Online Information - Innovators Under the Spotlight

After my somewhat lengthy post of Clay Shirky's opening keynote I wanted to keep this next post brief. It was a session of information innovation experts giving us their advice on how best to implement your own online strategy.
As moderator to this session, Euan Semple noted that by engaging in the more cutting edge of innovation there is a high degree of risk being involved (citing the experience of his own redundancy). Big changes how organisations work and how they relate to the people that work with them are coming he said.
Here is the gist of key points and principles I picked up from them:
 Consider what are the information needs of your target audience?
 Where are the gaps in what people want?
 Make what you do fun and entertaining for users. Experience is key not necessarily the information
 Pilot groups often don't work as customers often don't know what they want or need
 Let people make their own niches in your space
 The process should be about lifting the lid off of something - rather than creating it, it should be easy because there should be a vacum of information to fill
 Too many tools can put off users and spook them
 Explaining what the idea is key. How would you explain it so that it is easily understood?
 People need to see the benefits offered to communities in order to recommend an online service.
More later...