Later this week at the trulondon Unconference in London Sarah White, Shane McCusker , and I will be moderating a session titled 'Technology Shopping List'. 
Flickr - deepfruit
The session is described as:
Whatever the future holds, technology will play a major part in it. Today’s technology is already old and a day doesn’t go by when we don’t wish for something new. Join these technology experts in agreeing what you think the technology will need to do in the future, how applications will develop, the impact of cloud and what you want to see in the future.
There are really two kinds of shopping lists I think. The one's that adults make when they go to the grocery store (milk, eggs, bread, etc.) and the ones kid's make for their Birthday or send to Santa Claus at Christmas, full of the latest toys, games, and other desires that (mostly) are not really needed, but will make them overjoyed with delight come the big day.
Aside - with all the recent major snow storms in the USA you have to notice the phenomenon of everyone rushing to the store to stock up on milk, eggs, and bread. Has French Toast been declared the staple food for when you get snowed in?
Back to the point.
What will workforce technologies need to do in the future to support the organization, empower and engage employees, and most importantly drive increased business value? That is a big question, and I am glad that I will have Sarah and Shane along to help guide the discussion.
Here are some of the things I'll offer as part of the session:
Get simpler
Whether it is the iPad with its clean interface and tight feature set, Google Buzz (on the surface a much more basic and accessible version of Google Wave), or the push and demand for more mobile, smart-phone based capability, workforce technology has to get simpler to use. Your employees and front-line managers are the essential keys to any Talent Management technology success. Your candidates are the essential customers of your Recruiting systems. Does anyone think that any of those groups are clamoring for more complex systems? Simpler does not always have to mean less functional, but better design, more intuitive process, and 'smarter' technology that can anticipate and even recommend actions I think will be a large part of the future of workforce technology.
Get flexible
Rigid, process-oriented enterprise technology solutions of the last 25 years will have to become more flexible and adaptable if we accept the common assumption that business itself has to become more adaptable. I get that processes are how most business still gets done in many fields, and that for many organizations tight, precise replication of existing processes are essential for success and profits. But with more and more work becoming 'creative', 'innovative', 'knowledge-based', or whatever you want to call it, the need for workforce tech to change, morph, and adapt to support whatever new directions the business needs to take I have to believe will be significantly more important in the future. We are seeing some of this already, with more flexible SaaS-based solutions starting to dominate wide sectors of the workforce technology landscape.
Get social
Ok, not exactly a breakthrough idea at this point. But it does still seem that while there is significant discussion and realization that organizations can realize important benefits from the introduction and implementation of more 'social' or collaborative technology, many have only taken limited steps in this area. The technologies that have long dominated the mid to large enterprise space (ERP, MS Office, corporate E-mail) have all been slow to adapt to the ideas around social. Ironically, the forces that seem likely to spur the adoption of more social technologies, or the addition of social capability into existing technologies are more likely to be the employee's themselves, and not the corporate leaders or decision makers.
So those are some of the ideas I will offer for the Technology Shopping List - what else would you say needs to be included?
After all, it is more of a kid's Christmas list than an 'snow emergency I need to make French Toast' list.