Information Management and Collaboration - The Butler Group
May 16th, 2008 | By Emma Wallace | Category: Events, NewsAfter meeting Steve Dale of Semantix, IDeA and previously Dissident at the Tuttle Club I started to follow him on Twitter. Following a tweet, yesterday I went to the Heathrow Marriott to listen to the Information Management and Collaboration event held by the Butler Group.
The two day symposium followed three themes: Managing the Information Lifecycle, Unlocking the Organisation’s Potential and Linking People, Process and Content.
I arrived to hear Richard Edwards, Software Practice Director at Butler Group deliver *Are Friends Electric?* - an interesting overview of the new world of work, in particular the rise and impact of social networking sites. Overall a good view of the trends and a nice introduction to social media and the impact on business. A couple of references to Enterprise 2.0 and the impact that these technologies can have inside organisations and some interesting examples of business using social media successfully ( Coca Cola - Fanta and Facebook, Mothercare-backed Gurgle and Comet).
One particularly interesting comment which I may have to disagree with regarding consultancy and advice in this area. Richard said that many business consultancies (he may have been focussed on the larger organisations here) claim to understand social media but that this is a “load of rubbish” as “no-one understands it’s true impact” and that the reason for this is down to it being an emerging trend. An interesting point of view, and perhaps accurate as an observation of those jumping on the band wagon, but I would like to introduce him to the London Social Media Cafe and the collection of advisers, agencies and consultants there who I believe are the UK experts business is looking for. Real practical advice and help from a network of people who do understand the social media space and are helping UK and global businesses get results every day.
Other highlights included some great data projection figures and scary information explosion stuff from Erik Moller from HP ( by 2019 there will be more data created than the largest number in science, Avagadros number), a great presentation by Rob Gray, UK General Manager of Enterprise 2.0 software company blueKiwi and then Steve Dale himself, whom I’m sure will post his thoughts on the event some time soon.
Copies of the presentation materials can be accessed via Butler’s site:
I’d be delighted if you’d introduced me to the folks at the London Social Media Café Emma.
I know from my contacts at the larger consultancies that they’re having a hard time getting to grips with social software too, so maybe we need to do things differently this time around; maybe that’s the difference?
Richard Edwards
Information Management Practice Director, Butler Group.
@Richard I’d love to introduce you. I think that the whole social software space is opening up a wider debate on how the big and little fish now interact. Be good to hear your thoughts. I’ll be in touch.