Last week the analyst firm Gartner issued an interesting press release sharing their '10 consumer macro trends shaping the technology, media and service provider markets over the next 10 years', and on Monday I blogged about one of the trends Gartner called out, the importance of understanding the customer profile as you create products and services, and perhaps more importantly, as you make decisions on hiring and promotion into leadership roles.
Today I want to hit upon another of the Gartner consumer media and tech trends, the one titled 'The Death of Complexity'. For some context, here is the take from Gartner on how in the consumer media and tech space, complexity can often be seen as a negative:
The Death of Complexity
The consumer market is becoming progressively less tolerant of complexity. Although consumers tend to buy products with ever-richer features, they often prefer those that are simple and intuitive. The ability to provide appealing and intuitive user interfaces has become a critical point of differentiation among competing technology providers. As technology becomes more complex, vendors need to invest more in keeping the user interface simple and intuitive. (Providers) therefore need to focus on simplifying technology, pricing, brand messaging, and feedback and interaction, and consider offering chargeable help services for consumers challenged by installing and configuring new equipment and services in their homes.
I know what you are thinking, that is such a no-brainer kind of viewpoint that it should not even have made a list of trends or predictions. I mean, who doesn't want simpler, easier, and more accessible technology?
Well mostly everyone, I think.
We continue to want more and more capability from our technologies while simultaneously demanding that they become easier and easier to use. And that is perfectly fine, in fact, these increasing demands and requirements are what often spur fantastic innovations and solutions. But when the 'I want the product to be simpler' desire involves giving up capability that we feel like we have a right to or that we can't do without, well then often the simple becomes the complex.
So the technology solution providers, both in the consumer space and those that build technologies designed to support enterprise users, (also becoming increasingly harder to distinguish), are challenged to balance the simplicity vs. capability ledger all the time. And while achieving the correct balance is certainly tricky, the ones that manage it most effectively are likely to stay one step ahead of the competition.
But here's the thing about simplicity, it seems to me that everyone is in favor of simpler and easier to use technologies for a little while. Until something new comes along. Something that does that 'one more thing' or has the one extra bell or whistle. And then the simple solution we loved for so long start to look, well maybe a little too simple.
Right up until the point where the tools we have can't do something that the other guy's tools can.
Last week the analyst firm Gartner issued an interesting press release sharing their '10 consumer macro trends shaping the technology, media and service provider markets over the next 10 years'. The piece is worth taking a look through, even if you are (probably rightly), skeptical of any person or firm's ability to accurately or even semi-accurately being able to predict where consumer or even enterprise technologies are heading in the next decade. While we all know (or should know), that while the future of technology is likely to be dramatically different than today, we tend to plan for it in ways that are more like simple extension of the present.
But still, one trend that seems to be holding truer and truer with each passing day is the tendency and emphasis that consumer and public technologies will increasingly influence, shape, and create expectations for ease of use and flexibility for the next generation of enterprise technologies. We have all heard the story by now - employees want enterprise solutions as fast, fun, nice to look at, and that can run on all their preferred devices, just like the solutions they use in their private and social lives. So if nothing else but for some awareness, designers and implementers of enterprise technologies should be aware of developments in the consumer technology space, as these drivers will have more and more impact on the solutions that are eventually deployed in the workplace.
So while certainly understanding that the Gartner predictions like any predictions, should be taken only at face value, I wanted to call a couple of them out this week on the blog, and offer a take or two of my own about how they might or should influence what happens in the workplace, either with the technologies themselves, or with the talent management processes surrounding the people that build these technologies.
Today, I call your attention to Gartner consumer tech and media trend #3: (below is from the Gartner release, and text in bold is my emphasis)):
Women Wanted: Unlocking Gender Opportunities
The consumer technology market is trending toward the production and marketing of more female-friendly technology products targeted at the market's single biggest demographic: women. Women are underrepresented in key job roles within the technology and media sectors. This is clearly a missed opportunity given that women typically control from 70 to 80 percent of household spending, including big-ticket items such as computers, cars and houses. T&SPs should conduct a gender audit and invest, if necessary, in recruiting suitable talent to redress underrepresentation of genders in key decision-making and creative roles
I thought this prediction was really interesting for two reasons. One, the more obvious observation that in certain markets, women drive the purchase and decision making processes to a significant extent. And two, and more compelling to HR and Talent professionals, that often women (and I think this angle can be extrapolated to any other demographic that dominates in a customer segment), do not have equal or even adequate representation in the companies and in the job roles meant to be making the decisions about what products and services to offer these customers, many or most of which are women.
From the talent management perspective this observation raises some important questions. How much does the talent inside the company need to look, think, and relate to its customers in order to build products that really resonate? And does an element of 'does this candidate understand our customers', (or at least is he/she likely to be able to understand them?), need to be factored in to the more classic screening processes that focus on hard and more demonstrable skills and experiences.
