ExecutiveBiz members have had the pleasure of interacting with a long line of IT thought leaders. One of note is Chris Rasmussen, a great advocate for information sharing and collaboration within the federal space and a master of the use of new tools to get groups working together on hard problems (read more about Chris here). Chris will speak with members again on 24 April 2008 at The New, New Internet.

Federal users are making increasing use of Web2.0 capabilities, and we look forward to hearing Chris’s views on where this is all going. We are already seeing that some of the nation’s hardest problems, like those the intelligence community must address, are being tackled with Web2.0 tools and techniques. One recent development is a YouTube-type capability for the intelligence world called “iVideo.” (see Federal Computer Week’s article on “YouTube for the intell community” for more info). iVideo is based on Adobe technologies, and provides users from around the globe the ability to securely upload video and other media for the use by others. We can expect the use of iVideo will grow dramatically, like the adoption of other advanced Web2.0 tools provided by the Office of the Director of National intelligence (ODNI).

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While the Internet may not quite be the great equalizer when it comes to political campaigns pitting heavyweight candidates against underdogs, Politics 2.0 has certainly caused front-runners to sweat a few buckets.

Today’s Washington Post has an A1 story examining the Web’s promise and peril for Presidential candidates - particularly front-runners with less to gain and everything to lose when viral campaigns turn against them.

As online politics has expanded from simply another fundraising channel to a web of viral videos, Facebook campaign sites and influential political blogs, candidates have struggled to maintain a grasp on how their messages reach the voter. This marriage of necessity was the fodder for a lively discussion at last week’s ExecutiveBiz The New New Internet Conference during a panel titled: Politics on the Web, by the Web and for the Web (catch the video of the panel here). The panel was comprised of Joe Trippi, John Edwards for President, Senior Advisor; Cyrus Krohn, RNC, Director of eCampaign Division; John Della Volpe, Harvard Institute of Politics, Director of Polling; and Gary Arlen, Arlen Communications, Inc., President.

Politics 2.0 really started with the 2004 Presidential Campaign run by Howard Dean. More specifically it started with Joe Trippi, who served as National Campaign Manager for Dean and pioneered the use of online technology to organize what became the largest grassroots movement in presidential politics. Dean for America ended up raising more money than any Democratic presidential campaign in history, all with donations averaging less than $100 each.

While the Web can still produce surprises and offer an unexpected financing platform for darkhorse candidates, (Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul appears to be the micro version of Howard Dean in the current election cycle) the panelists discussed how politics on the web, as the Washington Post article suggests, has spun well beyond the control of the candidates and front-runners still fear taking risks online.

John Della Volpe pointed out that as opposed to 2004, when the Democratic candidates had to take more risks to bring down Bush, 2008 sees a GOP field that now must be more open to using the Web in order to chip away at the Clinton machine.

At the same time, Trippi pointed out that in some ways candidates are still more comfortable operating at the Web 1.0 level with moderated user groups, portals and forums. Not all have willingly shifted to the Web 2.0 level where the moderator function is removed and control is handed off directly to the voter.

While political candidates still might be tiptoeing from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, the Web has exacted a rapid and fundamental imprint on Presidential politics. Candidates realize they must handhold bloggers and online influencers the same way they do offline journalists, or risk having a negative blog post, video or audio clip send the campaign into crisis mode. And as more voters visit the Web first for news, the stakes will only increase for candidates trying to maximize their web strategy.

Even Conference organizers charged with assembling provocative panel discussions and speakers can end up pleasantly surprised when one topic strikes a noticeable chord with attendees. That was certainly the case with the ExecutiveBiz The New New Internet Conference afternoon panel discussion - Software as a Service: Benefits Beyond Delivery.

As I exited one conference room two attendees approached separately and told me to rush over and poke my head into the SaaS panel because I’d be surprised how packed it was. I devolved into the awkward walk-run hybrid and busted through the doors.

Inside, I found Reed Overfelt, Partner and COO at Mural Ventures Corporation, Johy Daly, VP, Global Architecture Services at Keane, Mike McDermott, CEO at Freshbooks, and IceWeb Chairman & CEO John R. Signorello addressing an energetic, packed conference room of entrepreneurs, executives and IT professionals who embodied the momentum behind SaaS within both the public and private sector.

