In my mind, the difference between a good conference and a bad conference is staying power. Ask yourself this – How long do the issues discussed, the ideas generated and opportunities for growth stick with you post-event? By that measurement, the 2009 HR Technology Conference was a rousing success.
Before I jump into my final thoughts, I’d like to point you to the musings of some of my fellow blogging attendees:
- Steve Boese offers three good conference related posts worth reading. You can find them here, here and here.
- Lance Haun reminds us that “Being Effective in HR Isn’t About Technology“.
- Kris Dunn covers the Talent Management Shootout.
- Kevin Grossman summarizes cool technologies and marketing challenges.
- Bradford Thomas reports on where talent and technology intersect.
- Trish McFarlane provides her closing thoughts.
Many of my opinions on the event can be heard in a special live edition of the “HR Happy Hour”, a wonderful new show hosted by Shauna Moerke and Steve Boese. Despite the initial background noise, what was so impressive about this particular episode was the ability for online conversations to break the digital divide, resulting in meaningful real-world dialogue. In addition to fellow panelists Jason Seiden, Laurie Ruettimann and Lance Haun, nearly fifteen other callers and conference room participants were part of the discussion. I’ve included the show below and encourage you to take a listen.
Ok, enough setup. Let’s get to it.
The Conference Itself
Bill Kutik and company did a tremendous job organizing this year’s event. As I mentioned in my prior post, logistics were a bit challenging, but participants seemed to be quite pleased overall. Not surprisingly, attendance was a bit down on both the service provider and HR buyer fronts, but those who made the investment were quite purposeful and highly focused.
Panels Rule
Here’s my suggestion for HR Tech 2011…. all panels all the time. The panel discussions were not trite, run of the mill, predictable, robotic regurgitations of the obvious. Sure, there was some of that, but by and large we witnessed meaningful dialogue on a whole host of topics, some of which had no bearing on HR technology explicitly.
A quick note for the unseasoned. If you do attend a panel discussion, expect to witness Bill Kutik rising like a ruffled Phoenix to interrupt the flow if things get too “cozy”. This isn’t a criticism. Bill generally keeps the conversation loose and – like a mailman – ensures the envelope gets pushed.
There were three panels of note.
Wednesday’s was moderated by Jason Averbook and included senior HR leaders from KeyBank, Nike, Target and Dell. I spoke to this in my prior post but it’s worth discussing again. All seemed quite bullish on the application of social media for their organizations, with Nike stating that as an industry we may miss an “avenue of engagement” if we don’t get on board. I also enjoyed the discussion on HR service provider demonstrations and on this point the panelists could not be more crystal clear. “Show us the good, the bad and ugly” and be “transparent about what features you currently have in production and which are aspirational”. KeyBank even stated that this approach would help improve your score in a competitive environment, with Nike adding that this is your first opportunity to “share your culture” and “values”. Take heed here people.
Thursday morning began with the industry analyst panel, featuring:
- Josh Bersin of Bersin & Associates: “Dinosaurs don’t tend to die. They get acquired.”
- Naomi Bloom of Bloom & Wallace: “You own your own professional development, not your company.”
- Lisa Rowan of IDC: “The cage match is for the profile of record versus the system of record.”
- Jim Holincheck from Gartner: “Use data as a strategic weapon.”
Moderator Bill Kutik asked this panel to predict which HR service provider will be the most influential in ten years. I’m not a fan of this question because it’s difficult enough to ponder what will happen in ten months, but the answers were telling nonetheless. Holincheck and Rowan put their money on Oracle (in Holincheck’s case, because of M&A activity), Bersin bet on SuccessFactors and Bloom doubled down on Workday. Maybe I’ll stick around long enough to see who was right… 
The final panel I attended was focused on recruiting technology, featuring moderator Gerry Crispin and senior HR/talent panelists from Intuit, Research in Motion (BlackBerry), Deloitte and Southwest/Yahoo’s former CHRO, Libby Sartain. There were a number interesting topics of discussion, but the focus on social media really caught my attention. When asked, nearly half of the audience admitted to policies which block social media sites, and even BlackBerry stated that this was an issue for them until recently (ironic, I know). Deloitte was the most direct about the issue, stating that social media is “not a technology problem, it’s a management problem.” Intuit added that these concerns really need to go away, especially with the younger generation of workers given we know that “they’re bringing their lives into their work and their work into the lives.” Crispin then shared a tale about a very intelligent young man who refused to accept a job offer because the organization blocked FaceBook, and I think this is a great cautionary tale for those who are leveraging social media to recruit applicants and then blocking access to those same tools. The final item of note was by Libby Sartain when she spoke to the issue of “applicants”, preferring instead to think of these people as “consumers of work”. I like it.
