Drive Thru Technology

No - it's not a post about the technical magic that happens from the time you give your order into the clown's mouth and you stuff your face with that McRib - it's a post to talk about the Drive Thru HR show on BlogTalkRadio.Want fries with that? Sir? Sir?

This afternoon, (1:00 PM ET, 12 Noon Central, Mountain and Pacific figure it out on your own), I am a guest on the Drive Thru HR show on Blog Talk Radio.  Drive Thru HR is a daily (insanely hard to produce) talk show ably hosted by Bryan Wempen and William Tincup.  Two smart, interesting, and classy gentlemen.  It will be easy for you to tell me apart from them, I assure you. You can listen live on the show page here.

I appreciate the invitation to appear, especially in light of the fact that with the HR Happy Hour show, this blog, and occasional contributions on Fistful of Talent that the listeners of Drive Thru HR have to be this close to becoming completely tired of me. Perhaps many are already.  But if you do listen, and I hope you will at least to hear Bryan and William, here are some of the ideas I plan to talk about on the show.

Consumerization of Enterprise Technology

This is not new, at least conceptually, since many enterprise web applications have made strides to design interfaces that are more user-friendly, more intuitive, and certainly easier to adopt by casual users in the enterprise.  But while interfaces and design have adapted to the expectations of the internet and Web 2.0 age, very little else in ‘big technology’ has. Lengthy deployment and upgrade cycles, little transparency in price and deployment costs, and an appalling lack of unbiased information on technology options for the small and mid-market customer.

Finding, evaluating, purchasing, and deploying HR technology is about as painful a process as a root canal.  Think about the very best companies that you deal with as a consumer, I’m not talking about the UI on the web or their ‘quirky but approachable’ Twitter account, but the best ones in terms of the entire buying and owning experience.  Easy to find the initial information on my own, without handing over contact information or being badgered on the phone. Multiple ways to interact with the organization depending on my preference and style.  A simple, transparent, and clean sales process, that doesn’t require a Dream Team of lawyers to vet.  Works when you need it to, and when it doesn't obtaining support is fast, simple, and effective. Enterprise Tech doesn’t need to just look like the best consumer tech, it needs to act more like it too.

Keeping Secrets

So many technology decisions operate from a basic position of fear.  Fear ‘company secrets’ will get leaked, fear employees can’t be trusted to create passwords that aren’t hackable, fear that if anyone outside the organization had a glimpse of what really goes on around here that the company would lose the plot and ideas would be breached, great employees would flee, and dirty little secrets would no longer be secret.  So we hide behind firewalls, pretend our ideas and processes are sacred and special, and pretend not to notice the speed of change and progress being made by smaller, adaptable, and organizations that are simply not afraid of honesty, openness, collaboration, and co-creation.  I’ll bet 90% of what most companies sell is also sold, in almost exactly the same way, in the same package, using the same processes as their competitors. Just what in the heck needs to be ‘secret’ about any of that?

Miscellany

What do people mean when they say - ‘It’s not about the technology’
Why does it seem that vendors building bigger and more integrated HR Technology suites looks a lot like the old, massive, monolithic ERP suites everyone know hates?
Why do so many great HR pros still appear to not give a hoot about technology?
Are my eyes really brown?

I think that’s it. Actually it is way too much content for a half-hour show.  Maybe if I don’t bomb Bryan and William can come on the HR Happy Hour to continue the conversation.

Comments

[John Jorgensen]

Nothing about the proper way to cook a brisket or pork shoulder?

[Steve]

That would have been a better show!