Ironically, it was during a separate armchair discussion on Web 2.0 that Peter Coffee, Director of Platform Research at Salesforce.com, summed up how ingrained SaaS has become in how we work. In talking about the ubiquity of SaaS and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Coffee queried “when was the last time you told someone how excited you were to order software, receive a CD in the mail, load the CD, download the software from the CD and finally run the application?”

While Coffee wasn’t on the SaaS panel, he simply summarized why the Web has become the preferred vehicle for delivering business services and software. In observing the most lively Q&A of any session I attended it also became clear that this is a fast-growing segment in some ways adjusting the playbook as it goes. The exchanges reflected the challenge for SaaS companies to adapt to end user-created demand, as well as to address public misconceptions about the security of these services.

In addition to the SaaS companies represented by the panel executives, the current and potential role of SaaS within Web 2.0 for business and government could be seen with exhibitors such as Digital Now, Kapow, and others delivering powerful software and applications via the Web.

I believe the reason SaaS was so well received by attendees was two-fold. First, while some areas of Web 2.0 have been long on hype and short on revenue streams, SaaS delivers a tangible business path for companies instead of, as Leonsis put it during his keynote, a model that simply piggybacks on Google’s revenue stream.

Second, SaaS hits a pain point in the Federal government, where Agencies are seeking a simplified delivery model for services and applications that fits with budget and manpower constraints.

Brian Lustig is co-founder of Lustig Communications, a Rockville, MD-based communications firm that works with growing technology and government IT firms. Lustig is also a contributor to local business and industry publications.

Organizing a full-day conference is not an easy task under any circumstances. Though one could argue the lift is a little lighter if the Conference topic is easily defined and understood. A Conference on developments in the paper clip industry for instance: still a pain to organize but not hard to agree on a central theme.

Web 2.0 on the other hand….

Where do you begin? How do you bring together thought leaders developing everything from mashup applications to a Second Life presence for government agencies, foster provocative discussions while maintaining a central theme that carries throughout?

Over the next few days I’ll be posting on the discussions that took place at The ExecutiveBiz “The New New Internet” Conference today, and the speakers who sought to fit together all of the Web 2.0 pieces into one puzzle. With over 800 attendees from the public and private sector - executives, managers and thought leaders who will have a huge say in how Web 2.0 evolves in the coming years - circulating, absorbing and networking, there was an undeniable buzz working its way through the hotel (and I’m not just talking about the hundreds of Blackberries set on vibrate).

For those who attended, feel free to post comments on your takeaways from the sessions and speakers, and what you took away from all of the insight gleaned. And for those who could not attend consider this blog a Cliffs Notes version. Also, be sure to keep checking the ExecutiveBiz site for full video and photos of the presentations and panel discussions.

Today’s entry will focus on two keynotes: the Conference kickoff presentation from Ted Leonsis, Vice Chairman Emeritus, AOL and the lunch presentation from Tim Ferriss, bestselling author of The 4-Hour Work Week.

I’m starting with these two because they both addressed overlapping themes that hold relevance for every nook and cranny of the Web 2.0 space. They both spoke of how, for all the technological developments and new gadgets, the lives of consumers are not more productive. For Ted, a self-professed student of happiness, this is a problem. Web 2.0 holds the power to enhance his five key ingredients of happiness (relationships, community, self expression, giving back and pursuit of a higher cause), but only if companies providing Web 2.0 services stay focused on the consumer. Ferriss’ lunch keynote took a different approach to in some ways hammer home the same point: individuals are letting devices, clients and relationships control them, rather than vice-versa. The result, he warns, is that no matter how much money we make or clients we win, our happiness level decreases because our control over life has decreased.

Though introducing himself as “the New New Ted Leonsis” it was in fact vintage Ted - separating what is cool and flashy about Web 2.0 from what is required for companies to create a viable business model on it. The social networks, video sites and user reviews might be getting all of the attention, but Leonsis reminded the audience that consumer collaboration is not 2.0. It isn’t even 1.0 but instead pre-Web 1.0.

