No, GTEC hasn't changed dates! Canada's top technology conference aimed at Government is still in October like it has been for years.... But a few things have changed.
As part of the GTEC 2008 ramp up, the very clever and forward thinking organizers decided to try something a little different. They decided (to use my favourite phrase) Live it, not Lip Synch it. I mean... the '08 theme was all about Government 2.0, and what that meant to Canada. So starting last summer, a team of us agreed to blog regularly (-ish) about the things we thought government information managers and technology gurus needed to think about.
A mixed crowd of vendors, consultants, publishers, editors and real life public sector professionals contributed to topics spanning Collaboration, 2.0, Enterprise Architecture, Security, Information Management... and others. It was a great learning experience - figuring out what got the comments flowing, where the hits came from, what topics were most read.
But most interesting was that it created a sense of buzz, of anticipation so when the Conference finally arrived, people who had begun to engage and connect online came in with the education and background ready to make maximum use of the precious face-to-face time they had with their peers, with experts, with vendors.
So... here we are in April '09 and we're ramping up now for October. I was really glad to be asked back, and will try my best to stick to a weekly post, primarily on topics relevant to collaboration and what government 2.0 can mean for Canadians and the public sector information professionals that help manage our social and political structures. And I suppose it's a way to keep my homesickness for my ex-home of Ottawa at bay... an amazing talented and close knit community of information management professionals there that I'm proud to call friends.
My first post went up today: "Collaboration and the Social Workplace: What Does it Mean to Public Sector, part 1" Check it out. Some of the posts will be syndicated to our Open Text ECM Briefs corporate blog site.
I've already become a fan of one of my co-bloggers, Marj Akerley from Natural Resources Canada. Check out her 2 posts to-date under the category Government 2.0. She writes beautifully, and I like the way she thinks.
Follow GTEC on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/GTEC
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