The seventh annual Gilbane San Francisco Conference (http://gilbanesf.com/) announced today that its lineup of keynote speakers will address the critical issues businesses face in using web technologies and content to more effectively connect with customers and collaborate with colleagues. The upcoming Gilbane San Francisco conference, produced by the Gilbane Group and Lighthouse Seminars, takes place May 18-20, 2010, at The Westin Market Hotel in San Francisco.

Public facing Internet sites are the new corporate front door, where customers, partners and investors engage with the corporate brand and develop perceptions. Intranets, blogs, wikis, portals and social software tools provide knowledge workers increasingly efficient ways to collaborate and share knowledge. Web and enterprise content management permeate every aspect of an organization, and customer and internal-facing applications share requirements that call for a number of enterprise content, publishing and infrastructure technologies, such as multi-lingual, social media, search, and more. Gilbane San Francisco 2010 brings together industry thought leaders from technology, enterprise IT, analyst, and consulting firms who provide attendees with the latest strategies, techniques and practices for successful application of web technologies to improve communications with global customers, employees and partners.

In addition to visionary keynotes, the event features in-depth pre-conference workshops and a main conference providing in-depth coverage of trends and technologies organized in four tracks: Customers & Engagement, Colleagues & Collaboration, Content Technology, and Content Publishing

Opening Keynote

Our opening keynote session sets the stage for the rest of the conference with presentations & discussion of two of our main themes: engaging customers, and collaborating with colleagues. Prolific blogger and Twitterer Jeremiah Owyang may communicate with more companies on the use of web and social software technologies for connecting with customers than any other individual. Jeremiah has been involved in interactive marketing both as a Web marketer and an analyst at Forrester and now at Altimeter Group. If you want to know how companies are actually using social and web tools to engage with customers, Jeremiah is the go-to guy. Strategist and Author Dan Rasmus has been studying the knowledge worker workplace as an analyst, consultant, and at Microsoft, for decades, and has deep insight into how it has, and will continue, to change. Dan will be talking about two critical areas of collaborating in today's, and tomorrow's, workplace: cross-border, cross-culture collaboration practices, and how to design workplace experiences that will buffer people from complex changes that will likely take place in the future.

Industry Analyst Debate - What's Real, What's Hype, and What's Coming

We invite industry analysts from different firms to speak at all our events to make sure our conference attendees hear differing opinions from a wide variety of expert sources. A second, third, fourth or fifth opinion will ensure you don't make ill-informed decisions about critical content and information technologies or strategies. This session will be a lively, interactive debate guaranteed to be both informative and fun. Panelists include Frank Gilbane, President, Gilbane Group; Rob Koplowitz, Principal Analyst, Forrester; Hadley Reynolds, Research Director, Search & Digital Marketplace Technologies, IDC; Tony Byrne, Founder, The Real Story Group & CMS Watch; Scott Liewehr, Senior Consultant, Web Content Management, Gilbane Group

“In today’s business environment, every organization has one thing in common: the need to leverage communication and content across multiple customer and partner communities,” said Frank Gilbane, President of the Gilbane Group and moderator of the keynote sessions. “This year’s keynotes share the timely theme of connecting with global customers and colleagues with marketing, product and enterprise content using web and social technologies.”

For information on keynotes and entire conference program, visit:http://gilbanesf.com/conference_program.html

IT and business professionals interested in attending the conference may register at: http://gilbanesf.com/registration_information.html

Technology solution providers interested in exhibit or sponsor opportunities should visit: http://gilbanesf.com/exhibitors_sponsors.html

Follow the conference on Twitter (#gilbanesf) http://twitter.com/gilbanesf

About Gilbane Group

Gilbane Group, a division of Outsell, Inc. is an analyst and consulting firm that has been writing and consulting about the strategic use of information technologies since 1987. We have helped organizations of all sizes from a wide variety of industries and governments. We work with the entire community of stakeholders including investors, enterprise buyers of IT, technology suppliers, and other consultant and analyst firms. We have organized over 70 educational conferences in North America and Europe. Information about our widely-read newsletter, consulting & advisory services, reports, white papers, case studies and analyst blogs is available at http://gilbane.com.

About Lighthouse Seminars

Lighthouse Seminars' events cover information technologies and “content technologies” in particular. These include content management of all types, digital asset management, document management, web content management, enterprise portals, enterprise search, web and multi-channel publishing, electronic forms, authoring, content and information integration, information architecture, and e-catalogs. http://lighthouseseminars.com