I mean, upon closer inspection it seems kind of obvious - if you are building a product aimed at a particular market, (or at least one that is adopted by a specific market), how much do the people you hire to make the important decisions about that product need to be able to identify and relate?
Or is this just another example of a 10-year prediction we will all forget about in a years time?
A few years back a couple of enterprising HR professionals hatched a plan to stage a new kind of Human Resources event - one that was more open, and informal, and participatory, and social, and affordable than the typical and traditional conference or seminar. And from that initial small step, the HRevolution was launched. In 2009 the first HRevolution event was held in Louisville, KY and soon thereafter, the event and the community that supports it has become entrenched in the HR landscape.
I have been lucky enough to be a part of the HRevolution organizing committee since that first event in 2009, and I have seen HRevolution grow and evolve while still creating unique opportunities for HR professionals, recruiters, consultants, and vendors to come together to discuss and debate the future of HR.
I am really pleased to share the announcement of the details of the 2012 event, so here goes:
HRevolution Chicago (aka #HRevolution #5) October 7, 2012 McCormick Place 8:00 am- 4:30 pm Click here to register
HRevolution will for the second year partner with The HR Technology Conference in a ground-breaking event in both content, format, and delivery of ideas that are key to the practice of human resources.
We believe and continue to work hard to ensure that HRevolution is not your typical conference. Our main purpose is to grow your professional and personal network, and expand your ideas around the practice of Human Resources. You will network with 200 of the brightest and most innovative leaders in the industry.
Other highlights of the HRevolution event include:
Fully participatory sessions
Opportunity for participants to bring work issues to debate, discuss, and find solutions
Workable and practical ideas you can take home to your organization
Increased reach- since HRevolution is fully integrated with social platforms, you will be reaching hundreds of thousands of professionals
All past Hrevolution events have sold out, so be sure to register today! Early bird pricing for the first 25 registrants will be $150. General registration is $200. Where else can you have access to top industry professionals for that low price? Nowhere! And thanks to our generous sponsors who help defer your costs, you can get both value and quality at HRevolution 2012!
But wait! There's more!
Special HR Technology Conference Discount
HRevolution is excited to be co-locating again with the world-famous HR Technology Conference & Expo – this time Oct. 8 – 10, 2012 in the self-contained West Wing of McCormick Place, Chicago.
HR Technology is one of the must-attend HR events of the year, and continues to grow in relevance and importance. Learn how technology can help you with every aspect of HR including managing your workforce, recruiting and attracting quality employees, identifying and developing your top performers, and much more.
Best of all, after you register for HRevolution you get a whopping $600.00 discount off the HR Technology® on-site rate. Look for the savings promo code at the bottom of your HRevolution confirmation email.
So I hope you will take a look at all HRevolution has to offer. If you have attended one of the previous events, then I don't have to convince you of the event's value. And if you are new to HRevolution drop me a line and a can tell you more. Better yet head over to Twitter and ask 'What is this #HRevolution I keep hearing about?' I am pretty confident you will get a dozen testimonials from past attendees within a few hours.
Thanks to the Internet's irrevocable laws of virality, you've probably seen, (or at least heard of), a clip from the comedian Louis C.K. titled 'Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy', (I'll embed the video at the end of this post for those that care to take a look. It is quite funny).
Louis' take is essentially that the incredible advances in all kinds of technology and levels of utility and convenience that these developments have enabled quickly progress from 'Wow! Isn't this amazing!' to 'Is that it? I'm totally bored.' in shorter and shorter cycles. In the video Louis compares our perceptions of modern air travel, which still should be considered a magical invention, (five hours from LA to NYC), to our still fairly recent history where a similar journey would take '30 years and some of you would die'.
But the nature of technology and of progress has always been such - once a standard is set, and the near term benefits of new invention are realized, (or at least generally understood, kind of an important distinction when it comes to enterprise technologies), most of us wonder what's next? Where, how, and from whose wisdom will the 'next big thing' spring from? It doesn't really matter if we, (sort of a collective we in this case, so don't get all 'I understand this space' on me. Thanks.), have not really completely or ecven adequately processed last year's set of 'next big things.' In the context of the recently concluded HR Technology Conference, we can talk for some time about this year's 'Cool New Technologies', but can you name one or two from last year? Can you name any from just two years ago?
We are driven in the technology field as participants, commentators, consumers, and leaders to continually search for the ideas and certainly the supporting and enabling solutions that can help transform our organizations and turn these great ideas into accepted enterprise practice, to better facilitate connection and innovation from our teams, and provide organizational leadership the information and insights derived from a more complete understanding of the performance and potential of the firm's people, (whew - I almost referred to 'people' as 'human capital', it was a close one), to achieve our organizational goals. I'd also be naive and optimistic to hope that one of those goals is to 'help our people be happy', but I'll leave that for another time.
So in the chase for 'what's next', it's easy to forget, or at least choose to not remember many of the things that led us to this place. And beyond that, we can often fail to appreciate and come close to extracting the potential of even 'older' technologies and solutions, caught up in the game of the latest gadgets, UX's, or smart marketing slogans.
