E2.0 Meets Human Resources @E2.0 Conference

I've been reading about the recent Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Santa Clara and a few perspectives emerged. From some people, it sounds like the show was the same old thing, while others either had a different experience or are just better able to capture the essence of what is new and different. Some round-up articles I like include Ron Miller's editorial in Fierce Content Management and Gil Yehuda's 'What You Should Learn..." blog post.

I have also enjoyed the feature that allows you to watch the keynotes online. There was a panel keynote session I found very interesting entitled, "HR Meets E2.0 and the Cloud." They almost lost me at the beginning of the session, as the discussion centered mostly around Facebook and Twitter. I get that these social networking sites are increasingly important for business, specifically recruiting as it pertains to this discussion, but they are on the line between enterprise and social and I don't consider them enterprise products. Anyway, it wasn't long before they got back on track (for me) and the discussion was very interesting.

It's always fascinating to hear end-users talk excitedly and openly about their internal processes and how they get to true enterprise software deployments that have a real impact on the company. And that's what I heard about in this session.

In fact, Kiera Smith from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the publishing company, made what I see as the most striking point of the discussion. She explained that if HR departments want to make changes, it is important to start viral - don't wait for top-down approvals to go ahead with an E2.0-based programs. Her department started with free software solutions in order to prove capability of the solutions and show C-level management that it was worthwhile and the company could truly benefit from them. She gained the confidence of the users and built up a user base and was then able to bring solutions into the firewall. It's an approach I talk to daily with prospective customers, but it carries weight coming from a company that succeeded this way.

Other panel members included Eric Lane from Intuit, Oliver Marks from Soros and ZDNet and Tony Treglia from T2 HR Consulting. They talked to onboarding and offboarding, knowledge transfer, employee retention, managing performance, guidelines and advice for other companies.

I'm paraphrasing a bit, but any worker has to be optimized early, said Intuit's Lane. There's a heavy focus on making somebody effective quickly to get value; and the employee will feel more engaged and productive. Marks added that collaboration silos within the E2.0 solution work great; employees are looking for clarity of purpose.

Treglia made an important point that some companies today do still block sites like Facebook and that traditionally, HR departments are slow to adopt to new mediums. One example: "We can use Facebook to post new jobs, but the site is blocked internally."

Companies will have to come to grips with situations like this and be prepared to change policies to meet the needs of the changing workforce, their knowledgebase and the places they go for inspiration. Marks explained that there's a huge collision between the social marketing world and enterprise when it comes to onboarding.

Lane stressed that every E2.0 technology has to work together edge-to-edge. He said they started with 10 on-premise systems and now has only 2 - the rest are in the cloud.

Enterprise 2.0 Conference Musings

My company, eTouch SamePage, opted out of exhibiting this year at Enterprise 2.0 Conference San Francisco. I did, however, take to the Moscone Center and check out the event. After a day there attending only the keynotes and walking around the expo hall -- no, I didn't spring for a full conference pass, so I missed the smaller, more targeted discussions -- I can honestly say that I don't regret not exhibiting this year.

That's not to say the event was bad. It wasn't. Good things will always come out of getting industry thought leaders in one place at one time. There were interesting discussions scheduled as breakout sessions and some of the keynotes and panels, particularly the Andrew McAfee-led Booz Allen Hamilton case study, was in-depth for a general panel and offered good insight into corporate thinking.

But in walking the expo floor and milling about in the hall, I didn't feel any great energy or excitement. The expo floor, even combined with VoiceCon, was small without any tremendous standouts. Clearly, that's dictated primarily by the current economic climate - vendors just don't have the extra cash these days to exhibit. Or, if they do exhibit, it's pretty barebones. What I'm talking about is just excitement, a buzz in the air that you often feel at events like this. It comes from entrepreneurs with great ideas and potential clients itching to learn more with journalists and analysts trying to get as many details as possible. Walking around the conference, I didn't feel it.

I've been reading tons of post-even wrap-ups by journalists, bloggers, etc. I'm not the only one with this opinion; although some say there's a rationale for it. Tony Byrne of CMS Watch writes:

"My first observation is that the conference vibe was much more practical, and much less like a religious revival meeting than previous Enterprise 2.0 events. Some gurus complained about a lack of passion and energy, but I think Andrew McAfee set a great tone in his keynote when he exhorted the audience to replace liberation theology with more realistic goals."

Oliver Marks wrote about his post-conference thoughts and posted a video of a discussion between him and McAfee.

I know there's a lot more coverage out there, and I look forward to reading more. Perhaps that's where the excitement will come....after everyone's thoughts have had a chance to simmer, and conversation follow-up moves into high gear as new relationships flourish. There was a lot of brainpower and entrepreneurship in the Moscone Center for those few days, obviously. And I am very excited to see what happens as the discussions continue.

What did you think of Enterprise 2.0 San Francisco?



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