My series on the Web 2.0 Expo 2009 is complete and all published over on the SAP Community Network. I point to each piece here and invite you to check out my favorite quotes and highlights below:

Web 2.0 Expo 2009 – Web comes to its senses

“Web 2.0 was in its infancy 5 years ago,” said Tim O’Reilly in his opening keynote at the recent Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. What has Web 2.0 grown into since its inception, and how has it gotten there? Is the Web getting any smarter?

• How has the Web evolved the best? Start small, with a simple idea – then let it evolve
• “We cast information shadows on the Web & sometimes there is no global identifier – but that doesn’t mean we can’t make sense of them”
• WE create the meaning in all of these cases: we provide the combined sensory overload via the personal, mobile, local, governing, and community components that matter
• The answer to Tim O’Reilly’s question “Is the Web getting any smarter?” depends entirely on us

Part 1: Sense of self

• “We all used to play and tell stories,” began Nancy Duarte in her session “Tools for Visual Storytelling.” Somehow along the way we lost the knack of storytelling
• “There are no visual business communication classes”
• The key to overcoming presentation doldrums lies in “becoming a student of corporate story”
• The importance of telling your own story is one big key to Web 2.0
• “Those who tell the best stories visually are the companies that are going to win right now”

Part 2: Sense of presence

• Mobile devices and your real-time presence make all the difference on the Web
• “We are going to bring the net to everybody at every time everywhere.
  It is *all* about location – social location”
• “The device, combined with service, combined with software on the device – all rolled together is key”
• “These devices will become our agents and friends, support us with advice, be our friends”
• Status is ubiquitous, but in fact chained to a specific moment in time”
• Build something small, they’ve learned; listen in to tons of data; let it evolve
• New integration technologies now connect sensor networks with enterprise applications to enable more responsive monitoring, reporting, and tracking of physical assets – carts, forklifts, palettes, computers, tools, mobile machinery, and even people – near real-time”
• “What we’re most excited about is the thing that surprises us most: the Twitter mashups – what are people talking about?”
• Who bears more and more of the key data to running the business — at this moment?  You hold this future in your hands right now: presently

Part 3: Sense of place

• Exploring the profundities of “going local” on our shopping habits, our applications, and ultimately our very livelihood
• “This weekend, you’re likely going to spend money, and you don’t know where it’s going to go yet. You’re at the beginning of the local search / sales experience”
• “We get paid by Nordstrom for all the people we drive into the store”
• Most of the search sites find only biggest stores. Search engines need to modify so small businesses can prosper
• “If you’ve got your mobile phone, you’re out and about and ready to shop and buy, and you want it NOW”
• You’re still looking for products, but you are in fact looking for nearest store to buy them in
• Big Data is great, but the Web is personal

Part 4: Sense of governance

(Also cross-posted by request at MyVenturePad and GoverningPeople)

• Government 2.0 — arguably the newest hottest Web 2.0 trend capable of touching all the online applications we use and design
• The notions of open government data, crowdsourcing government, and turning government into an (actually!) innovative platform itself make it clear this is the part of the next biggest “Web 2.0 thing”
• “Increasingly, it’s also about applying the principles of Web 2.0 to governing”
• Open Government Data Principles created by a collection of open government advocates (including Lawrence Lessig): These principles “mean to government what open source meant to software”
• Making data public is a political act in the first place
• “Grab our data at Sunlight Labs and do something interesting with it”
• Open data is not the only way the Web is opening up to “Government 2.0.” Government is also opening up to the use of the Web itself like never before
• Flipsides to watch out for while using and designing for all of this open data include such topics as privacy, security, credibility, and not least — message control
• “We’ve always been better at managing data than innovating with data”

Part 5: Sense of community

• Community pulls it all together. Bridge the on- and offline in a great “embryonic mass movement for change”
• Community managers — keys to success of online communities
• “Groups are both part of identity as well as part of conversation”
• “Social objects are the reason people connect — with each particular other and not something else”
• “Knowing there is a community manager around keeps your community alive”
• “People want to find each other and talk to each other. It’s really that simple. Support that. Start there, with conversation”
• “Launch the smallest simplest thing, then measure whether the community asks for something else”
• “Making people less afraid of social media is critical to your success”
• “Social media is an ‘add on’ — not a replacement for but a complement to traditional press releases”
• How can you tell if you have online community? Answer “yes” to “If this brand was a person, I’d be friends with it”
• “Passion is one of the only reasons community happens”
• “Managing large number of volunteers can be hard,” and the solution is to empower your audience and create ownership
• WE together create the meaning in all of these cases: we embody the personal, mobile, local, governing, and community components that taken together represent the mass movements. And that, in the end, “is a prospect that invites our close attention and dedicated participation as technologists, businesspeople and — most of all — as citizens”

Web 2.0 2004-2009: from embryo to “mass movement for change”