For Ted - from his time at AOL to his role with the Washington Capitals - it has always been about the consumer. It is about the consumer who no longer is content to sit on a couch and be told what programming he can watch at a particular time. The consumer wants choice and control. For television that plays out through TiVo, and now that we live on the Internet it is about control over content, expression, applications and the overall Web experience.

Though enthusiastic and optimistic, Ted is concerned by how Web 2.0 companies are laying out revenue streams. While a successful company should tap multiple revenue streams, Leonsis argues most Web 2.0 companies lack even a single viable revenue stream and instead are content to piggyback on Google’s. For Web 2.0 to take hold as a business model this will have to change, or risk having the entire category beholden to a small handful of Web behemoths like Google, FaceBook, MySpace, etc.

Leonsis concluded by addressing the demographic realities that Web 2.0 companies must heed in order to find an audience. While the country is growing more diverse ethnically, he points out that most of the people pulling the Web 2.0 strings are predominantly white and male (a fact he confirmed by asking attendees to survey the audience). I can attest to the heavy male factor, as female attendees rejoiced that finally, at long last, the line for the men’s restroom exceeded their own.

It was really the ideal opening speech, because it armed attendees with some big ideas and considerations as everyone headed off into micro-sessions where Web 2.0 - as a business within the public and private sector - would be discussed in more detail.

Ferriss picked up on the happiness theme by crystallizing how beholden we are as businesspeople to the technologies that supposedly make our lives easier. The concept of his book is really about how to redesign our lifestyle in a way that maximizes happiness while maintaining work and life productivity. As listeners sliced into chicken breasts and registered both written and mental notes, Ferriss sliced through complex work and life issues by placing them into simplified buckets with tangible solutions.

Our work and personal lives are filled with an endless stream of tasks we feel the need to accomplish. The problem, as Ferriss tells it, is that we often pat ourselves on the back for multi-tasking. In truth, we should be single-tasking: picking out the small number of tasks critical to our work and personal lives and focusing exclusively on them until project completion, then outsourcing the trivial tasks that occupy so much of our day.

Scanning the audience you had the sense that few people could imagine making room in their lives for more work, more family obligations, more social requirements. And that is the problem as Ferriss sees it: our lives are not scalable. By focusing on critical tasks and outsourcing trivial tasks we can make our lives scalable and regain control of our lives.

Both speakers took aim at how we - as consumers and workers - interact with Web 2.0, technology and gadgets. Beyond all of the applications, Web sites and tools, it is really about finding ways to increase happiness and control for consumers. For Leonsis, Web 2.0 businesses are still working through ways to utilize the Internet for this purpose, and for Ferriss the consumer still hasn’t quite figured out the formula for making their own lives easier.

What both men agreed on is the tremendous power Web 2.0 - when executed properly - can place in the hands of consumers, and in subsequent posts I’ll dive a little deeper into the Conference sessions that demonstrated how that potential is already starting to play out.

Brian Lustig is co-founder of Lustig Communications, a Rockville, MD-based communications firm that works with growing technology and government IT firms. Lustig is also a contributor to local business and industry publications.

While personal blogs continue to sprout up more frequently than technology executives at Tyson’s Silver Diner, the number of bloggers who have been able to transform the hobby into a viable and sustainable business remains minuscule.

But one blogger and former technology journalist has broken through to build arguably one of the nation’s two most influential and insightful technology blogs: Om Malik.

The good news for the tens of thousands of bloggers out there who dream of leaving their 9 to 5 job and live solely off of their blog is that, as Om has shown, it can be done. GigaOm currently boasts venture investors, a growing staff, and hundreds of thousands of devoted readers. The bad news for those wishing to emulate Om’s success - as a recent USA Today profile points out - is that his 9 to 5 job these days is 9am to 5am.

Malik cut his journalistic teeth with stints covering the technology beat at Forbes.com, Red Herring and Business 2.0; experience he has used to deliver insight that extends well beyond breaking news about the products, people and companies moving the needle in the tech sector. Instead, Malik challenges readers to rethink how they consume technology news with biting analysis and angles that mainstream media often overlook.

