It's been an incredible year in 2007 as we've continued to make our way on the "2.0" journey that we embarked upon last year. I thought I'd re-inaugurate this blog with my return to regular posting and to catch up our colleagues, friends, and contacts in the industry with what's been going on with us lately. The good news, much of our current hard work is over and I'm going to be returning more to writing and speaking in the near future, though I'm always going to work closely with clients.
Building a dedicated business around helping organizations transform themselves to the business models of the 21st century has proven to be no minor task. Founding Hinchcliffe & Company as well as creating our enormously popular Web 2.0 University, growing a close-knit passionate team, crafting a set of quality consulting and education products that we believe in, all the while keeping customers happy has been an enormous effort, consuming virtually all of our time. However, we've begun to see the fruits of our labor by seeing our clients and partners succeed in applying Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 to invigorate themselves, grow, and innovate. Along the way we have been rewarded with an absolutely top-notch set of clients and valued industry contacts.
As to our future, the good news is that the key catchphrases of our business, Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0, seem to be as popular as ever. In fact, surprising as it seems for those of us who have been involved in them for the last few years, I believe that 2008 will be the first truly mainstream year for both of these of strategic new approaches to business and technology.
We have a lot of very exciting projects in the works that we'll announce over the next few months. I'm also pleased to go on record predicting that 2008 will be one of the most interesting years in the business as organizations begin to globally grapple in earnest with the disruptive business models of Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 which we see advancing on virtually all industries and institutions today.
As I have in the past, I'm going to use this blog to cover mainstream Web 2.0 topics while using my ZDNet blog to focus specifically on enterprise applications of Web 2.0. Stay tuned.
What else have we been doing lately? Plenty as it turns out...
New Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 publications, education, events, and partnerships
A new Web 2.0 book. We've just help complete a major new book on the topic of Web 2.0 with Adobe's Duane Nickull and Redmonk's James Governor, due for publication from O'Reilly shortly. You can read James' take on it on his blog as well as Duane's recent blog overview of it. - A new Enterprise 2.0 course. Our Enterprise 2.0 Bootcamp has recently finished development after successful trials at major conferences such as Interop and the Enterprise 2.0 Conference. It will be offered shortly as part of Web 2.0 University. You can attend in locations around the world or it can be brought to your organization.
- Refining the revolution. We recently posted our latest assessment of how to use Web 2.0 social platforms in the workplace in The State of Enterprise 2.0 on ZDNet.
- A conference on Enterprise 2.0. I'm speaking at Avenue A | Razorfish's Reinventing the Enterprise summit this Friday in Boston, MA. I'll be covering the latest topics on Enterprise 2.0 along with Jimmy Wales, Andrew McAfee, and and Forrester's Rob Koplowitz.
- A major event on Web 2.0 in Business. We are speaking at and sponsoring the East Coast's largest Web 2.0 conference, The New New Internet in Tyson's Corner, VA on November 1st, 2007. I'm hosting an armchair discussion with Salesforce.com's Peter Coffee and Amazon's Jeff Barr. There are still a few tickets left for this event, and you can use my special registration discount code at this link to save off the retail price of admission.
- We help take Web 2.0 to Europe. Web 2.0 Expo Berlin is kicking off next month on November 5th. Mark the date, we'll be there to provide a half-day version of Web 2.0 University as a workshop on the first day. It was enormously popular at Web 2.0 Expo SF in April with over 600 people attending in a standing room only crowd. I'm also giving an extensively updated talk on the rise of Web widgets and new online distribution models which was also very popular at the last Expo.
- Web 2.0 University(tm) is coming to DC. On November 16th, the world's leading learning event on Web 2.0 is coming to Washington, DC. Thousands of business leaders around the world have attended this strategic business event to rave reviews. Seating is limited to sign up now to make sure you're there. Web 2.0 University will also be given in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and San Francisco in the next few months.
- We expand globally. We have recently licensed Web 2.0 University to one of the top consulting firms in Europe. Reply will exclusively deliver our leading courses courses to their clients and the general public in Italy and Germany. We've also established a partnership with LG CNS of Korea on bringing Web 2.0 consulting and education to Korea ( press release in Korean).
- New faces. We've had some key new additions to our executive line-up. Denise Kalos and John Fandel have come over to us from O'Reilly Media and have deep experience with Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 solutions around consulting, education, and online communities that support Web 2.0 initiatives. Denise has joined us as Executive Vice President of Sales while John is Executive Vice President of Business Solutions. You can reach them at denise@hinchcliffeandco.com and jpfandel@hinchcliffeandco.com.
Please do keep in touch in comments below, via Facebook, or contact me directly at dion@hinchcliffeandco.com.
Note: Normally this blog is used exclusively for exploring Web 2.0 in all its facets but this is an update on what I've been doing the last few months and so it definitely mixes business and subject matter. Most posts are here have a minimum of business promotion and this post is a rare exception.
