advocacy & Support, Ning

Shel did an excellent job setting up a great format for the event.  Instead of focusing on prepared questions or remarks, each panelist took a couple of minutes to speak briefly about their company, their focus, and their passion on the topic, and then we dove straight into Q&A with the audience.  It was by far the best way to make use of limited time, and the general consensus is that it led to some great discussion.  (Jeremiah even referred to it as the best panel he'd seen in a long time.)

Explaining LinkedIn was relatively easy with this audience - when I asked people around the room how many already knew about LinkedIn and had a LinkedIn profile, almost every hand went up.  It was great, however, to take a few moments to explain to everyone why we are so passionate at LinkedIn about professional networking.  We firmly believe that the most valuable assets we build as professionals through our careers are our reputations and the people who we know and trust, and who know and trust us.  We're building a platform to help professionals leverage those key assets on a daily basis.

There were quite a few interesting questions and anecdotes from the audience and the panel.  Anil made an impassioned statement about the importance of collaboration and content in the enterprise.  John spoke about the importance of portability and open standards (thank you, by the way, for the positive comment on LinkedIn and the ability we give every member to download their connections).  Athena spent some time on the vibrance of new communities forming on Ning.  Shiv kicked off with comments about the incredible growth and interest people are showing for social media in the enterprise.

What are some of the innovative online services you're hoping to see come from the office space? Leave a comment.

Posted at 11:56 PM in Events | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

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