Throughout GigaOm’s ascendancy from hobby to a business that now includes a family of blogs that complement the main site, Om remains one of the genuine nice guys in the industry. In coming to know him over the past few years, Om’s 23 hour work day never prevents him from responding to as many readers as possible. And while many bloggers shoot first and ask questions later, Om’s blog has become such a trusted news source because he tirelessly researches each post topic, is careful not to pass along unconfirmed gossip, and maintains a division of Church and State by not investing in companies he writes about.

And while Om spends the majority of his time at his home base in California, executives and professionals in the DC area have a truly rare opportunity to see and hear from Om as one of the featured speakers at the upcoming ExecutiveBiz The New New Internet Conference on November 1st. Anyone who has read Om’s blog will certainly look forward to his take on how Web 2.0 is playing out in the DC area for government and business. And for those who have not been exposed to the blog, the speaking slot on November 1st is the perfect time to get acquainted with the man behind it.

Last week, San Francisco hosted the fourth annual Web 2.0 Summit. The event wrapped up on Friday and with over 100 featured speakers, from Tim O’Reilly to ebay CEO Meg Whitman, there was a lot of related news coverage. For a full report on what’s become a yearly west coast tradition, visit the news and coverage section on the event website.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made waves when he announced that Microsoft plans to purchase 20 web companies a year for the next five years, pledging to spend between $50 million and $1 billion on each of the prospective companies.

“Those will be good acquisitions, and they’re important to us,” Ballmer said. “And they’re of strategic importance.”

Open source developers may also be on the table, according to Ballmer. “We will buy smaller companies. We will buy smaller companies that make some use of open source software,” he said, according to CNET. “We don’t want to discourage people who would talk with us just because they do some open source.” Ballmer even went so far as to offered his email address for any interested developers looking to sell.

Here’s a clip of the Ballmer interview from the Web 2.0 Summit:

Click To Play

Ted Leonsis and Om Malik, featured speakers at the summit, will also be at the New New Internet’s Web 2.0 event, this November 1st. While San Francisco’s Web 2.0 Summit was mainly focused on the technology behind many of the popular web 2.0 applications, the New New Internet’s conference will focus on the implication for business and government.

Leonsis, Vice Chairman of AOL, will be the featured morning keynote while Malik, founder and Chief Blogger of GigaOm, will be the featured afternoon keynote speaker. Like the Web 2.0 Summit event, the November 1st event will host a number of speakers and exhibitors who are at the forefront of the web.

If you missed the event in San Francisco, and will be on the east coast on November 1st, it’s not too late to register for this region’s major annual web conference.

Other interesting notes from the Web 2.0 Summit:

News Corp’s Robert Murdoch calls Google both a “threat and a friend” and Facebook “cool, but not that cool.”

Facebook CEO predicts he’ll double his workforce over the next year alone;

AT&T plans to participate in a government auction of the 700-megahertz band that will be available after broadcast television networks switch to digital from analog in 2009.

I just finished reading a fascinating report by David Wyld called The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0. Not only was it academically rigorous, but it was also a fun read. Now that’s a rare achievement. Wyld is the Robert Maurin Professor of Management at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he directs the College of Business’s Strategic e-Commerce/e-Government Initiative. He is also a noted speaker, and will be presenting as part of a government track panel at the upcoming Web 2.0 conference.

According to Wyld, public officials are just beginning to have blogs, despite the fact that blogs have become popular on corporate and individual Web sites. However, a handful of officials do have them, including members of Congress, Congressional committees and caucuses, governors, state legislators, mayors, city managers, police and fire chiefs, and college and university presidents. Wyld’s report includes links to dozens of their sites. And of course, we are seeing blogs used in the 2008 presidential campaigns; Barack Obama’s blog is probably among the best known.

Blogs aren’t just for individual public figures. Some public organizations are beginning to have blogs. Wyld illustrates this using the U.S. military, which is trying to deal with terrorism in the Information Age through the use of STRATCOM. One core function of STRATCOM is to allow blogging and chats between everyone from generals to privates. The system radically cuts through the hierarchy that normally defines military culture by allowing anyone—at any level—to respond directly to others’ questions.

Wyld is an expert on what government officials should and should not do when setting up and running and a blog, and believe me, he’s seen it all. A few of his key recommendations include making a serious time commitment, posting regularly, writing it yourself, and allowing comments. (He also recommends not posting angry messages at 2 a.m., but you’ll have to see the report for his juicy example.)

