Supernova 2008

Schedule

The Supernova 2009 agenda will be announced soon. Last year's agenda is provided below for informational purposes.


Monday, June 16 -- Mission Bay Conference Center
11:00am-
1:00pm
Registration
1:00pm Introduction (Kevin Werbach)
1:15pm Defining the Challenges

Clay Shirky (NYU, author, "Here Comes Everybody")
Bob Iannucci (Nokia)

Reed Hundt (McKinsey & Co.)
Esther Dyson (EDventure)

Case Study: Reconstructing Media
Axel Schmiegelow (sevenload), Jordan Hoffner (YouTube), Joel Hyatt (Current TV)

3:30pm Break
4:00pm Exploring the Opportunities

Case Study: Reconstructing IT
Jonathan Schwartz (Sun Microsystems)

Spotlight on Social Computing
Joe Kraus (Google)

Spotlight on Mobility and Wireless
Ozzie Diaz (HP)

5:15pm Mobile Connections: The Next Great Ideas?
co-hosted by TechCrunch

Already reaching half the world's population, mobile devices vastly outnumber personal computers, telephones, televisions, and all other media and communications platforms. They are both endpoints and platforms for services and content, with their value entirely dependent on connectivity. In short, they are the purest embodiment of the Network Age.
6:30pm Gala and Technology Showcase
 
Tuesday, June 17 -- Wharton West
7:30am Breakfast and Registration
9:00am Opening Plenary Session: The Theory and Practice of Networks
Raissa d'Souza (UC Davis), Eric Bonabeau (Icosystem), Bernardo Huberman (HP), Shawndra Hill (Wharton)

Networks are everywhere.  Yet how much do we really understand about them?  From the infrastructure networks of broadband providers to the social networks of connected individuals, every aspect of today’s Internet economy is built on network-based behavior. This session will link the research on networks and other complex systems with business and cultural impacts.

10:30am

Brave New World of Entrepreneurship and Venture Finance: New Realities, New Choices
Moderator Raffi Amit (Wharton), Jeff Clavier (SoftTech VC), Jim Lussier (Norwest Venture Partners), Evan Williams (Twitter), Vipin Jain (Retrevo), Jim Greer (Kongregate)

hosted by Norwest Venture Partners The startup financing process is changing. Companies today can start anywhere, develop rapidly, and collaborate across multiple locations, all for a fraction of what it used to cost. Angels, venture capitalists, strategic investors, and entrepreneurs all face a new set of choices. This session, moderated by one of the country’s leading professors of entrepreneurship, will look at trends and changes in funding strategies, deal structures, partnerships, and exit options, and will feature experts from the key constituencies at the forefront of these trends.

The Publius Project: The Internet's Constitutional Moments
Moderator Colin Maclay (Berkman Center, Harvard University), Joichi Ito (Neoteny), Lili Cheng (Microsoft), Susan Crawford (Univ. of Michigan), Wendy Seltzer (Berkman Center)

Berkman Center As established governing bodies of various sorts attempt to impose rules and restrictions on the Internet, the Net continues to have its own "constitutional moments," including many that are bottom up. The Berkman Center's recently launched Publius Project (http://publius.cc) is an effort to understand how the Internet is actually being governed, and how that might be changing. During this session, four diverse perspectives among the many represented within the project will examine how decision-making processes --whether via Web 2.0 technologies, international organizations, or business models -- give rise to norms, rules, and "constitutional moments" that affect both our behavior online and ultimately define the nature of the Net.
People: What We Know, and What it Means?
Moderator BJ Fogg (Stanford), Charlene Li (Forrester Research), Eszter Hargittai (Northwestern), Elizabeth Churchill (Yahoo!)

So much of today’s Internet economy revolves around users: the content they create, the communities they form, and the transactions they choose.  Yet few businesses study how people actually interact with the Net and online collaborative tools.  This session will use case studies and research to illuminate user behavior on today’s participatory Internet.

