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We have a packed agenda of customer events at the moment, it seems we just can't do enough for our customers, partners and potential customers and partners! Against this backdrop BEA Participate has come and gone.

And I think it was terrific.

We had a great turn-out, so much so that we had to put extra seating out in the meeting room because we were so over-subscribed.

Jeff Toney, Jay Simons and Adrian McDermott were in town presenting at the event. They are Vice President of Global BPM Sales, Senior Director of Product Marketing and Vice President of Engineering respectively.

Two of our customers stood up and presented how they are using BEA Portal Technology - Macquarie Generation http://www.macgen.com.au/and the ACT Emergency Services Authority http://www.esa.act.gov.au/. Both of these presentations were outstanding - thanks to Barry and Paul for their excellent presentations. They're both very good value as speakers, if you get the chance to hear them talk I think you'd enjoy it.

The crowd also got a sneaky-peeky at BEA's very latest Enterprise 2.0 products that will redefine "participation" for every business user. Namely AquaLogic Pages, Ensemble and Pathways. Look out for more on these products in the next little while - not least tomorrow at the Web 2.0 in Australia Event that Adrian has stayed in town for. More on that later...

So, thanks for coming and I hope you enjoyed Participate, see you again next year. And if you missed out... well make sure and get along to next years event!

- Sean

Just one day to go until Ross Dawson's Future Exploration Network hosts the Web 2.0 In Australia event.

There's not enough space in the blogosphere to go through the list of everyone that will be there so here are the highlights...

Adrian McDermott - Vice President of Engineering at BEA, responsible for the BEA Engineering team building our Enterprise 2.0 products - AquaLogic Pages, Ensemble and Pathways

Richard MacManus - Founder and Editor of Read/Write Web - currently the 34th most popular blog on technorati

Chris Smith - General Manager, Sensis Interactive - responsible for sensis, sensis mobile, 1234, as well as the location publishing businesses of UBD, Gregory's and Whereis.

Plus Westpac CTO David Backley, journalist and Web 2.0 commentator Brad Howarth, Technolgy Venture Partners Allan Aaron, Randal Leeb-du Toit of Yoick, Benjamin Naftzger of Atlassian, Ben Barren of Gnoos, Phil Morle of Omnidrive, Richard Giles of Scouta and Martin Wells from Tangler.

I'm really looking forward to the event and I'll update this blog with news from the day. If you didn't get one of the hottest Web 2.0 tickets in town then join us Wednesday night for drinks.

- Sean

The Web 2.0 In Australia took place yesterday. Hosted by Ross Dawson's FEN at KPMG's offices in Sydney.

There was a strong and mixed turnout of Australian Web 2.0 entrepeneurs, journalists, commentators, and representatives from a range of corporations - Commonwealth Bank, Fairfax, News Ltd, Sensis, Telstra, Westfield and Westpac to name but a few.

I really enjoyed the event and liked the discussion that took place; What's the state of Web 2.0? Where do we go from here? Let's have a look at some local examples. Global versus local? And of course, how do we make money from this thing?

Next steps are the critical part for me - I want to see Australian businesses presenting on their use of Web 2.0 technologies next year.

My colleague Adrian McDermott took the difficult post-lunch slot and kept the room wide awake with a presentation and demo of BEA's AquaLogic Pages product, delivering Web 2.0 to the enterprise in 59 slides and 1 demo in 10 minutes. Great work Adrian.

Look out for Ross posting video of the panel discussions and demonstrations from the event, including Adrian's presentation and demo. Another video highlight to look out for will be the plugging and unplugging of cables and dongles as the showcase presenters tried to get their Web 2.0 MacBooks working with KPMG's Web1.0 projector.

And, with thanks to 'Professional Geek' Nick Hodge from Microsoft, here are a couple of pictures.

The panellists discussing Web 2.0 In Australia. L to R: Richard MacManus - readwriteweb, Allan Aaron - Technology Venture Partners, Brad Howarth - LaGrange Communications, Chris Smith - Sensis, Ross Dawson - FEN

The Web 2.0 power table in the back corner of the room - MacBooks, blogging, coffee cups etc... L to R: Benjamin Naftgzer - Atlassian, Mick Liubinskas - Tangler, Ben Barren - Gnoos (standing), Richard Giles - Scouta, Richard MacManus - readwriteweb, Adrian McDermott - BEA

- Sean

Today marks the official half way point of the Australia New Zealand 'Get Collaborative' roadshow.

