OCCTO Presentation Today

I had the pleasure to present today at an Ontario Government "Technology Townhall".  This event, which happens regularly to bring together members of the government's IT community and various vendors.  Today's theme was "Web 2.0" and I spoke on a panel along with representatives from Sun and HP.  The goal of the panel was to help educate the crowd on key trends, technologies and considerations for "Web 2.0"

Below are my slides.  I was asked to speak for 10 minutes and then we answered questions.  I provided some quick notes to give you a sense of what I talked about with each slide.

	I started with the statement that I really don't like the term "Web 2.0", but rather I wanted to focus down on a 3 key themes - The Impact of The Services Transformation, The Rise Of User Experience and the impact these technologies have on Internal Culture of an organization.  I stressed here that the term "Web 2.0" is far too broad - that we should instead think about the key parts - the key trends and technologies that is transforming the Web and IT.
	My first theme was this concept of the "Services Transformation" that is changing the way in which applications and services are being built.  The transformation has 3 key technology trends driving it: SERVICE DELIVERY ->  Software as a Service SERVICE COMPOSITION ->  Service Oriented Architecture SERVICE EXPERIENCE -> Rich Internet Applications / User Experience Because of the rules of the day, I wasn't able to use "vendor speak".  If I could have, I would have stressed that our philosophy of "Software AND Services" is how Microsoft is embracing these key trends.  We believe deeply in the effect that this services transformation is having on the industry.
	I have used this slide several times in the past.  It is from the "Blue Monster" series (www.gapingvoid.com) and while people interpret it differently, I think it is a great way to articulate the agility Microsoft is striving to give our customers.
	The Rise Of User Experience User expect, actually demands a new level of user experience.  Application developers must factor in both the back-end architecture and the importance of the experience of the end user.  Several key technologies have raised the bar, particularly on the web.
	The importance of changing internal culture. I thought, given the audience, that I would make a point about the importance of embracing these technologies internally.  I used my experience as an example.  I also pointed out the the next generation of Knowledge Workers will expect these tools to be in place and if government organizations hope to attract future talent into public service then they will need to adopt more technologies (like wikis, blogging, IM, collaboration) internally.

I talked a lot about our team's mission and about the blogging we do, so perhaps if you are reading this you were at the session.  If you were, let me know what you thought.

For me - the most interesting thing I learned today is that McMaster University (where I attended) has a Immersive Librarian (he did a demo on Second Life)..... cool, I think - I will definitely be looking into this one more deeply.