12:00pm Lunch
1:00pm Privacy and Security in the Network Age
Moderator Andrea Matwyshyn (Wharton), Bruce Schneier (BT Counterpane), Fran Maier (TrustE), Gerard Lewis (Comcast), Lauren Gelman (Stanford CIS)

Are we entering an era where individuals gain new control over their public personas, and powerful means to leverage reputations?  Or will we be forced to abandon any hope of protecting our privacy and trusting what we encounter online? When is more information the solution… and when is it the problem?
OPEN FLOW TRACK

sponsored by BT This special "conference within a conference" will explore the technologies and business practices that allow information to move freely between users, websites, and organizations. It will incorporate social media tools and visual journalism to create a unique interactive experience.

Kick-Off Discussion: The Value of Openness
JP Rangaswami (BT)
Elliot Maxwell (Consultant)

Whose Social Graph?
Moderator Tantek Celik (tantek.com), Kevin Marks (Google), Joseph Smarr (Plaxo), Dave Morin (Facebook)
hosted by Plaxo
All major Internet players claim their platforms are open… yet, they take that to mean different things. In a world where users, content and data flow across many physical and virtual locations, and where monolithic applications are being atomized into widgets, Web services and syndicated information, the openness of interfaces is of crucial importance. What are the real dividing lines between true openness and proprietary lock-in, and which approaches produce the greatest value for all participants (including users)?

Networked Business Models
Moderator Umair Haque (BubbleGeneration), Chris Sacca (Investor), Joi Ito (Neoteny)
Traditional business strategy emphasizes scarcity and central control. The Network Age is all about abundance and distributed activity at the edges. Truly networked business models take advantage of openness and collective action to redefine markets. This session will challenge basic assumptions about strategy, and explore the opportunities for massive new value creation in the Network Age.

Bottom-Up Distributed Openness
Moderator Jeremy Keith (Adactio), Leah Culver (Pownce), David Recordon (Six Apart), Tantek Celik (tantek.com), Chris Messina (Vidoop)
Can users and developers acting on their on their own build the foundations for industry-wide standards in key areas?

2:30pm Going Green
Moderator Christina Page (Yahoo!), Chris Lloyd (Verizon), Paul Nagel (Control4), Bill St. Arnaud (CANARIE), Brendan Herron (Current Group), Ivan O'Neill (Southern California Edison)

hosted by Control4Cyberspace may be virtual, but it has significant impacts on the physical world. All those computers and devices and networks consume huge amounts of energy. On the other hand, changes in how people live and work in the Network Age could produce significant environmental benefits. This session will examine how the new infrastructure of the connected world can become a solution rather than a problem for environmental sustainability.
4:00pm Wharton Talk: Monetization
Eric Clemons
OPEN FLOW EXCHANGE

The culmination of the Open Flow track will be an interactive open forum. All participants will have the opportunity to help shape insights and takeaways, which will form the basis of a special website after the conference.

4:30pm Monetization for Today’s Internet, and Tomorrow's
Moderator Stephan Zimmermann (McKinsey), Doug Mack (Adobe), Craig Sherman (Gaia Online), David Kidder (Clickable)

For all the success of the current wave of online services, a handful of advertising models produce virtually all the revenue. How do things evolve as software merges with Web-based services, and the Net becomes more open, more participatory, and more complex? Will the largest portals and social networks absorb most of the value, or will more-focused players be able to thrive? Will advertising remain the dominant monetization strategy, and if so, how big can the pie grow? This session will discuss what it takes to monetize successfully in the current environment, and what may change in the future.

6:00pm Reception
   
Wednesday, June 18 -- Wharton West
7:30am Breakfast and Registration
8:30am Marketing S.O.S!
Kiumarse Zamanian (Glam Media), Deborah Schultz (Social Web Strategist & P&G Strategic Advisor Social Media), Hugh MacLeod (GapingVoid), Kerry Chrapliwy (HP), Garrick Schmitt (Avenue A | Razorfish)

hosted by GlamWhen it comes to marketing innovation, what's the holdup? Practitioners from leading brands will tell us why it's been difficult to realize the promise of new digital and social media technologies. With silos forming in the tech community and creative industry, we've left it to the brands to figure out how to bring it all together. We'll explore: Where is the money, and what is really driving innovation? Can you determine the ROI of a relationship? And, how do brands restructure to move forward?

