There’s a very real reason why Connect IT is different this year more than any before, and why we’re balancing three different themes in a single conference, each almost deserving of their own. What pushes the conference to dive into themes like business model generation, personal brand/identity, and social business design, is that business is done with the web. That’s a fact of how things are done in the present, and it’s also a certainty for the foreseeable future.

While other conferences choose to focus on more specific and “current” themes like cloud computing, it’s only because technologies rise and fall in popularity. When we talk about the nature of business and the web though, we’re talking about fundamental change and evolution.

We saw the first phase of the web evolve when big companies were spending tens of millions of dollars on their websites a decade ago and getting online. We then saw another phase with the acceptance of e-commerce and the idea that people would in fact spend money and purchase goods online. Recently, we’ve started to learn that consumers want to connect with others online and be a part of social experiences with both other consumers, and brands.

It’s in that nature that we have an interest in these themes. It’s based on some assumptions about how business is changing:

• That your actions online will continue to have impact online in both the ecosystem you interact with and for your own future
• That the trend will necessitate businesses to change the way they do business, and they will need to become more efficient in the digital age
• Lastly, it’s only through understanding business models, that we’ll be able to design innovative business models for tomorrow’s enterprises.

The themes of Connect IT 2010 are the themes of how business is changing. We hope you’ll join us in exploring each of these ideas further at the Connect IT Conference on March 11, 2010.

For now, join us on Twitter - @citconference.

Inspiration for this post comes from Life After Social Media Snake Oil.