Harry Metcalfe

Harry Metcalfe will be chairing a discussion on how web 2.0 technologies are transforming the process of public consultation with citizens.  We’ll be announcing his panel members shortly.

Harry is the founder of The Dextrous Web, a startup founded to help organisations – mostly in the public sector – get things right on the web. The Dextrous Web’s clients include The Cabinet Office, The Central Office of Information, The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and Guardian News & Media.

 Harry is also on the boards of the Open Rights Group, an NGO which campaigns to protect and preserve our digital rights, and the FreeLegalWeb, a community interest company with plans to make the law easier to find, read and understand.

 He is particularly interested in making public sector information discoverable and resuable, reforming copyright law, making the public consultation process more transparent and accountable and strengthening the Freedom of Information Act.

Following our hugely successful event earlier in the year we plan to adopt a similar format of conversations with industry experts that will be video recorded in front of a live audience.  As before, the conversations will be chaired by Jeffrey Peel of Quadriga Consulting. 

Conversations #2 will focus on Broadcasting 2.0 – how web 2.0 technologies are transforming the process of communications.  Sessions will focus on what traditional media organizations need to do to embrace broadcasting technologies.  How new media can augment existing channels – for traditional marketers.  How viral techniques can transform the marketing process.  How media organizations are themselves embracing broadcasting 2.0 to provide niche content.  How streaming media is transforming the live event. 

Senior members of the FRONT team will also be available to provide advice and guidance for delegates that need to better understand how to approach their next Broadcasting 2.0 project.

Just use our contact form to register for the event.  Be sure to tell us why you are interested in broadcasting/video content on the web – and we’ll try to ensure the content on the evening covers your interest area.

Our first event will be in London in October.

Click here to visit the Government 2010 web site.

Belfast, United Kingdom – Replify, the first company to introduce an end-to-end all-software wide area network optimization solution, today announced a new initiative focused on Managed Service Providers.  In conjunction with technology analyst firm Quadriga Consulting the company has published a new report and short video for the MSP community. 

The firm has coined the term Accelerated Managed Service Provider to denote MSPs that embrace the idea of enhanced user experience over bandwidth constrained wide area networks.

According to Kevin Donaghy, Replify’s CEO, “We asked Quadriga Consulting to look at what’s happening to the managed service provider market – and they came up with a novel approach.  Quadriga had a look at the market trends material being assembled by the MSP community itself, summarized it and responded to it.  The report pinpoints the new hot segments of the MSP market but suggests that unless we see the emergence of MSPs that actively consider user experience, service quality will be seriously questioned.”

He continued, “We hear lots about the explosion in on-demand software, software as a service, cloud computing and virtualization – and these are all hot technologies as far as MSPs are concerned.  But MSPs also provide hosted enterprise applications, to back-up and DR services, network management and email services.  But the elephant in the room that is rarely mentioned is the wide area network.  The WAN represents a productivity bottle-neck.  It’s often slow, it introduces latency into mission critical applications and can make MSPs look bad because it impacts quality of service.

“Let’s face it – cloud computing is all very good when users have robust broadband connections.  But try using hosted SharePoint on the road, or from a customer’s premises – or even from a modest speed broadband connection.  It’s not a LAN experience.  However, as far as the user is concerned, it should be.  And it can be with all-software based application acceleration from head end to work-group to client.  Replify is the only company able to provide such a solution – and on a subscription based pricing model for MSPs.”

Ends

Editorial Information

Copies of the report From MSP to Accelerated MSP can be downloaded from Replify.com – and a summary video version of the report is also available on the company web site. 

It’s very early days but I wanted to pop something up here so that people had something to read about Government2010.  We’ll be launching the Government2010 web site shortly.  But be sure to follow me on Twitter to stay up to date.  [Stop Press: Beta Site Now Launched]

Government2010 will be a live interactive streamed conference that will take place (provisional date) on October 22nd 2009 in London.  The event will be streamed, live, globally.  Anyone, anywhere in the world, with a broadband connection, will be able to watch and participate in the event.  Government2010 is a co-production between Quadriga Consulting and Switch New Media.  Switch is one of the leading players in live streamed events in the UK.

We’re delighted that YouGov will be our official research partner for the event.  The senior team at YouGov will be supporting us on the day and will be taking part in the panel sessions.  Iain Dale, the top political blogger, is also part of our team.  Our first official media sponsor is Total Politics magazine.  Luke Spikes of Spikes Cavell will also be on our advisory panel. 

Government2010 promises to be one of the most exciting and stimulating events to take place this year.  Its focus will be on how technology is changing the process of government.  We have prepared a short teaser video.  But the best way to keep up to speed on what’s happening is to follow me on Twitter and to keep an eye on the #g2010 hashtag using twitter search. 

Switch is rapidly establishing itself as a leading player in this space and has covered several major national and international conferences over the last few months – including the G20 Summit.

Watch the video archive from the National Digital Inclusion Conference

Conversations, London – Peter Vlachos, Steve Loynes from designbyfront on Vimeo.

Conversations, London – Jeremy Brown, Matt Rhodes from designbyfront on Vimeo.

The interview took place in London just a few weeks ago at the Conversations event sponsored by FRONT.

Other videos from Conversations to follow soon.

Conversations, London – Nick Donnelly, Gemma Cocker from designbyfront on Vimeo.

My friends and colleagues over at FRONT have done a great job describing the Web 2.0 experience and Paul May’s photos are among the best of the Flickerstream’s. 

Hop on over to FRONT for the round-up and wrap-up of Web 2.0 Expo.