Case Zero – How It All Began

In his 2008 HR Executive article, columnist Bill Kutik unleashed his inner Indiana Jones to discover anthropological evidence supporting the first documented case of this seemingly benign term. After some field work, Bill uncovered a 1998 piece of collateral authored by the software firm Softscape. Said Kutik about the find:

“The graphic is a delightful historical artifact, an antique really by computer industry standards.”

Oh 1998, you quiet breeder of verbal misanthropes. In so many ways those were much simpler times, as little did we know what had been unleashed in that innocuous one-page document.

Eleven Years Later – A Global Pandemic

Although modern technology still lacks the tools to measure the pervasiveness of this crisis, we do know a few things for certain:

• A Google search results in 6.25M links referencing this disease.
• Many who employ the term – let’s call them “term-ites” – are consciously and overtly promoting adoption, thus perpetuating the spread. 
• Small, medium and large organizations in virtually every industry and geography have embraced the phrase.
• It supports billions of dollars in revenue and may be difficult to stop.
• Most don’t realize that we even have a problem.

The Frightening Precedent

HR in particular is highly susceptible to the spread of language flu. A few examples include:

• “Personnel” – According to one account, it began in the late 1800s and continued into the late 1970s/early 1980s. Fortunately, a series of “human resources” injections did eventually stem the tide. Yet much to our dismay, in some organizations “personnel departments” still exist without an appropriate quarantine.
• “A Seat at the Table” – For at least twenty years, HR has parroted this phase and clamored for this elusive chair. The saddest cases involve the patient’s inability to appropriately secure the seat or locate the table. The only known cure involves HR embracing their business leadership position without the need for absurd monikers.

Why It’s So Scary

Many of you may be asking yourself:

“So what’s the big deal about talent management?”

Other than your obvious need for immediate medical attention, let me attempt to explain:

• Employees Are Not “Talent” – For most of us, work isn’t a strip club, so identifying our workers as “the talent” is a bit of a non-starter. And like it or not, many of our organization’s positions neither require a significant amount of talent nor reward the application of said talent. 
• The Invention of Language – As a society, we typically adopt new terms when we believe that the existing body of knowledge fails to adequately carry meaning. So why have we distinguished ”talent management” from “human resources”? Did HR fail to appropriately address comp, performance, learning, etc.? Couldn’t you argue that everything HR does is for the purpose of securing, managing, measuring, rewarding and sustaining so-called “talent”? 
• Vendor Differentiation – Believe what I’m about to tell you as the gospel… The holy grail of vendor marketing is the creation and invention of a new business category or phrase. Perhaps more important is that only your firm supports the core features and capabilities of this new term. Why did Softscape invent “talent management”? Because it gave them the opportunity to define what it is and thereby force other vendors to be compared against that definition. Keep this in the back of your mind when you read about HR 2.0 (or some fool’s blog post about HR 3.0).

The Race For The Cure

I’m not going to lie to you – knowing that this disease has progressed for this long creates quite a challenge. However, with the right level of education, focus, support and treatment, I believe we can rally together and survive this language pandemic.

Do you think you have the cure? If so, please be sure to post your comments and thoughts, and let’s keep the conversation going. 

So are you strapped in and ready for this? There is a movement afoot that HR *must* get involved in now and it’s called….(drum roll please)

Ok, I assume some of you laughed at this and your internal dialogue went something like:

“Web 3.0?? HR hasn’t even adopted Web 2.0!”

I understand that reaction, I really do, but let me explain why Web 3.0 is different. Some of this may seem a bit esoteric but I promise it’s worth it.

What is Web 3.0?

Although definitions vary, many refer to Web 3.0 as “The Semantic Web”, a term coined by the actual inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, which he defined in 1999:

“I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A Semantic Web, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The intelligent agents people have touted for ages will finally materialize.” – Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Well we’re getting closer, and the good folks at the upcoming Web 3.0 Conference described it this way:

“Web 3.0 technologies make the organization of information radically more fluid and allow for new types of analysis based on things like text semantics, machine learning, and what we call serendipity – the stumbling upon insights based on just having better organized and connected information.”

Serendipity Matters

Business and HR leaders has always wrestled with leveraging their employee’s minds and bodies by organizing them in a way that achieves optimum productivity. To attain this lofty goal, we’ve dissected the thoughts and processes of the most successful leaders in industry. We’ve investigated decision making and what truly motivates an individual to perform at their peak. We’ve tried to stem the “brain drain” which accompanies the retirement of our most experienced and knowledgeable workers.

We’ve surveyed and interviewed and measured and rewarded and mentored and trained…. and we repeat, hoping to strike gold and evolve our organization forward. And although we don’t like to admit it, much of our innovation and success remains a complete and utter mystery, causing us to scratch our heads and reluctantly acquiesce to serendipity.

5,000 Days

In his fascinating 2008 presentation (video below), Wired’s Kevin Kelly reminds us that the internet is only 5,000 days old and that the processing power of this current web is now comparable to one human brain. He speaks to our always-on world and our increasing codependency on “the one” (his term for the one computer which is the entire internet). We Google instead of memorizing and are amputated when our PDAs are taken away. This is our current reality, and in thirty years (if not sooner), this new web will be equivalent to 6 billion human brains.

“We Are The Web”

As this future fast approaches, the idea of a separation between ourselves and the web begins to falter. We live more and more in the web and the web becomes us. For many employees, this concept seems not only mysterious but somewhat frightening. And when the workplace gets scary, who is responsible for governing the behavior and participation of employees in the new world order?

That’s right people, it’s HR.

You didn’t have a social media policy before Twitter, Facebook and blogs took off. HIPAA evolved from concerns surrounding the electronic transfer of personal information. We enroll in benefits, receive paystubs, apply for jobs, assess our skills, train and do performance reviews online. Work is the web and the web is work.

So if we claim to be in business of people, we cannot simply be reactive once change arrives. Start reading up on Web 3.0, watch some videos (including the one below), attend a local event and get involved now. The future may be closer than you think.

Please share your thoughts, comments and concerns, and let’s keep the conversation going.