Shoot the Shootout
The “Second Annual Talent Management Shootout” was held on Thursday evening. This is a scenario-based competition that requires HR service providers to demonstrate their wares and approaches to prescribed (and common) HR scenarios. Much to my surprise, the room was packed at the outset and the mood quite light. This year’s competitors included Lawson, SAP, Salary.com and Plateau. Salary.com was the victor.
Here’s the problem I see with this format. Senior level executives rapidly run through their scripted paces while curtained solution wizards pull the strings on their respective software packages. The temptation is to focus exclusively on the user interface, which given the speed reading and tiny print makes colors and pictures seem superior to outright functionality. It’s really a 75-minute demo without the benefit of asking questions or pausing for processing. I don’t think it works and would like to see it either go away or replaced with something else.
I might be wrong… it happened once.
Conclusions
I believe HR Tech worked because the organizers focused on engaging the audience where it matters. Panels are superior to talking heads because conversations are what we seek to further our learning. “Talking with” versus “talking to” seems like a no brainer, but sadly it’s a miss for most event planners.
As I mentioned previously, HR buyers were there to make some tough decisions with their precious 2009 and 2010 budgets. However, I believe the Expo floor was wrought with mostly empty booths staffed by intelligent (and senior) people who suffered from a lack of volume. Sure, there were transactions that occurred and HR buyers who made decisions based on a service provider’s Expo presence. But the numbers are difficult to justify given the investment (both hard and soft dollars) required. Having worked the floor of many a conference, this issue is often the most challenging to reconcile once you return to the office and answer the inevitable CFO question – “So how was the conference?” The conference was great, but the leads were few relative to the number of sponsoring companies.
Final Thoughts
George Bernard Shaw once said, “I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live it is my duty to do for it whatever I can.” The 2009 HR Technology Conference lived up to this spirit. I’m better for having attended and continuing to built both old and new relationships.
My challenge to the organizers is to continue to think about how this community can be furthered. How do we ensure that it is not an annual event that drives important innovation and dialogue, but instead a constant flow throughout the calendar year? I look forward to the next evolution in our field. If you’re still reading, I owe you a pint. Please share your thoughts below and let’s continue to keep the conversation going.
Mark, thanks for the terrific and comprehensive coverage. For me this is like sitting at Sardi’s after opening night on Broadway, waiting for the reviews to come in. But with all the NYC newspaper struggling, perhaps it’s something else entirely.
Allow me to be utterly self-serving in commenting on several of your points.
Couldn’t agree with you more about the panels. We’ve never had more than two; this year we had four. The attendees love them, as you do. My problem is I can’t moderate all of them, and there are only so many people I’d trust to do it for us: like Jason Averbook, Gerry Crispin and Karen Beaman, who all did a superb job. Happy to hear suggestions about others.
I believe this is the first Shootout you’ve seen. The focus on the UI used to be much worse when vendors had line-by-line scripts they had to follow so all of them were showing the exact same thing. We tried to get away from that with more open-ended scenarios, that allowed original solutions. I think we succeeded.
Bottom line: Did you really think Salary.com had the prettiest UI and won for that reason? Or because they were clever enough to use the magnifying glass so people could read the type, which I agree is a problem in a big hall? Mark down this historical date: I think you’re wrong about the Shootout. That and the Analyst Panel have been our two most popular events for years.
As for the Expo hall, you and I were clearly talking to different vendors. I get very little Expo time, so I plead guilty to checking more with the larger brand name vendors in the bigger booths. After all, they are our best customers.
They all said the exact same thing to me (and they are never shy about complaining given the money they’ve spent): “Slightly lighter traffic than last year, but even more committed and qualified buyers with budget.” Except for Workday’s Dave Duffield who said it was twice as good as last year.
So I guess on the Expo floor, where you stand depends on where you sit.
Thanks again for the conscientious and thorough coverage. Hope you’ll come back next year.
Thanks for the comment Bill. I think my review puts you at a solid 3.5 stars.
A few thoughts:
- I agree that you need to be careful about your moderators, but there are some extremely talented players that would perform well for next year. Hell, I’d even be happy to proxy a session if it would help. Of course, we’d need to do some trust-fall exercises to build confidence.
- This was my first Shootout. And no, I don’t think Salary.com had the best UI. The magnifying glass was clever, but I certainly hope that didn’t factor into their victory. I’m still not convinced that this serves a core market need but I’ll annotate my diary just the same.
