I'll be speaking at the blogging workshop of the CASCON 2005 Conference which takes place next Wednesday, October 19th from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Sheraton Parkway Toronto North Hotel and Convention Centre in Richmond Hill.

Here's the abstract for the workshop:
Many components of pervasive computing are already in place, including collaborative and communication applications such as instant messaging, e-mail, text messaging, and conferencing. In addition, mobile devices are providing ubiquitous computing and communication capabilities. Improved methods are now needed to support collaboration that goes beyond explicit authoring, messaging and conferencing. Techniques such as collaborative filtering (e.g., in book recommendations by Amazon), social networking (using systems such as Orkut), and blogging, are part of an emerging domain of social computing. We are interested in the impact of blogging and related communication and collaboration activities, and how social aspects such as community building can enhance the performance of business activities.

This workshop will provide a forum for the discussion of issues related to the development and usability of social computing systems and applications. Part of the workshop activity will include requirements analysis for applications of social and pervasive computing. Speakers from academia and industry will describe their experiences in researching and deploying social computing applications.

Topics of interest include: blogs and wikis, semantics, creating and building a community, e-commerce, and information epidemics. Specifically to blogs, the workshop will address bottom-up (grassroots, personal, diary) blogs versus top-down (topic-oriented, corporate sponsored, political party, etc.) blogs. Other topics to be covered will include musicblogs, photoblogs, mobile phone blogs (moblogs), and videoblogs. The syndication and aggregation of blogs using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) will also be discussed.
...and here's the abstract for my ten-minute talk...
Businesses have adopted a number of technologies that once weren't thought of as essential. The telephone, fax machine, photocopier,computer, web site and high-speed network all made the leap from niche gadgets to must-have business equipment. Twenty years ago, a business without a fax machine would have been considered archaic; today, abusiness without a presence on the world wide web seems equally so.

My talk will cover the business applications of blogs and related social software technologies for companies ranging in size from the solo entrepreneur to the multinational corporation, based on my own experience and observing other business blogs. We'll take a look at some business blogs that I find interesting, and I'll tell some stories of the right and wrong ways for companies to make use of the power of blogs.
Presenting along with me will be:
  • Dr. Ian Graham, Enterprise IT Strategy, BMO Financial Group
  • Alvin Chin, U of T and workshop co-chair
  • Veronica Holmes, Bell Canada
Admission to the conference is free. If you're interested, visit the registration page today!


You may want to check out these links:

My thanks to Alvin "GadgetMan" Chin and Sascha Chua for organizing the event, inviting me to participate and putting up with my general non-availablity last month!