A reminder that on Tuesday, 26 Oct, 9am PT, I will be presenting a webinar called "Instant Messaging and the Attention Economy" courtesy of the nice folks at Microsoft (click here for more info and registration).

It going to be an hour, with me blabbing for 30 mins, 15 mins of dialog with the host, William Flash, and then 15 mins of Q&A.

I hear that like 100+ folks have signed up.

I will be attending the upcoming Jabber event, "Jabber on Wall Street," next Thursday, 14 October, in New York City.

I have blogged from a lot of conferences, but this is the first time I will be doing so in an official sort of capacity. Will be fun.

[via email]

Come hear why Lehman Brothers calls its Jabber-powered solution "a mission-critical communications and trading tool." Learn how Thomson Financial plans to help its customers increase mind share and market share through real-time, context-driven business intelligence. Hear how leading financial services firms use IMlogic to archive and manage messages.

You're invited to this complimentary seminar, covering business topics from leaders in today's leading companies—delivered via web conferencing from Microsoft Office Live Meeting. All you need is a web browser and a phone. We hope you'll join us.

Instant Messaging in the Attention Economy
October 26, 2004
9:00AM - 10:00AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)
12:00PM - 1:00PM Eastern Time (US & Canada)

Speaker: Stowe Boyd, President/COO of Corante

Seminar Overview

The discussion around instant messaging generally centers on the first order effects of its deployment: costs, risks, and direct savings. This was true of all preceding communication media as they were being adopted by business, as well: telephone, fax, email, and cell phones. But as we now know, the second order effects – that generally take much longer to become manifest – are significantly more important in the long run.

We now live in the world that email built; but are headed for a world where instant messaging will become the foundation technology of communication. What will that world be like, how will it be different, and why should we work to adopt the new modes of interaction and communication that this medium requires?

We are in a time of unparalleled information access, but this paradoxically limits our ability to absorb information, because we have limited bandwidth: only so much attention to go around. Herbert Simon, the Nobel laureate, once wrote, ‘What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.’

Linda Stone coined the expression “Continuous Partial Attention”, characterizing it as an aberration, a disorder, and an unnecessary disruption in business. But the benefits that arise from reorganizing around real-time coordination, collaboration, and communication pathways – most importantly the acceleration of response and increased parallelism – outweighs the apparent change in social mores needed to accommodate this new form of interaction.

This seminar will cover:

• What are the first order benefits from IM, and why are they less important than generally argued?
• What is “Continuous Partial Attention” and why does its adoption offer advantages, not disruption?
• Why does IM etiquette matter, and what can we learn from the biggest users of IM?
• How can we gain the acceleration latent in massive real-time communication across projects, the enterprise, and the extended enterprise; and what role can instant messaging play?

Click here to register or get more info.

Our friends at Business Development Institute have asked me to speak at an upcoming conference that brings together various threads: social networking technologies and techniques being applied to business development. This event will be in New York City, Wednesday, November 03, 2004.

Building New Business With Breakthrough Relationships: Relationship Marketing and Business Development in the Professional Services Sector

Business Development Institute and PM Forum North America cordially invite you to join us for a special one-day symposium devoted to exploring how to effectively build and maintain breakthrough relationships that generate new and sustainable business in the professional services sector.

From the latest in technology applications, to the unique and innovative marketing, communication and business cultivation techniques that are being used successfully in the marketplace, we will examine how to identify and leverage the spectrum of Relationship Marketing solutions that can most effectively deliver real results for in the professional services sector.

I am really excited about a new event that I am honored to be involved in: Corante's Real Time Collaboration Experience held in collaboration with Inbox East.

The Inbox conference runs 17-19 November 2004, and will be held in Atlanta's Cobb Galleria Centre.

The Experience involves a workshop and trade show pavilion, and will be held on the morning of 19 November. Be sure to register with this code -- CRTE04 -- to get a $100 discount!

I have asked my old pal, David Coleman of Collaborative Strategies to play the role of co-host, so we should be having an illegal amount of fun there. Here's the current prospectus, such as it is:

THE WORKSHOP

Your Host: Stowe Boyd, Corante
Co-Host: David Coleman, Collaboratives Strategies

Setting Context: The Wheel of Real-Time Collaboration

Stowe will be leading the workshop using his 'late show' format, involving short and focused presentations, strong reliance on interview and dialog, and demos of breakthrough technologies. In this first session, he lays out a conceptual framework for real-time technology and its impact on today's world.

Market Trends in Real-Time Collaboration

David Coleman will present various trends in the real-time marketplace and their relevance to the enterprise and individual.

The World That Instant Messaging Is Making: New Directions in IM

Stowe and David will discuss and demonstrate a number of innovative instant messaging technologies.

Convergence and Collision: From Apps to Stacks

This session is devoted to the convergence of technologies like IM, web conferencing, voice, video, content, and other real-time collaboration apps into complex enterprise architecture stacks. It will include 'policy/vision' statements from major industry representatives.

Real-Time Social Tools

This session is devoted to the convergence of real-time collaboration into social media and social tools. It will demonstrate a wide variety of real-time social software.

Summary: A Roadmap for Real-Time

This wrap-up session by David Coleman is devoted to detailing a roadmap for the enterprise adoption of real-time collaboration technologies, and then a final wrap-up by the host, Stowe Boyd.

Note: attendees will receive an executive report of the same name, co-authored by the Host and Co-host.

This is in a sense the first real official announcement about Corante Events, about which we will have a lot more to say in the upcoming weeks. We intend to launch a wide variety of real and virtual events over the next few months, and we invite our contributors and readers to help us to make them innovative, timely, and rewarding.

And remember, if you're signing up for Inbox be sure to include the registration code - CRTE04 - to get a $100 discount!