“When you need some information, you search Google and you have it right away, but is that knowledge retained? Does it make us smarter?”
Andrea Baker, Director of Enterprise 2.0 for Navstar Inc., asked these questions during her lecture entitled “Boom! Goes the Knowledge!” which explored how Google and Facebook affect the way knowledge is accessed and retained.
Part of her speech was also devoted to the consideration of Facebook’s role in changing social trends when she talked about how “Gen Y’ers,” or “Millennials,” are constantly connected and how that affects the way businesses advertise and conduct work.
Baker was speaking at the ninth edition of Webcom Montreal, a bi-yearly business and technology conference in Montreal. According to their website, the event is the world’s most important francophone conference on web 2.0.
The conference, which was held at the International Civil Aviation Organization building in downtown Montreal last Wednesday, featured a slew of industry professionals who spoke on a myriad of topics broken down into four themes: Enterprise 2.0, Marcom 2.0, Solutions 2.0, and Mobility 2.0. The 34 presentations and discussions were largely based on case-studies of instances where web and business collided, and the insights gained from these encounters.
“Webcom is aimed at decision-makers and professionals in the Internet and intranet, HR, internal and external communications fields,” said a spokesperson for Webcom. Still, the discussions often entered the realm of things university students know a lot about, namely Twitter and Facebook.
The keynote speakers of this fall’s event were Jared Spool, the founder of User Interface Engineering, and Marsha Collier, author of numerous “For Dummies” books primarily about eBay.
A spokesperson for Webcom praised the event, saying it was a “great success,” as indicated by the many presenters and attendees who tweeted approving remarks about the event.
