I thought I’d post a quick follow-up to the Office 2.0 conference, especially since I mentioned the appearance on this blog earlier this week.

The Office 2.0 conference is dedicated to exploring the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise, and I was a bit surprised by the dedication and passion that many of the attendees and fellow panelists had for the topic.

There are a few summaries of the panel that I participated in, called “Social Computing”, already online.

• Here is a quick “live blog” on the panel on blognation.
• Here is the warm-up post from Shel Israel on his blog.
• Here is a general Office 2.0 Booming! post from PC World.
• Jeremiah Owyang has the most detailed review of the conference on his blog.

To stick with Jeremiah for a second, his blog calls our panel, “the best panel I’ve seen in a long time.”  In particular, Jeremiah appreciated both the atypical format of the panel as well as the fact that we spent some time talking directly about Facebook and the question of the blurring of social & professional lives, particularly among the millenial generation.  Here’s the direct quote:

While I despised the vendor pitching from one panel on mobile (Attention moderators, control your panelists, respect those who paid to attend) the best panel I’ve seen in a LONG time was the one moderated by Shel Israel, focused on Social Computing, the esteemed panel included: Anil Dash of Six Apart, John McCrea of Plaxo, Adam Nash of LinkedIn, Shiv Singh of Razorfish, Athena von Oech of Ning. I enjoyed the format, it wasn’t the usual Q&A, but each speaker (moderator included) were able to present their ideas and concepts up front, great format. As expected, Anil elevates the conversation to a strategic discussion, it’s always a pleasure to hear him. Many of these vendors are from social networking companies, and although Facebook wasn’t on the panel (those guys are hard to get) the conversation persisted around Facebook. As with most vendors, if they don’t have a ‘facebook strategy’ they pass it as a fad, or are nonchalant attitude. I clearly see the threat for some of these vendors, hence my focus on the topic. I like the shift the panel took, towards the impacts of social computing (social networks, blogs, media, live web) tools towards society, in which Buzz Bruggemen piped up from the audience that he only had business contacts, not personal contacts on Facebook. In response, I tickled the panel for their opinion on personal/business lives meshing, especially with the millennial generation. The panel answered back, that those who had both merged were rare.

I’m probably going to write up something a bit more formal for the official LinkedIn blog on this topic, but as a personal note, I’m proud of the panel for taking on real meaty questions head on, even though a 45-minute window really isn’t enough time to do the topic justice.

For me, the event was my first chance to take some of the vision and excitement from my first few months with LinkedIn, and share it with a public audience.  I’m more convinced than ever that the most important aspects of our professional careers are our reputation, experience, and connections to those who we know and trust, and who know and trust us.  LinkedIn is extremely focused on building a platform that enables professionals to be more effective on a daily basis, and based on the comments of those who came up to me after the panel, it’s clear that this vision resonates with people who are passionate about Web 2.0 in the enterprise.