Notes from #SHRM11 - Day 1

The second field report from the SHRM National Conference & Exposition sadly will offer no more insight than yesterday's Day 0.5 dispatch - but in the spirit of not allowing a lack of compelling content from grinding out the content, we continue unabated.

So without further ado, here are Steve's Notes from #SHRM11 - Day 1.

1. The Opening Part 1 - SHRM really loves talking about SHRM

The first part of the event's opening address covered lots of SHRM housekeeping, including the formal announcement of the removal of the 'Interim' from SHRM's now CEO Hank Jackson's title. Hank gave a decent enough review of SHRM's opportunities and challenges going forward, strikes an impressive prescence and command on the stage, and generally seems to be the kind of guy that people want to follow and rally around. He talked mostly about SHRM stuff to SHRM people, and even though after about 15 minutes of the SHRMy-ness, it got a little stilted, I get the reasoning and the value.

2. The Opening Part 2 - Packaging Really Matters

The opening 'keynote' was from Virgin CEO Sir Richard Branson. I put keynote in the dreaded 'air quotes' because Branson did not deliver a speech or talk of any sort, rather he simply sat down for a 45 minute of so Q&A session interspersed with several Virgin companies propaganda inspirational videos. Branson is a legend, an icon known all over the world for daring, innovation, success, and a kind of legendary consuming personality. To have a person of such magnitude simply sitting down for a chat, rather than giving a talk, articulating a vision for the future, or a set of challenges for today's and tomorrow's leaders, or even telling a few of the best stories from a unique and inspiring career would have been a far superior option to use Branson, and could have created a keynote that attendees would be talking about for year.  It was an opportunity that was kind of wasted. Branson is a star for sure, but packaged up like a guest on the old Larry King show was a disappointment.

3. Vegas - Part 2

It is still hot. And I still want you to shut your trap about it. This includes me.

4. Vegas - Part 3

It is really hard to get around in this town. Cab lines are impossibly long anywhere that masses of people congregate. This problem is worsened by the situation described in Part 3 of this list that I am not allowed to mention. More planning is required to get from Point A to Point B in any reasonable amount of time that most SHRM-weary attendees are ready to muster after a long day of speeches, Expo Hall swag, and free cocktails. If you want to get somewhere at night, better start planning this morning.

5 Parties and Scarcity

Last night saw the first 'must-attend' after-hours event of the conference, the TLNT.com party held over at the Palazzo resort. What was planned as a little gathering of about 100-150 people soon turned into a (depending on who is doing the talking), a 700-900 RSVPed oversold, capacity challenged, long line to try and get into happening. Throughout the day whispers of 'Are you coming to TLNT? You better get there early...' were overhead in the Expo Hall.  My group (about 10 or so) managed to subvert a ridiculous cab line at the LV Conference Center (see Item 3), by securing an on-the-spot party bus, (nice work Robin Schooling), to shuttle us over to the TLNT event. We then cut the line, (sorry), and made it to the event only a few minutes late.  It was a fun time, made more fun I think by the fact that we had been hearing all day that if we didn't get over there on time (or early), we would not have made it in. This (sort of fake) scarcity elevated a normal conference social happy hour into more of an 'event' that was not to be missed. Nice work TLNT, StarrTincup, and everyone else involved.

That's it for me from Day 1 - I spent most of my Expo Hall time in the Dice.com booth, so I don't have a swag report to offer, but I hope to make some rounds today, and hopefully catch a session or two. If you are at the event, please do come by the Dice Booth #2616 to say hello.

Notes from #SHRM11 - Day 0.5

The two most uneventful blocks of time at a major conference are the first half-day or so before the event properly begins in earnest, usually with a flashy, exciting, get the crowd pumped up opening keynote by someone famous; and the last half-day where a slightly less flashy, exciting but not quite so exciting and not quite as relevant or famous as the opener, and meant to help wind down (what's left of) the crowd winds down the proceedings.Maren Hogan loves HR

I'm sitting in the SHRM National Conference & Exposition Press Room, with maybe 2 or 3 other folks, in the former time block I just described, it is about 4 hours or so until Sir Richard Branson's opening keynote gets the conference officially launched.  Now there are a number of pre-conference sessions and workshops going on prior to the opening keynote, but certainly the vast majority of attendees see the keynote, and the subsequent opening of the Expo floor as the start of the three-day swag-a-palooza.

So without much real content or news to mention, I'll just toss out a set of random notes and observations from #SHRM11 - Day 0.5 (before anything significant has actually happened).

Travel - man air travel in the US in the summer is a nightmare. Five hour delay yesterday, followed by three separate flights to get to Vegas only to find my room in the Las Vegas Hilton was essentially flooded from a leak in the A/C unit. At midnight last night that was not fun.

Vegas - It's hot. Stop talking about it. And stop with the 'What happens in Vegas goes on Twitter/Facebook' jokes. They stopped being funny in abour 2008.