Allowing comments is the most delicate area. According to Wyld, Mayor Bill Gentes of Round Lake, Illinois, says, “I allow uncensored comments so I get the negatives, positives, and the inane!” But Gentes loves the format and feels it allows for an honest exchange. However, a much more common model in both the public and private sector for comments is to have registration, moderation, comment policies, and CAPTCHA technology. Without these measures, anonymous negative posters can hijack your blog; this very thing happened to one unfortunate school superintendent, as Wyld illustrates in a case study.

I highly recommend his report, and I know he’ll be an informative and engaging speaker. To hear from David Wyld in person, come to the Web 2.0 conference and attend his panel on Current Web 2.0 Initiatives within Government Agencies.

Since 9/11, the intelligence community has been looking for ways to do a better job of sharing information between agencies. Chris Rasmussen is a knowledge manager and trainer for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency within the Department of Defense, and he’s a dynamic part of that effort. He’s a thought leader in the application of Web 2.0 tools to intelligence goals, especially social software. You won’t want to miss his session in the government track at the upcoming Web 2.0 conference on November 1; Rasmussen is an exceptional speaker.

If you’re part of the intelligence community, then you know about Intellipedia and A-Space, two huge Web 2.0 developments that promote better interagency communication. Rasmussen has made it his mission to promote both tools, along with other social software tools like blogs and mashups—all of which are inexpensive and agency-neutral.

Let’s take Intellipedia first. If you’re unfamiliar with it, here’s a quick rundown. It’s a set of three wikis—one each for JWICS, SIPRNet, and Intelink-U—used by all 16 agencies in the US intelligence community. On screen, it looks exactly like Wikipedia, because it uses the same software, Mediawiki. Just like with Wikipedia, any user can make changes to any piece of data. However, with Intellipedia, the author’s name is always attached to the change.

Rasmussen points out that Intellipedia lets users connect with people who have the knowledge they need. He also believes that information that’s been edited by a huge number of people is much stronger than a single report. And everyone from generals to privates can use the system, he stresses. So people at all levels, from all agencies, involved in all kinds of projects, get involved in improving the information on Intellipedia.

A-Space incorporates Intellipedia and takes another step forward in complexity. It’s essentially a portal designed to eventually include all kinds of things: wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, joint Web-based word processing, mashups, tagging, and more, built on a services-oriented architecture. The goal is to provide an even larger framework in which the intelligence community can share information efficiently.

Intellipedia and A-Space just might be changing the face of intelligence communications. Chris Rasmussen is convinced that these open source methods of intelligence are the best thing for the future. Intrigued? Come hear more.

All of the panels at the upcoming Web 2.0 conference on November 1 look excellent, but there’s one I’m particularly interested in. “Politics on the Web, by the Web, and for the Web” at The New New Internet conference features four very talented individuals from the world of politics and technology. Together, this panel should offer a fascinating and balanced look into the way Web 2.0 technologies are shaping our political future.

Joe Trippi

Joe Trippi, one of the panel members, is the Senior Advisor for John Edwards’s presidential campaign. You may remember him as a Campaign Manager for Howard Dean—the man who was known for being the first to integrate the Web into his presidential campaign in earnest. Joe Trippi was the one making the magic happen.

Trippi has a long history of working on Democratic presidential campaigns—he’s worked in politics for 30 years. In recent years, he has focused on using the Web as a political tool, and he’s earned a solid reputation.

He’s currently guiding the Edwards campaign in implementing various Internet strategies to try to cut through the two-sided Clinton-Obama race. Trippi and Edwards know that using traditional means alone won’t do it, so they’re using social networking, blogging, Web videos, and other Web 2.0 techniques.

Cyrus Krohn

Then there’s the GOP. They dominate talk radio, and now they’re determined to master the Internet. They’ve chosen Cyrus Krohn as their man. More specifically, the Republican National Committee recently picked Krohn to be the Director of their eCampaign Division.

The Republicans are definitely playing catch-up when it comes to the Web, but Krohn has an excellent background to tackle the job. A 10-year Microsoft veteran, he was the publisher of their webzine, Slate.com. He’s done political advertising for Microsoft MSN.com, directed election strategy at Yahoo!, and even interned for Vice President Dan Quayle.

