FRONT - A Strategy, Design and Technology Studio

The Power of Less

Tim O’Reilly set the scene for Web 2.0 Expo on the first day. We live in challenging times; capital markets have failed and fallen; life continues to be a day to day struggle in huge swathes of the world.

O’Reilly believes that by applying concepts like Moore’s law and intelligent social systems to the problems faced by humanity there’s a powerful opportunity to halt the problems rapidly overtaking us, and put the world back on a sustainable, peaceful path. Not a typical opening to a web conference, but a powerful and resonant message all the same - we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for and large institutions are not coming to help anytime soon.

The New Corporation

Continuing this theme, Douglas Rushkoff talked about how, during the recent financial boom, companies started to believe and invest in their own delusions. The ideal company became a name, a shell, on top of a balance sheet containing over-valued assets and unstable lines of credit. He charted a path away from the Harvard Business Review way of doing things; slashing costs, outsourcing skills - to a more creative, more valuable economy founded on the principles of innovation and value contributed by read people, real skills, real effort.

The internet, he said, allows people to create and exchange value without going through traditional, central corporations and breaks the myth that you need a lot of money to do a really good startup. The last thing the internet needs, he said, is companies entirely founded on the premise of venture capital where the founders are only in it to sell out and move on. This is old-world thinking applied to the potential of new, genuine economic opportunity. Rushkoff’s talk may have sat slightly uncomfortably in the room of internet entrepreneurs, but it was a valuable, powerful talk - a kick in the ass basically.

The Web, Everywhere

Vic Gundotra (Google) gave a fascinating interview to Tim O’Reilly on how Google is using new standards like HTML 5 to create ubiquitous mobile applications, capable of running on mobile devices - basically throwing a pie in the direction of proprietary standards found on a lot of mobile platforms like the iPhone.

O’Reilly pressed him on whether Google’s ultimate goal was to control all information on the internet, albeit using open standards, to which Gundotra answered a solid “no”. He also denied that Google would be buying Twitter, though his blushes, told a slightly different story. Gundotra’s interview was a very interesting contrast/parallel to some of the other keynote talks - reinforcing the inherent contradiction at the heart of Google’s business model; drawing private value from publicly available data.

The Value of Getting Out There

So, how to sum up such a packed week? It’s hard. At a brass tacks level, the value of the skills and experience offered by the speakers would be completely out of our reach under normal circumstances - it would have cost us hundreds of thousands of pounds to hire these people to talk to us, offer us their experiences and skills.

Traditionally, visits to places like San Francisco are treated as pure trade missions, on the understanding that there’s an opportunity to physically export goods or services. This is true to a point, but in a way it’s a binary way of looking at the world. Web 2.0 Expo, and other events like it, play a direct role in accelerating the pace and quality of the products and services offered by companies like Front. We gain incalculable value in terms of training and export contacts that pure trade missions can’t always deliver. We will be applying a lot of what we took from Web 2.0 Expo to offer our clients better ideas and services over the next 12 months.

The success we’ve had in more accessible export markets in the last two years is directly attributable to us being able to go and learn from great people at Web 2.0 Expo and events like it. We also have a network of new friends from Web 2.0 who we’ll be able to contact and consult with to further our knowledge in the months to come.

Passing it On

It is always worthwhile to go out of your way to hear new ideas and be around challenging, passionate people; and like everything, the value you get in return is proportional to the effort you put in. We blog, photograph, record and talk about events wherever they may be to to reinforce what we learn in our own minds, and so that the knowledge is more real and more accessible to the team at Front, and to the community who aren’t able to attend. We believe that this is only fair, and part of the job of trying to do good work.

So, that’s all from Web 2.0 Expo.  We’d like to thank Invest Northern Ireland for making the trip possible, and the organisers of Web 2.0 Expo for their commitment and dedication.  Hopefully, we’ll see you all next year again.

Resources

• Presentations & Files from Web 2.0 Expo - All the publicly available presentations in one place.
• Photos from Web 2.0 Expo 2009 - Shots we took at the conference during the week, on Flickr.