The FOWA Miama Conference web site promises:
"We’ve got some awesome speakers lined up for you this year and a ton more to come! It’s gonna be bigger and better than ever. So don’t miss out."
Scanning the speaker list suggests this is an understatement. The Who's Who of web application development and social media includes Alex Hunter (Virgin Group), Ben Galbraith (Mozilla), Chris Messina (Vidoop), Daniel Burka (Digg & Pownce), Dave Morin (Facebook), David Recordon (SixApart), Dion Almaer (Google), Francisco Tolmasky (280 North), Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library TV), Jason Fried (37Signals), Joe Stump (Digg) Joel Spolsky, Kevin Hale (Wufoo), Kristina Halvorson (Brain Traffic), Mark Masterson (CSC), Michael Arrington (Techcrunch), Mike McDermott (FreshBooks) and of course, Ryan Carson, the force behind FOWA.
In case you are wondering why I'm so enthusiastically encouraging attendance at FOWA, it's because Victoria Axelrod and I are participating. We're leading a workshop on "How to build web apps for the emerging Enterprise market." Our experience supports what Bob Buckman-- labelled "Knowledge Management's father figure" by Infoworld-- told us in an interview last year:
“If you look at it from the standpoint of how much effort it takes to achieve and effect knowledge sharing across an organization, you will find that the technology piece is about 5 to 10 percent of the effort, changing the way work is done is the 90 to 95 percent of the effort. You can define the effort as time or as money, it still comes out about the same” ~ Robert H. Buckman
Please feel free to tell me your experience is different but what I've seen over decades is coding and development of applications is the easy part. The real challenges are ensuring:
i. Technology is developed in support of a clear business strategy
ii. Implemented with user enthusiasm and support, and
iii. Actually adopted.
Victoria and I are action and results oriented, so our workshop helps participants look beyond the technology you are creating to the business and organizational support needed to ensure success. Exercises include:
1. Analyzing your personal network looking for the gaps to fill to increase chances of your application's success, both inside and outside your organization.
2. Focusing on the business challenges surrounding your application development
3. Sharing challenges with fellow FOWA conference attendees to help you consider solutions and the way forward.
Please don't hesitate to ask questions or nudge us on our workshop themes as we prepare. We look forward to meeting in Miami, February 23.
~ Jenny Ambrozek
