NetSquared: Compumentor's Emerging Technology Conference

Interview with Marnie Webb - May 10, 2006

Marnie Webb talks to Michael Stein (N-TEN) about the upcoming NetSquared Conference.

N-TEN: The NetSquared conference is a few weeks away. What are you trying to achieve with the conference? Who do you hope to have in the room? What are the main communities you are hoping to attract?

Webb: Like everyone who works on a conference, we hope that successful relationships and projects emerge. We're bringing together foundations, developers, technology companies, nonprofits and thinkers from all categories. We hope this puts into the same room all the things you need to have a successful technology project. We want the conference program to represent what's possible to do with emerging technologies. On day two, we're going to be providing space for people to come together in project groups and actually get something started. As we think about this project, we try not to think about the NetSquared conference as the end - but rather the beginning. We want to create a place where the conversation - and the work - continues. That's how we're going to be measuring our success.

N-TEN: Daniel Ben-Horin wrote recently on his blog that unlike other tech fads, Web 2.0, or as you prefer to call it, the social web, is only going to get bigger and represent a profound opportunity for nonprofits, NGOs and those committed to social change. As you've organized the conference, has your sense of that opportunity evolved in any way?

Webb: We read things like the Edelman Trust Barometer (http://www.edelman.com/news/ShowOne.asp?ID=57) which talks about the way that trust is shifting, world-wide, to nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations. We look at social web tools - from flickr to Salesforce.com - and see that they are about connecting groups of people based on defined interest and issues. So, you have people who are looking for new places to engage the world and work with others or groups that they trust. You have these tools that are designed to help folks find one another and contribute to a whole. It seems that nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations - groups that have been working hard to connect individuals to issues for generations - are a natural fit with those tools and can use them to sustain interest between news cycles. We're convinced that these tools offer a real scalable opportunity for organizations to connect individuals to the piece of work that they can do or the piece of information they can share.

N-TEN: One of the most interesting documents you've developed in preparation for the NetSquared Conference has been the list of "Trends" that relate to the social web (http://www.netsquared.org/conference/trends). It seems that on this social web topic, the key is starting the right conversations, even if you don't know where the answers will lead. That takes a leap of faith. What are you hoping will come out of this adventure?

Webb: You know, that changes. If you'd asked me that in October when we first put up the website I would have said something different than I think now. We hope that we learn something and that we can figure out how to create a platform to help organizations take advantage of the tools and the ideas that are a part of the social web and then get ourselves out of the way so that folks can make their ideas a reality. We use two words a lot when we talk about this conference: Share and Build. And we've spent months now on "Share." It's time to start "Build."

N-TEN: One of the key aspects of Web 2.0 and the social web is "network effect." The Conference is your attempt to put a lot of people who don't usually talk to each other in the same room, literally and metaphorically. What steps are being taken so that people from different backgrounds (nonprofit types versus Silicon Valley types) have some common language and basis for discussion?

Webb: NTC does a fantastic job of describing technologies and engaging people in a variety of new ideas and working hard to expand old ideas. We don't want to be doing that. We want this to be a place where people engaged with certain technologies - those having to do with the social web - can come together to talk about what worked and what didn't so that projects that mitigate what didn't work or capitalize on what did can be developed and move forward. We've done a lot of work to make sure that we have a diverse group of people attending and the different groups that we think are necessary for the projects to move forward are represented.

N-TEN: How will you carry the results of the conference forward?

Webb: So much of that depends on what, exactly, comes out of the conference. If I've learned anything from this, I've learned that I shouldn't predict our actions or make assumptions. I see the conference as a big learning moment for us. A time when we take stock of the way things have worked to-date and figure out how to move toward the goals and ideas that we heard at the conference itself.

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