Open Text walks the Web 2.0 walk at user conference

It's been another busy week here at FierceContentManagement with lots of content management news and announcements, as you will read about in this week's Top 5. When there's a flurry of information, as there was this week, it's always hard for me, as an editor, to pick out something from the pack to cover in my Editor's Corner, but usually something pops and that's what happened earlier this week.

I was having a conversation on Monday with Bill Forquer, who is executive vice president of ECM business development at Open Text, about Open Text's Content World 2008 user conference, which is going on this week in Orlando, FL. As you would expect, there was the usual pre-conference hype, but Forquer surprised me when he started talking about the two-way communications devices they were giving every attendee at the conference. Bingo!

Real-time Communication

Open Text is giving each conference attendee a SpotMe device. Forquer calls it a "radar detector" for attendees. Each person who pre-registered for the conference entered information about themselves such as their name and company and their areas of interest. Since Open Text includes a variety of content management products from ECM, to WCM, to DAM, it provides a way for people who share common interests to find one another. It also enabled Open Text to tailor a program for each attendee, and then program that unique conference path right into the device.

As attendees meet one another and begin to form social bonds, they can track new friends in the device's buddy list, then use the device to find their new friends. Forquer says, you can enter the name of an attendee, or select it from your buddy list, and as you walk around, when you get near the person, the device sends a text message that you are looking for them. 

It's Also Green

Another advantage of using these devices, says Forquer is that they no longer have to produce a program for each person attending the conference. That not only lowers costs for Open Text, it also saves trees. The devices are programmed with each conference track enabling users to see what's available throughout the conference, but also gearing the information for the attendee's interests. What's more, the devices act as a PDA, letting the person know where they must go next and how to get there, which can be useful in a large and busy conference.

Forquer says the devices also enable Open Text to send out survey questions to attendees, and they planned to set the second day's schedule based on feedback about the first day, giving the attendees real input into the conference content. He says, this is a great way to show people at the conference what it actually means to have personalized content and user-generated content because that's what's happening at the conference itself.

When the conference is over, attendees do have to give the devices back, but Forquer says they will get personalized information such as notes and buddy lists given to them (although he wasn't sure how that worked when I asked him). This is a fantastic Web 2.0 experiment that Open Text is undertaking with its users this week, by using these devices to get attendee feedback, build social links and communicate with conference organizers and one another. Open Text customers are getting a taste of real-world social networking and it is clear that Open Text is not only talking the Web 2.0 talk, they are really walking the walk. - Ron