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Nasscom’s EmergeOut Conclave 2008 and how it is “emerging” out to harness the 2.0 wave

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Nasscom is holding its first ever conference for Emerging Companies. Aimed at encouraging SMEs & startups in the IT-BPO industry to “EMERGE OUT” of the shadows, this conference is slated for the 29th of September at New Delhi. This is expected to become an annual feature in NASSCOM’s annual agenda and provide a national platform for small & medium enterprises. Needless to say, the list of speakers for the event is impressive. Check it out here.

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Nasscom has been working hard to embrace the 2.0 wave and become the focal point of a thriving community around technology companies, startusp, SMEs. Being in Delhi I have had the opportunity to participate in some of its activities… check out a sampler below

Nasscom Emerge Community: This is a closed community site for Nasscom members to interact and exchange ideas. Built on the CollectiveX platform, the community has all the essential elements of a social network – blogs, forums, profiles, Q&A et al. Membership is not open for everyone; you have to be a Nasscom member company to participate in it. Screenshot below

Friday 2.0 Talk Series: These experience sharing talks are organised on the 2nd Friday of every month at the NASSCOM office in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi. People from emerging companies share their best practices in the areas of technology, marketing, business strategy, entrepreneurship, so others could learn without having to reinvent the wheel. These talks are free to attend and are open to members & non-members of NASSCOM alike.

Emerge Blog: This excellent blog is run by Nasscom with contributions from industry/technology experts. It has quality articles about entrepreneurship and industry issues on a regular basis.

Nasscom Membership Program: Nasscom runs a mentorship program for emerging companies. This is a framework for companies to seek guidance from industry experts for growing their companies. You need to be a Nasscom member company to apply to the program. Details here.

Nasscom LinkedIn Group: Nasscom has a group on LinkedIn that is open to its members… details are here

Web 2.0 media channels: Nasscom has adopted the use of online media repositories in a big way. Check out their Youtube channel where all their videos are getting archived. Or their SlideShare account where conference/talk presentations are regularly uploaded.

Do check out this blogpost (on the HCIIDC blog) that details Nassom’s Web2.0 success story.

LifeInLines… slice up your life’s moments on the web

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LifeInLines describes itself as a life-streaming service. It is a website where people can aggregate their live’s little moments, thoughts and experiences as it happens. Users can post notes/snippets on the website via typical means – email, SM, MMS, IM etc (off course, they can post directly on the website as well). They can also make a phone call and post a voice message directly as an audio file (this is a cool feature, btw!). Each post can be kept private, or shared with people across different privacy modes.

Check out some examples: here, here & here.

LifeInLines’s founders are a couple of recent IIMC grads who chose this over regular campus placements. They think their website serves as a chronicle of your life, besides being a simple yet powerful way of staying in intimate touch with people you care for.

LifeInLines belongs to the genre of what I would call the “Slice of Life” Web 2.0 apps (borrowed from “Slice of life” television advertisements – think Hamara Bajaj, Airtel’s feel good ads- these typically have very high recall rates). The best example of this is probably Twitter. And it is difficult to argue either FOR or AGAINST these apps – on the face of it, you start wondering what their core value proposition is, but as Twitter has shown, real utility is often buried deep down, only to be discovered once the initial skepticism gets blunted. I can admit that (like lots of other people) my views on twitter have undergone a dramatic change. What seemed initially to be a frivolous, fleeting, self obsessive use case, is actually a BRILLIANTLY useful web application. And so like Twitter, LifeInlines (or other applications in this class) have a hard initial job at hand – they have to educate users how or why they make sense.

One feedback – with internet users already fixated on the generic social networking sites (Orkut Facebook), it might make sense for LifeInLines to go the widget way. This would make it easy for their content to be syndicated across the web. In the fast moving, ever changing internet landscape, life as a standalone entity is not impossible, but may have non-trivial starting inertia. Piggybacking on existing high traffic destinations may a good tactic.

All the best to the team!