The Absolute Last Word On #HRTechConf 2010

1. “I will be in touch with all vendors with whom I’d scheduled briefings/demos to reschedule them.”  Added for post — I plan to offer 2 hour slots to vendors willing to do deep dive demos, with me asking questions throughout, so that I can speak with confidence about the brilliance of their object models/application architecture/etc. as they compare to my own thinking in these areas.  Hopefully, vendors with whom I’ll be meeting (and I’m hoping that some of you will want to visit me in Fort Myers this winter!) will have had a chance to read my relevant posts and whitepapers even as I’m studying their Web sites and briefing packages so that our time together can be as productive as possible.  I also hope they won’t hesitate to prepare a list of questions for me as well.  The least I can do in return for the time vendors give me — and I truly appreciate their time — is to share what I know against their specific questions.
2. “My thanks to all the bloggers who covered this important event.  But where’s the live streaming replay?”  Added for post — I can’t imagine why LRP didn’t provide live streaming of key events, at a cost of course, along with replays for registered attendees.  I would have loved to have seen some of what I missed, and I’m sure others would too.  Can we hope for some of this in 2011?
3. “I’ll never be able to celebrate my 65th w the whole industry unless I freeze that Bday.  Under review.”   Added for post — This isn’t a biggie.  I’m already planning for #HRTechConf 2011, and there’s absolutely nothing to prevent me from showing up in my birthday tiara.  After all, 66 is when I could collect full social security, and that may be something to celebrate if there’s any $$ left when I get there.
4. “Too damn many vendors using the latest buzz words, SaaS and cloud, to describe what they’ve got.”  Added for post — I’ve already written about this at length, but I may use next year’s conference as an opportunity to plant a scarlet letter, a very large one, on the worst offenders.  Forewarned is forearmed.  There’s no shame at all in having a business strategy that’s licensed/on-premise, licensed/hosted, and/or subscribed/hosted, but please don’t call whatever’s going SaaS and cloud.  I know that’s acceptable by many of the IT analysts, but it’s not acceptable by me.
5. “Not enough discussion/understanding that HCM software architecture is what matters.  I’ll work on this.”  Added for post — I’ve already written extensively about this, including very recently.  I’ve got more planned and will keep fussing on Twitter too.  What HR leaders can’t see and/or don’t understand will bite them — it already has — so this is a point that deserves ongoing attention.
6. “Jason Averbook deserves HUGE credit fo taking myplace in THE GREAT DEBATE.  I owe him one.”  Added for post — By all accounts, Jason was terrific, which is no surprise.  Given the generational divide, it’s amazing on how many relevant topics Jason and I agree entirely.  How I wish there were a recording of this debate so that I could have learned from it, and I sure hope that LRP will provide at least streaming audio and replay of key sessions at the 2011 #HRTechConf.  There, I’ve said it twice in one post.  Anyone listening at LRP?
7. “Customers aren’t using important parts of TM software because their processes/data need an overhaul.”  Added for post — For far too many years and automation cycles, HR leaders have avoided the truly heavy lifting of rethinking their business, to include the designs of processes, business rules and data.  Crap job definitions, no or hoked up positions, employee status codes that date to the first coming, organizational structures mired in cost center codes of yesteryear, different process flows for the same business event and different work weeks without any justification for same, and the list goes on of process, business rule, data artifacts that can hobble even the best of talent management software, not to mention talent management processes.  Add in trying to manage this crummy data across dozens of interconnected but not integrated applicatons, and it’s little wonder that the whole house of cards is in serious danger of collapsing.  It’s time to repair the roof folks, and that’s going to hurt, but for many organizations, it’s the only way forward.  So no more complaints from end-users about talent management software inadequacies (although those are real) until they’ve put their own houses in order.
8. “I’m planning now for 2011 in Las Vegas.  Maybe I’ll be discovered for the entertainer inside.”  Added for post — Some of you may remember my cousin Joey, the last of the Borsht Belt comedians, to whom I’m related on the Bloom side, but few of you know that I’m also related to the Three Stooges on my mother’s side.  Comedic DNA runs deep within me, within so many Jews, because there’s no better grist for the comedians’ mill than long suffering.  Well, there’s plenty of that in our industry.  Software that not only doesn’t work as promised but which just plain doesn’t work.  Maintenance fees that are choking off all new investment.  Systems integrators who know less about your software than you do and charge a ton anyway.  End-users who cling to what they know even when those processes/data designs/business rules/etc. were never much good.  And the upgrades that ate Chicago, thereby moving us to Las Vegas.  Perhaps #HRTechConf 2011 is the place where we once and for all declare war on these enemies of effective human resource management — “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.” 

Get your budget requests in now for travel/registration etc., and I’ll see you in Las Vegas.  I think we’ve already got our theme song.