Facilities - You know the 'wear comfortable shoes' advice you were given about SHRM? I hope you followed it. The LV Conference Center is a massive place. There seems to be lots of excellent wifi coverage here, in fact most of the wifi hotspot hubs have been crowded with people eating donuts, drinking coffee, and essentially doing all kinds of things you don't need wifi for.

Gambling - I love sports. I sort of like gambling on sports. But in the dead of summer, there really isn't much in the way of sports to bet on. Matt Stollak just told me he took the over at +8 on the Brewers - Twins game. I think I may find an MLS Game to bet on.  Does David Beckham still play in the league?  

Swag - Haven't seen much of the swag yet. Lots of printed materials for sure. And SHRM has set up some nice donation boxes for attendees to drop off unwanted swag items to donate to charity. I am not sure what kinds of charities are really interested in back issues of HR Magazine.  But still, it might better than getting another gross of 'Miami Heat - 2011 NBA Champions' hats. And it does seem like every vendor is giving away iPads this year. My sense is that none of them will be dropped in the charity box.

So that's it from Day 0.5, check back soon for more dispatches from the front. 

The Employee Loyalty Card - Notes from Aquire Structure 2011

Good morning from Fort Worth, Texas!

I have been attending the Aquire User Conference called 'Structure 2011' the last two days, and first off I wanted to express my thanks and gratitude to Aquire CEO Lois Melbourne for inviting me not only to attend, but to also present to Aquire's customers, partners, and staff.  A copy of my presentation, about some of the challenges and opportunities that the dynamic, hybrid, and ever-changing workforce presents to organizations, is loaded on Slideshare here, and embedded below, (email and RSS readers will need to click through).

The Hybrid Workforce - Aquire Structure 2011

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But more interesting than my presentation, was an idea that sprang from a presentation on analytics from Aquire's Andrew Courtois, and was later kicked around a bit on a special 'Live from Aquire' broadcast of the HR Happy Hour Show, (the part of the show where Andrew joins is about 30 minutes in).

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Andrew talked about how casino companies leverage analytics to drive revenue and (hopefully) improve customer experience and loyalty via the use of what are called 'Player Loyalty Cards'. The basic premise is a player signs up for a casino loyalty or reward card, agreed to have their playing history tracked by the casino, and in exchange the casino offers different rewards and incentives for regular or additional play.

Seems like a pretty good deal, right? The player gets the occasional reward or bonus and feels a little more attached to the casino and process. The casino gets access to detailed data on playing trends and history.  But what Andrew shared about one of the ways HOW the casino uses this data was the interesting part.

By analyzing playing data both in aggregate, and at the player level, the casino comes to 'know' a given player's 'pain point', i.e., the general amount of playing losses that causes to given gambler to quit playing and walk away. By looking at the 'Player Loyalty Card' data, and comparing real-time casino floor information with the data from previous experiences, the casino can, again in real-time, send a host or hostess over to see a player that the data says is about to get up and leave and offer the player a free dinner, a discounted room, or some other reward or incentive to stay a bit longer and (hopefully) continue playing. Sort of devious and also a really smart way to use analytics to drive business outcomes.

So after Andrew's talk, and on the radio show, we floated around the idea of a similar construct in the workplace, something called 'The Employee Loyalty Card'. What if as an organization, we could create a way to capture all the activities, actions, interactions, projects, contacts, etc. that an employee undertakes inside the company and then somehow find a way to analyze that data against actual historical outcomes in order to take both preventative and corrective actions?

We all have those anecdotal organizational stories about the 'client from hell' or that manager that is really hard to work with, but sometimes we don't really know the deleterious effect they have on the organization's people. Do high-performing people suddenly start performing worse after getting assigned to a particular project or manager? Do they leave six months later in higher numbers?

Conversely, we often have a great leader or two that we all feel does a good job of developing and coaching staff, but can we more accurately predict their ongoing impact on the people in the organization, and better still - can we use data to understand how to create more of these great managers? Do we know that 40% of our best performing sales people might have taken training from the same sales manager?

Could you imagine an 'Employee Loyalty Card?'. A way to trigger HR and organizaitonal leadership when employees hit that tipping or pain point?. A process or technology to collect, analyze, and act on all these diverse employee interactions and actions and then make more informed decisions?

It was an interesting conversation and I would love to know what you think.

Thanks again to everyone at Aquire!

Apps for Everything - Notes from Lumesse Conference

This morning at the Lumesse Journey 2011 User Conference in Austin, Texas both Lumesse CEO Matt Parker, and CTO Martyn Arbon shared their observations around talent management, business software, and more directly their sense of the future of talent management technology.

In both presentations, Parker's that described the journey that has led to the current incarnation of Lumesse, (the company formerly known as Stepstone Solutions); and Arbon's, which provided more insight into current state and near-term Lumesse product roadmaps; both gentlemen described the increasing 'consumerization' of business technology, and the need for technologists, particularly in the HCM space, to effectively create and deploy flexible, easy to use solutions that will more and more resemble the look and feel of consumer-based applications. 