All the World's a Game
Moderator Susan Wu (Charles River Ventures), Doug Thomas (USC), Dave Elfving (Apple), Raph Koster (Metaplace)

Massively multiplayer online games offer glimpses of how social interactions and work will develop in the Network Age. What can they teach us? How can businesses and online communities leverage insights from virtual worlds to develop more effective systems and practices?

BROADBAND FUTURES TRACK

The explosive growth of broadband and wireless connectivity is changing the landscape for all access, content, and application providers.  Major policy decisions on broadband regulation and spectrum loom.  This track will examine the major opportunities for significant changes in the years ahead.


Does Telecom Have a Future?
James Hettrick (ISMS), Greg Luib (FTC), Richard Bennett (Network Architect)
All major telecom companies are moving to broadband and IP.  Must the Internet become more like telephone and cable networks, or must telcos fundamentally adapt their business models? Should the sector-specific rules governing telecom providers disappear, or be strengthened?

Wireless: The Post-Spectrum Age?
Moderator Pierre De Vries, Susan Crawford (Michigan), Ian Ferrell (Microsoft)
microsoft
The broadcast paradigm of spectrum allocation has held sway for over eighty years.  Do white spaces, open access, and other developments herald the birth of a new era?

Global Perspectives
Jonathan Aronson (USC), Ken Carter (WIK), Gary Shainberg (BT)
The leaders in today’s broadband world, both in deployment and policy innovation, are not in the US…. at least, according to conventional wisdom.  What can we learn from developments elsewhere?

10:00am Wharton Talk: Media Transformation
Joel Waldfogel
Wharton Talk: Recommender Systems: The Present and Future of Personalization Recommendations
Kartik Hosanagar
10:30am Users in Charge: The Media Gets the Message
Moderator Liz Gannes (NewTeeVee), Jeff Coe (sevenload), James Seng (Thymos Capital), Satish Menon (Yahoo!)
Sevenload

Television dominated media for half a century. Over the last five years, online video has emerged as a disruptive force, which is starting to change passive viewing into a more interactive, personalized, and social experience. What are the new formats, intermediaries, and business models that will drive the continued transformation of TV?

Liquid Conversations
Moderator Dave McClure (500 Hats), David Sifry (Technorati), Bret Taylor (FriendFeed), Matt Colebourne (CoComment), Loic Le Meur (Seesmic)
hosted by CoComment
What are the barriers -- technology, standards, business models, intellectual property rules, and more -- to having content distributed across the Net and radically personalized, not tied to individual websites?  And what are the new intermediaries that will arise as such liquid conversations develop?
12:00pm Lunch

 

1:00pm

Attendee Roundtables

We open the floor for some of our fantastic attendees to give presentations on their areas of expertise, or other issues they are passionate about. Speakers include:

  • Verna Allee (Value Networks)
  • Steve Barsh (First Round Capital)
  • Susan Crawford (Univ. of Michigan)
  • Soren Ejlerson (Aarstiderne)
  • Maureen Herron (MH-Global Communications Network)
  • Jon Husband (Wirearchy)
  • Ajit Jaokar (futuretext)
  • Edward Lee (Ohio State)
  • Julien Le Nestour (Schlumberger)
  • Andrej Nabergoj (Noovo)
  • Tom Patterson (Digital Containers Inc.)
  • Matt Rissell (TSheets)
  • Wister Walcott (Marin Software)
2:30pm Closing Plenary Session: Into the Network Age
Noshir Contractor (Northwestern), Lili Cheng (Microsoft Research)
4:00pm Conference Concludes