Krohn takes an interesting approach to using Web 2.0 as a political tool. While he feels that social networking and similar “hot” techniques are important, he’s more interested in the solid favorites like Yahoo! and Microsoft MSN. This may be very smart thinking, considering how many people still center their activities around mainstream sites like these.

John Della Volpe

Everyone uses Web 2.0 technologies these days, but the younger generation was the first to discover things like blogging and social networking. John Della Volpe is the third member of the panel, and he understands how young voters’ opinions are being shaped by these kinds of tools. He’s the Director of Polling at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. Volpe leads public opinion survey groups regarding the Millennial Generation’s attitudes toward politics, public service, and the media. (The Millennial Generation constitutes young adults between 18 and 30.)

Volpe has more than a decade of experience with presidential campaigns and has analyzed dozens of high-profile races. He has seen how voter turnout has increased among young people, the kinds of political issues that motivate young adults today, and how their views on foreign policy differ from those of earlier generations—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He understands how social media and technology are influencing the 2008 campaign, especially with respect to young voters.

Gary Arlen

Gary Arlen is the panel’s fourth member. He is President of Arlen Communications, a DC-area research and consulting firm that specializes in converging media, telecommunications, and information services. What Arlen brings to the panel is a rich background in new media and emerging technology, areas he’s been analyzing for more than 20 years.

Arlen has foreseen new trends, like the way video and data services would come to be controlled by the customer. He’s also a leader in interactive content and Internet e-commerce. His extensive understanding of media and telecommunications should inform the panel discussion on how Web 2.0 technologies have evolved to become so effective as political tools.

Four Top Leaders

This panel discussion should be lively. Any time you combine politics with four intelligent leaders, you get interesting results. Perhaps we’ll even hear a debate between Trippi and Krohn—Democrat versus Republican—about the relative merits of blogging versus MSN tools. Attend the Web 2.0 conference to find out.

Dr. Brand Niemann is a leader in the use of Web 2.0 technology in the public sector. With a 27-year government career under his belt, he currently serves as Senior Enterprise Architect in the Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Environmental Protection Agency. ExecutiveBiz is honored to have him speak in the government track at our upcoming Web 2.0 conference on November 1 at the Reston Hyatt.

Dr. Niemann has received a number of accolades for his work in technology and Web 2.0. He’s been recognized by the EPA; the Department of the Interior; LOTUS Best Application; ComputerWorld-Smithsonian Innovation Competition; and the Office of Management and Budget and the Quad Council—just to name a few.

Interoperability—so critical to cross-agency communication—has been a central focus of Dr. Niemann’s work. In fact, he’s using his Web 2.0 knowledge to write an online book titled Data Architecture, Modeling, and Networks: EPA and Cross-Agency Data Architecture, Sharing, and Reuse.

Dr. Niemann is also known as a leader for using Web 2.0 technologies to enhance communities of practice (CoP). For example, he uses Wiki technology to provide training in conjunction with communities of practice. He’s also the Co-Chair of both the Federal Semantic Interoperability CoP (SICoP) and the Federal Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) CoP.

In line with his work supporting communities of practice, Dr. Niemann helps them put on Web 2.0–related events, like the 4th SOA for E-Government Conference. He stays busy with conferences, it seems; Federal Computer Week asked him to help organize The 22^nd Semi-Annual Spring Government CIO Summit, which he did, including giving a keynote speech.

Dr. Niemann sees Web 2.0 as an integral part of the government’s future, and he’s actively involved in making it happen. For example, he has served as Secretariat of the Best Practices Committee of the Federal CIO Council. Also, having worked with XML Web services, emerging technology, eBusiness, webcasting, and many more Web 2.0 technologies, he has seen the agility and productivity they bring to the workplace.

In addition to the upcoming Web 2.0 conference on November 1, those interested in the subject may find the Collaborative Expedition Workshops hosted by the GSA and the NSF to be helpful. And for free Wiki and other Web 2.0 tools, users can go to the Collaborative Work Environment. Thanks go to Dr. Niemann for pointing out these helpful resources.