We have heard about this trend for some time now, certainly creators and developers of business applications have taken inspiration from popular and eminently usable consumer sites like Amazon.com and Ebay for years. But this approach has up to know been directed mainly about user interface improvements, attempts to streamline translational processes, and with the goal of improving HR organizational efficiency by driving more processes out to the employees and managers in the form of Employee Self-Service, (ESS) and Manager Self-Service, (MSS).

But the problem with ESS and MSS for many organizations is that many employees and managers really hated it. It forced employees and managers to use systems that they did not find all that friendly, following processes that were proscribed centrally and were not that flexible, and using systems that may have been in theory personalizable to some extent, but in practicality were often too difficult for the average employee and manager to use in anything other than their delivered, default configuration. ESS and MSS were kind of the like the old VCR machines in your parent's house, the time of day always blinking on 12:00.

So where this next generation of HCM solutions for core HR, for Recruiting, or for Talent Management process support has an opportunity to really become more transformational and leveraged more fully and effectively throughout organizations will likely be driven by how well suppliers of these technologies can adopt and adapt the latest 'consumerization' trends to the enterprise - apps, mobile support across platforms, and easily personalized.

As Martyn Arbon correctly noted in his talk this morning, no two people have the same exact set of applications loaded on their iPhones, even if said people perform the exact same role in the organization. Traditionally enterprises have deployed or made available to staff a general set of access controls and capabilities for systems and tools based on high-level, and fairly generic set of definitions. 

If you were a staff recruiter, or a purchasing agent, or an office manager, then you received the same set of tools and systems as the other staff recruiters, purchasing agents, or office managers. It did not really matter if you worked in a different style, a different location (perhaps remotely), had more or less appetite and expertise in technology, etc.  This 'role-based' access dominated, (and still dominates), most technology deployments. But what consumerization or 'appification' is doing is fundamentally changing employee's demands and expectations of what enterprise technology should and needs to support - the ability to tailor capability and functionality at a true personal level, i.e., just like their iPhones work.

The first wave of consumerization of business technology was mostly about user interface improvements and porting tools to the web, this next phase, at least for the companies that will be successful at it, is about delivering a much more personal, flexible, and truly individual experience.

The team at Lumesse spent a lot of time this morning showing that they have these ideas in the forefront of their strategy and thinking - which is certainly an encouraging sign for their customers.

HRevolution 2011 - Thoughts and Thank-You's

Wow.

What a fantastic event.

HRevolution 2011 took place over the past weekend in Atlanta, Georgia and at least for me, was the best of the three HRevolution events we have put on thus far. And certainly as one of the members of the HRevolution organizing committee I could be accused of having a biased opinion. I freely admit it - I am biased. So if you don't want to take my word for it, connect with any of the 130 or so people that attended, keep an eye on the Twitter stream for the tag #HRevolution, and read some of what are sure to be dozens of reflection blog posts that will be posted in the next few weeks.

I am not so biased though as to suggest that somehow HRevolution is better than other events, be they large and traditional major conferences like SHRM, or the many other 'Unconferences' that one can find these days. But I do believe HRevolution is different, and really kind of unique in the space, and really quite special. The level of commitment, passion, engagement, and enthusiasm for this event, at least for me, surpasses what I have seen and experienced for any other event in our extended industry.

Attendance at professional conferences and events can be driven by many reasons - some are attended for specific learning opportunities, some for the chance to meet and network with one's colleagues in a professional community, and some simply are used to re-charge and energize and hopefully re-ignite passion for one's career. I think HRevolution succeeds as an event because it offers attendees all of these things. Intelligent and insightful session leaders, relevant and engaging content, a format that encourages connection and engagement, and finally the chance to spend time with 130 other folks as passionate as you are about the worlds of Human Resources, Recruiting, Talent Management, HR Technology, or whatever precisely matches your interest.

After the event one of the attendees Bonni Titgemeyer tweeted the following:

It is a fantastic and interesting question, and I think gets to some of the core or the essence of why so many people feel so passionate about the HRevolution event.

Particularly for first-time attendees, the event can be seen as a bit of an enigma. It kind of looks like a 'regular' conference - we were in a large, professional conference center, there was an excellent catered lunch and a General Session room and smaller breakout rooms; some of the sessions had elements of more traditional presentation formats. But other sessions had attendees standing in front of the room holding up posters of cartoon characters and rap stars, and as Matt Stollak and Dawn Hrdlica-Burke both observed, the F-Bomb was dropped sort of casually and reasonably often during the day. But contrast that to the big-brained Josh LeTourneau exploring the depths of complex Social Network Analysis, a topic and conversation to challenge your ideas about talent management to their core.

So is HRevolution a phenomenon, movement, or a cult?

I am not sure. Maybe it is all three. For a small event, the HRevolution manages to be a collection of different, complementary, and interesting elements, and to me, that is why it really is unique and special. Maybe the event is anything the attendees want it to be.

Lastly, many, many thanks for all who attended, presented, supported, and come toghether to make this event what it is.

Most importantly, my thanks and undying respect and admiration for Trish McFarlane, Ben Eubanks, and Crystal Peterson. It is an honor and pleasure to work with you.