The Social Tools in the Enterprise Symposium had fewer corporate attendees and more academics and consultants than I expected for a business conference. Then again, it's mid-July.

Stowe Boyd was a great host, a cross between David Letterman and Columbo. If you've never seen him in person, he has the voice and affect of actor Robert Patrick. (congrats on the brown belt, Stowe.) In the run up to the event, Stowe wrote an piece for Darwin on the convergence of social tools, blurring the lines between "the four co's": coordination, collaboration, communication, and community. This theme came through in the symposium.  

Some high notes.

My presentation (maybe a low note) was a recap of the positive feedback that conditions blogger behavior. A collection of aha! moments that promote expression, control, ownership, sociality, and introspection in a blogger. Before managing a fleet of bloggers (always looking for that plural), let's understand that virtuous cycle and create tools and behaviors that support it.

It was great seeing George Por again. He extracts layers of depth with quick comments, often from his collective intelligence view. [note to self: I think this fits into the third layer of maturity in collective blogging.]

Marc Eisenstadt showed some of his team's tools for knowledge workers: hacks of maps, presence integrated with a video wall, and instant messaging. Marc Canter would have been yelling "Dude! That's a Digital Lifestyle Aggregator!" if it wasn't so workplace focused. This brings home the hard fact that most blogging tools are still too hard to use. Industry needs a ten-fold improvement in user experience in writing, reading, and navigating blogs (imho, especially the writing). Why is UserLand the only vendor using WYSIWYG authoring?

I enjoyed the Q&A about Lee's presentation. It's a great case study, one that will be repeated.

Martin's write-up of the sessions is thoughtful, although I think there are 40,000 blogs in China, not 400,000 (but give them a two minutes).

After the show, Allan Engelhardt said content is the slug’s trail in social software:

But the real value of social software in the enterprise is not in the content. Content doesn’t do anything. People do; and what makes a difference to the enterprise is people coming together innovating and changing the organisation. The value of social software is in creating social connections where none existed, or in strengthening existing connections.

Other items:

• No Internet connectivity during the conference because the local tech/facilities guy didn't know what a proxy server was.
• Doc Searls was in town, showed up for the night-before and night-after dinners. Between Doc and Stowe I'm starting to look harder at low-carb, or at least looking at my sugar intake. Shots of Doc and others lost while attempting upload.
• Talking blogging, small business, etc. with Matt Mower on Friday, during an extended walk from Holborn through the city center. Matt knows why I no longer trust him to pick random pubs for a beer. Suffice to say I didn't pack my leathers.
• The Bonnington Hotel in Bloomsbury is a three star hotel with five star service. Dozens of problems, only a few from the hotel, but all of them addressed promptly with cheer, courtesy, professionalism, and concern. I'd stay there again.  
• All the walking and tube hopping helped me connect areas I'd thought of as disconnected. It's reassuring that long time Londoners still carry or consult street/underground maps.
• Most of the underground network is intentionally bright, with extra lights and white tiles on walls and ceilings, to stave off claustrophobia. It was sad that emerging from the Holborn station on Saturday, it was darker outside midday than inside the station.

During my UK visit I forgot to:

• Visit with the Big Blog Company folks. If I haven't said it before, great blog, great work, spread the word.
• Hit the museums. I just wasn't in the mood, too nice outdoors.
• Visit Oxford. They had three guys at STES, so they must be up to something.
• Walk. I walked for a bit, took the tube too, but there was much more to do.
• Take time in the country. England isn't London, though it likes to think so.