SIIA NetGain: road trip for innovation.(report from the field)

Boston, the home of "chowdah" and the Celtics, was the site of the 2--day SIIA NetGain conference in mid--May. While Day 1 featured dedicated sessions on the big business of content, Day 2 shuttled the 30--plus delegates from Boston Harbor to Cambridge, Mass., in the pursuit of innovation in action.

Brian Halligan, CEO and founder of the Boston--based HubSpot, Inc., kicked off Day 1 with an in--depth look at the steps to creating an effective strategy for transformation. Although he targeted his talk to marketing initiatives, his basic wisdom can be applied universally: "Effective transformation is more about the width of your brain versus the width of your wallet." Creativity trumps a bottomless budget, which just isn't a reality for many businesses these days.

Halligan points to Groupon, Inc.'s success with the underlying premise that, "You need to be clever." Think in terms of the quality of your ideas. And if you're not a creative person, hire someone who is. "The key to success is to measure often and evolve fast," he says.

Prime examples of innovative game--changers included Sam Zales, president of Zoom Information, Inc. (ZoomInfo), who discussed his company's transformation from a dusty directory to an active community. Creating a new brand with a link to social media infused energy into its growing community of users. He spoke of how ZoomInfo's success is driven by aligning goals and being "maniacal about listening to our customers."

Likewise, Vanessa DiMauro, CEO of Leader Networks, viewed the adoption and evolution of mobile devices as another game--changer. Old processes used to work, she says, adding that today's core value for enterprises is serving customers in a way that meets their needs.

Innovating on the behalf of the customer was also at the heart of Mark MacCarthy's session on privacy. As SIIA's vice president of public policy, MacCarthy is tracking proposed legislation that is designed to protect user privacy. The default should be to share information and for users to be able to delete any information as desired. After all, "the internet writes in ink, not pencil," he says.

Ian Condry, associate professor of global media and director of the Social Media Initiative at MIT, gave conference attendees a preview of the innovation emerging from the MIT Media Lab, one of the road trips on Day 2. Condry used Hatsune Miku, Japan's virtual, 3D, life--size idol, as an example of the first sounds of the future, where "the platform is the idea." Playing off the concepts of social media and 3D technology, Hatsune Miku comes to virtual life on stage in concert (www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGHtjI).

The tour bus was ready on Day 2 for three stops in Boston. The first was at Thomson Reuters for a briefing on Thomson Reuters' master content project. John Eliseo, vice president of enterprise content and metadata management at Thomson Reuters, provided a sneak preview of a new breed of holistic content that breaks down silos companywide and pieces the content back together. This "LEGOizing" of content parts and pieces will create a way for users to build and manage the rich content for a better search and discovery experience.

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Stop 2 was The Boston Globe, where publisher Christopher Mayer, a Yale University graduate with an IT degree, shared his insights about the state of today's newspaper industry and the digital products that the publisher is rolling out. "The business model needs to change or to diversify to bring in revenue," says Mayer. Branding was a big issue. Users grew to know and value the content of the free site Boston.com, but more often than not, users didn't realize that The Boston Globe was responsible for its content. "There was no real brand stickiness," he says. But the new business models that are offered both for free and for a fee will offer content that is designed for a broad base of users, some of whom are willing to pay for valued mobile content. "We're no longer just a news company," he says. "We're a media company." The goals are simple: to create a product that works well and delivers excellent content (in the eyes of the audience).

The last stop was the MIT Media Lab, the brainchild behind the prototypes of Scrabble Flash (one of the top toys of 2010), E Ink technology for e--readers, Guitar Hero, LEGO MINDSTORMS, and more. Mitchel Resnick, director of the Lifelong Kindergarten research group, offered a show--and--tell of his projects in the LEGO Lab, where people of all ages engage in creative learning experiences. Resnick was one of several MIT professors who showcased the innovations created by their teams, which represents "technology with a purpose and learning through creating."

Resnick noted that in this new economy based on consumer trust, users are learning from each other. One of his team products is called Scratch, a platform of interactive stories and games for kids, which has generated 1.8 million projects, one-third of which are remixes. "Creativity and community are the cores in today's society," he says, explaining his three main drivers: "Think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively."

John Blossom, president and senior analyst at Shore Communications, Inc., was quick to predict the innovations coming in the Second Web: "You ain't seen nothing yet."