We were in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane last week, and have just finished up in Auckland. We're on our way to Wellington now, and that leaves Canberra, Adelaide and Perth for the week of July 2nd (we get a week off the road next week because we're running the BEA Asia Pacific Media & Analyst Summit in Bali). Not that I get a invitation to Bali :-(

'Get Collaborative' is going really well. We had a great turnout on the East Coast last week, and really positive feedback. 'Captivating' isn't a word I get to use much in the world of IT and SOA so it was great to see an attendee last week rate my presentation as exactly that. Captivating.

I'll post up some of the other feedback as it comes through - only the good stuff of course!

I'm looking forward to Wellington. I met Richard MacManus from the Wellington based Read/Write Webat the Web 2.0 In Australia event a couple of weeks back. I read in the NZ Herald today that there 140 web development companies in Wellington. And at the latest webstock in Wellington last week there was a Web 2.0 debate - 'That Web 2.0 is all fizz and no substance'. I'm interested to see how my message of 'Enterprise 2.0 - Web 2.0 meets the Corporation' is received.

I have a new partner on the road with me this week. Jose Quezada from our Product Development team in San Francisco is here for the NZ leg of the roadshow. Jose is one of the engineering team that built AquaLogic Pathways and it's great to have him out and about with us. He has a real passion for Pathways, 'his baby' as he calls it, that really comes through as he's presenting, and it's great to get him in front of customers and here their stories about how they want to use these Enterprise 2.0 products, and get adoption going in their companies.

Talking of Web 2.0 adoption, if you have a spare hour this is well worth a look and listen. Andrew McAffee from Harvard Business School and Tom Davenport from Babson College in a debate on Web 2.0 adoption moderated by Dan Farber of ZDNet. As Andrew says on his blog, 'film of the fight'. Enjoy!

- Sean

'Get Collaborative' in Wellington is complete, and we had a great event. In fact, the whole New Zealand leg of the roadshow was outstanding. We hadn't run an event like this in Wellington for a little while and so we weren't sure what/who/how many to expect. We had a really strong turn-out, some familiar faces and some new ones. I'm not sure how many of the 'webstock' crowd were there, but we had some good questions - tough ones in fact.

I have a week in the Sydney office now, before taking 'Get Collaborative' back on the road for attendees in Canberra, Adelaide and Perth next week.

My co-presenter from New Zealand, Jose Quezada, is on his way back to San Francisco. He's having his second attempt at getting home after the Air New Zealand Boeing 777 he was on yesterday turned back to Auckland after four and a half hours across the Pacific with an engine vibration. So not only did Jose get an extra night in Auckland, he also got a 9 hour Auckland to Auckland joy flight courtesy of Air New Zealand. Here's the detail.

Imagine those frequent flyer points eh? And, inside joke alert, I wonder if it was a Pratt & Whitney engine?

- Sean

After an anxious wait I can confirm that Jose made it back to San Francisco safely. I know a lot of you were concerned after engine problems with his first Air New Zealand flight caused it to turn back to Auckland four and a half hours into it's journey across the Pacific.

Well, I have had email confirmation from the man himself that he is home... and as you can imagine, he can't wait to come back to this part of the World!

- Sean

I've been sitting on this post as a draft for too long...

Kiss is an interesting thing to type in to your search engine of choice (I'm search engine neutral by the way). Do you want Gene and the boys? Do you want dance music for London? Or do you, as I did, want to Keep It Simple Stupid?

Now here's a counterpoint to KISS. Here's thinking that says it's better to overcomplicate things. With regard to explaining SOA, Ron Schmelzer of ZapThink says, "Further evidence of this 'what's too simple must not be too good' line of oppositional thinking can be seen in criticism of the common analogy of comparing SOA with LEGO ®"

This is funny to me. I really like the LEGO ® block analogy. I didn't, but I do now.

I started out in the trap of critiscism that Ron describes, thinking it was way too simple. I mean really, we're all smart people, is this toy the best way we've come up with to express what IT has been trying to do for businesses for over 50 years?

And yes, having used it many times now in front of many different audiences, I think it is. Perhaps it's not the best, but it's the best yet. I like to use it, and I like the reaction it gets in people. And I agree with what Ron goes on to say, business folk seem to get it ahead of IT folk.

- Sean