Paige Finkelman

  • June 20, 2012
  • The Enterprise 2.0 brand got a good and strategic retrofit this week in Boston when the show’s guiding light Paige Finkelman announced some changes.  As you might know, the show has been a twice-annual affair with events in Boston and Santa Clara spaced roughly six months apart.  The new arrangement keeps the two shows but focuses them in slightly different and complementary directions.

    The Boston event will remain focused on all things Social and will be held in my fair city in June (great place once the snow melts) and it will be called E2 Social.  The Santa Clara event will become E2 Innovate and that can use some discussion.

    E2 Innovate is located in Silicon Valley, one of the greatest places in history for innovation after the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys circa 10,000 BC.  There they invented the wheel, farming and beer (you can look it up), not too bad if you ask me.

    As you’ve heard me say many times before, there’s more innovation than CRM or Social going on and E2 Innovate will be the place where these disparate birds of a feather congregate.  This will reduce the burden for venture capitalists who will only need to drive a little bit south on California route 101 with their car trunks full of money to dispense.  It will continue providing a venue for new ideas and be accessible to the likes of people like me, so it’s all good.

    In the early years of a trend like the social conquest of business, two shows a year provides some needed momentum to get ideas percolating.  Much like the first stage of a moon rocket, the early years are dedicated to getting moving, but with that accomplished it’s time for stage two and insertion into orbit.  That’s what this move does.

    Aside from vendor sponsored shows like Oracle OpenWorld, Salesforce Dreamforce, Sage Summit, Microsoft Convergence, SAP Sapphire and many others, there are very few events today that offer a startup the chance to test the waters especially if they are sprouting a new niche.  E2 Innovate will do this and at the same time serve as a feeder to E2 Social or something beyond.

    I like these ideas.

    Now you also need to know that I was the sales and marketing track chair for this year’s Boston event and this did not influence my thinking or writing.  I just write about the things I see and understand.  A limited universe to be sure.

    Published: 12 years ago