- There were highly motivated buyers in attendance, but my point is that the distribution across the Expo floor was a problem. If you’re an upstart spending the bulk of your marketing budget at this show, the ROI is likely a challenge.
Count me in for next year Bill. And please think about how you can leverage the goodwill of the event into a continuous value prop over the next 12 months. It may be yours (or someone else’s) for the taking.
Mark-
Excellent review of the event. I was there and still learned quite a bit from your summary. Going forward, I would like to see more informal and unscripted exchanges in the sessions and panels to the extent possible in such large venues. Perhaps carving out some time and space in the agenda to hold more ad-hoc or ‘unconference’ style facilitated sessions would be something to consider. But overall, it was an excellent event, and it was great to finally meet you there.
Mark, thanks for your summary.
Bill, my observation on the shootout was in round one Salary.com would win because of the pretty graphs and tables. – it did look better on the screen – far and away better than the others and that is how voters vote-My guess is the underpinnings of other solutions were more robust from an overall standpoint, so I see both sides.
Loved the panels- think about the draw of more mid market companies- via a mid market panel- as there were many vendors there, but not enough success stories-
The opening and closing keynotes were perfect-
The integration of social media to the conference was terrific.
Loved meeting you all face to face-
Thanks for the great coverage, and of course for coming on the HR Happy hour again! We love to have you!
Great summary Mark. I agree with you on having more panels and with Steve on having more unconference style sessions. The best conference I ever attended was a PeopleSoft conference in the early 1990′s. There were only 400 attendees and almost all the sessions were panel or unconference style. The ability to have a conversation in a session instead of just watching some powerpoint slides was far more useful to me.
You beat me, Mike. I didn’t get to PeopleSoft Connect until it was way bigger. And guess what? It had become the same mix of individual practitioner presentations, panels and discussion groups that we had at HR Technology. But no Analyst Panel or Shootout, of course.
Serious question: It’s one thing to attend an Expert Session moderated by Naomi Lee Bloom, as 50 people did with many others turned away. Do you and Mark and Steve (you guys know each other?) think people would be equally eager to attend a discussion with no promise of expertise beyond that of their fellow attendees?
And how does this become different (or more successful) by holding it in a room instead of table cards on stands saying “Recruiting” or whatever on the lunch tables?
All of you taught me a lot last week about social media truly enabling collaborative work. Maybe it’s just that I don’t believe in the wisdom of the crowd. Elitist pig — I know.
But seriously, how would you structure these unstructured discussions you advocate with our size crowd? I’d really like to know.
Wow! Great comments everyone. Speaking of the wisdom of crowds…
So Bill, here’s what I might suggest. Given that Mike, Steve and I do know one another (although we all met for the first time at your show), why don’t we schedule a phone discussion sometime in the coming weeks? This would give us a chance to prepare some ideas for your consideration. What do you think??
I appreciate everyone’s desire to help our market mature. Keep pushing and have a wonderful weekend.
Bill – I like Mark’s suggestion. Steve, Mark and I can get together and brainstorm some ideas and then pull you into a phone conversation. I know how much you like collaborative work and the wisdom of the crowd but we will try to make this a painless as possible.
Thanks, guys. Three experts do not a crowd make; rather, an informal advisory board. Happy to talk at the beginning, middle or end of your collaboration. So even (gasp!) take part.
Can I put my two cents worth into this really excellent discussion. I love doing the “ask the expert” sessions, and I could handle more people than I did this year. I’m also open to moderating a panel. But something that might bring the house down would be to lead exhibit hall tours, taking appropriately sized groups with specific, signed-up for processes of interest, and spewing out “killer” scenarios at the booths of likely suspects. Another, way out of the box idea would be to organize groups of relevant vendor execs — just the real execs, so no marketing folks — and have them face a room full of “ask the vendor” questioners. Just thought there should be a woman’s touch to this discussion.
Great discussion. I am happy to get on a call with you Mark, and Michael and anyone else that wants to bounce some ideas around. As I said in my original comment, I really enjoyed the conference but there are always opportunities for improvement and for making it a more rich, interactive experience.
Mark, Michael and Steve. Assume you’ll all be at HRevolution, which I will unfortunately miss. Perhaps you can get your heads together there about the structure of the unstructured programming you’d like to see at HR Technology. Enjoy.
@Bill – We haven’t forgotten you, I promise! Just need to carve out some time for the three of us to discuss. HRevolution might just be the right venue. Thanks for the reminder Bill.