Internet Strategy Forum: Executive Summit 2006 Observations

This was a very well run event with fabulous speakers. Some of the highlights included:

• Erin Hintz of Symantec speaking about engaging with your customers. Symantec has just started blogging to interact with their customers about security. For example, the Norton Security Blog or the Symantec Security Response Blog. Both are on the right track. But what was even more interesting to me was the launch of a community around Symantec customers featuring digital photo uploads as well as their Safetytown video series. Safetytown has had over 100,000 unique visitors watch their first video.
• Atakan Cetinsoy of MyStrands.com speaking about the convergence of digital media and online communities. Atakan helped get the Apple iTunes store off the ground and is very plugged in to consumer trends in the global media world.
• Adam Freed of Google giving us the update on Google’s use of localization and native language search (up to 113 languages as we speak). What was facinating was the degree to which Google is actively listening to its users. (Best comment at the event was from Adam. He was discussing how his team put together the business case, filled with statistics about demographics and internet usage to determine which languages should be offered by Google globally. This was then presented in a very serious manner to Sergey and Larry, among others. After justifying their view of the world and the projected growth in usage in the languages proposed, Sergey asked “You really have no idea what is going to happen do you?” To which the answer was “No, we don’t.” Very refreshing honesty… )

The event’s audience was also very interested in the interactions that presenter’s companies have with their visitors. From questions about blogging to moderating communities to using interactive tools for ROI, it was nice to see that at least in Portland Oregon the web teams understand that pushing content is no longer working. It’s all about interactions.

If you’d like to download my presentation on Global Online Communities featuring Cisco and SAP, as part of the panel discussion on tools and features of global websites, click here. You’ll find the link to download it on our corporate web site’s home page.

Thanks to the Internet Strategy Forum for inviting me to speak. I enjoyed my trip to Portland.

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