By Mike Newlands in Perth
World E-Com 1999, the Perth, Western Australia-hosted conference which had billed itself as the first global forum for the world’s e-commerce standards leaders and regulators, fizzled to a close yesterday. Roughly half the delegates who had arrived at the start of the event on Sunday had already gone home. The rest were left were left in no doubt that, whatever else the e-commerce world may be short on, there’s certainly no lack of international bodies with unwieldy acronyms who are keen to take the reins of the e-business age.
Indeed, if World E-Com achieved nothing else, it managed to compile a delegate list that would make a great starting point for anyone interested in creating a directory of the world’s e-bureaucracy. In no particular order, representatives were present from the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITL), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Directorate of Science, Technology and Industry at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (DSTI at OECD), and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
And that was just the global bodies. Regional representatives included assorted delegates from the Directorate Generales of the European Commission, government apparatchiks from Australia, Canada and the US, and then their there were the non-aligned groups, and industry delegates. All of them had something to say, many of them said the same thing, but everyone, was rather hoping that the global way of doing e-commerce would bear a close resembalnce to the way they are already doing it.
So did everyone get their point across? And was any consensus reached? Well, yes and no. Yes, everyone got their spot on the podium, and on the face of it the Conference achieved one of its chief goals of encouraging exchange and cross-fertilization of ideas between regions, nations, public and private bodies. But then again, once their spot was over, very many speakers packed their bags and left. Who heard them and who was left to consider the next set of ideas?
The fact was that the bulk of the audience was composed of local Australian government departments and agencies with a smattering of local businessmen and a small overseas presence. Perhaps some of them found some value in what was said, but there seems little chance that this audience will be sufficient to propagate new ideas on a global basis. And there is evidence that many of the delegates didn’t think much of what they heard anyway.
We were unhappy with both the speakers at the conference and the delegates who passed through, said Tim Hall, the Perth-based director of US eBusiness solutions provider Xpedior Inc. Another Xpedior director, San Francisco-based Kevin Morgan, wondered why speakers were giving out of date information.
A lot of what they are saying should be implemented is already old hat in the US. A lot of the information at this conference is 18 months to two years out of date. Instead of telling us what was happening they should have been speaking of what is now cutting edge in the US, he said. One of the main themes of the conference which was touched on by most speakers was concerns over online security holding back e-commerce transactions.
But security is not an issue in the US any more. Consumers are no longer worried by it, and most people feel a lot safer giving a credit card number over a secure internet connection than to somebody over an open phone line, he pointed out.
Conference organizer David Rose inadvertently put his finger on his brainchild’s main problem. Should there be just one world e-commerce organisation instead of so many international organisations working in isolation on the same thing, he asked, saying he would approach the participating bodies and suggest it to them.
In the unlikely event such a body were to be created anytime soon, it would make the next World E-com, if there is one, a much more digestible experience for the delegates, if there are any. Rose says one is planned for London next year and sponsors are already lining up.