All this really long (apologies) preamble was inspired by some things I have read or heard about the HR Tech Conference, and by proxy, the HR Technology market as a whole. Because if you feel, as I do, that the conference represents a kind of State of the Union event in the space, then what happens there, and what is said about it in the ensuing weeks probably represents an accurate and full assessment of the industry at a point in time. So when you catch the odd comment or blog post or two about people not being really blown away by any new solutions they saw, or that perhaps too many of the vendors are chasing each other's functionality around in circles, resulting in a mess of non-differentiated solutions, or even that some of the sessions seemed to present the same ideas from prior years, just packaged a bit differently - then I'm left to wonder and question if we've lost a little perspective of what is really happening inside most organizations, and the truth of the struggles many of them face with HR technologies every day. Never mind the fact that there were over 50 product announcements, some really exciting and interesting, presented at the show.
Why the HR Technology Conference is, as John Hollon at TLNT.com points out, one of the HR industry's two essential events to attend each year, is because it is much more than just fancy and showy displays of a new application or of the announcement of some new features added to an older application. The event is about taking measure of trends and ideas that are developing on a much broader level, cross-industry, global, and large in scope, but with the added advantage for attendees to start to think about how to apply and take advantage of these trends in almost real-time.
How can they manage this? Because the concurrent sessions present real stories of actual success from which to draw. Because their current vendor partners are almost certainly attending and exhibiting at the show, usually with many of their most senior executives on site. Because all of the top industry thinkers and consultants are there, most of whom are accessible for a conversation and exchange of ideas. This confluence of educational content, solution provider presence and attention, thought leadership, and top-caliber social and networking opportunities simply happens nowhere else in the industry.
Last point on all this is that many if not most of the benefits of attending the show for HR leaders and practitioners are not at all about the so-called 'latest and greatest'. Sure, the flashy new application that hits all the current buzzwords can be fun, interesting, and can even be really important, but remember - next year there will be another crop of 'latest and greatest', and we'll have to think hard to recall this year's winners. No, the real value of this gathering is far more enduring and important than making a bit of noise at a booth - it's about the rare opportunity to walk away from a three day event armed with new ideas, closer relationships with important partners, new and reinforced connections with peers and experts, and finally the chance to make positive and lasting impacts on your organization.
And we all know to do that takes time, great tools, insight, good ideas, and lots of help. The HR Technology Conference scores on all those measures.
Congratulations to Bill Kutik and the entire team at LRP for a fantastic event.
FYI - Here's the Louic C.K clip I mentioned at the top - email and RSS subscribers will need to click through - Have a great weekend!
We are just winding down the HR Technology Conference here at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, once again it was a fantastic event complete with all the things you'd expect from this event - great sessions, a lively exhibition hall packed with demonstrations from every solutions provider that matters, and as always the chance to connect and re-connect with peers, friends, and industry leaders.
To Bill Kutik and everyone at LRP that makes this event what it is today - many thanks.
I was fortunate enough to get to participate in two sessions at the Conferences- as a panelist on the Social Media Strategies panel, (which I previewed here, and will have a recap posted later in the week), and as a co-facilitator along with Trish McFarlane in an #HRevolution-style session titled 'Your Kids Will Never Work in an Office', an open and wide-ranging discussion on the changing nature or work, the influence of technologies like mobile and social on the workplace, and what challenges the next generation of workers will present and provide.
The slides that Trish and I worked from have been uploaded to Slideshare here, and are also embedded below:
This #HRevolution session was just one of three separate breakout sessions that #HRevolution veterans presented today at HR Technology. In addition to our session, Dwane Lay and China Gorman led a discussion on 'HR Technology and Differentiation'; and Daniel Crosby and Lance Haun took on the topics of 'Change Leadership and Gamification'. All told across the three session, we likely introduced the HRevolution format, vibe, and style to about 250 attendees.
Our session on the future of work was extremely lively and participatory - exactly as an HRevolution-style session should be. While Trish and I set up the topics, offered some discussion questions, and tried to guide the discussions - the conversations were clearly driven by the participants. There were engaged and thoughtful comments, questions, and opinions from all corners of the large room, and I'd estimate we heard from at least 30 different individuals during the course of the hour.
The lesson for me is certainly not that any event including HRevolution can truly solve big problems in an hour, but rather that HR and HR Technology professionals have lots to contribute to these discussions, and that when provided the opportunity, (as HRevolution does), they will dive right in and offer their expertise, and openly look to their peers and colleagues for support.
Our industry needs these opportunities for professionals to come together and engage in this way, and while HRevolution does not claim to be the only option for this kind of dialogue to happen, it is certainly one the seems to have resonated here today at the HR Technology Conference.
Many thanks to Bill Kutik, Claude Werder, and everyone else at LRP and HRevolution for all the support.
Steve
