That’s right – I had the pleasure to talk with the cool crew over at Recruiter Earth and share my take on the HR Technology Conference and the future of technology.  Well, as much as can be done in a 4 minute segment.  So make sure you head on over and check it out!  (Just click on the picture!)

And yes, I know I sound like I am 12. And no, I don’t think this picture will ever go away.  I’m stuck with it forever.

I was in a generous mood apparently as I gave shout outs to Hirevue, SmartSearch, GreenJobsInterview, Rypple, Jobing via Joel Cheesmanvia mjobs Mobile Technology (which you all know I am a fan of and if you don’t read my post What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Always Stay in Vegas or I got some Joel Cheesman Love) and  HRMDirect and more.  I also said the phrase HR Geeks and that our industry keeps repackaging the same crap and adding new marketing.  I’m not sure if Recruiter Earth will have me back after my 12 year old sounding interview – but it was fun!

The Talent Management Panel provided one statement by Nike’s John Schroeder that totally blew me away and made me wonder why in the world the other vendors in the room (with giant development budgets) didn’t jump up and run out to build the next generation of performance management software.  Nike made a point that they should be using the social networking internally in order to manage the relationships and create a global enterprise – not seem so big.   In the grander scale – what better way to be able to track what someone is actually doing, projects they are working on, and their job satisfaction than a social network.  The next generation of employee’s and many of those in the current generation have been brought up around social networking.  The annual 360 performance review will not be the standard in the future.  It isn’t the process that is going to keep a generation of entrepreneurial minded people employed and engaged at your organization.  The single statement made such an impact that I actually pulled out my laptop – wrote a full business plan and designed a new evolution of Performance Management software while I watched the rest of the session.

During the same session Bill Kutik raises the question about social media use.  He says he is “sick to death” of its discussion in recruiting since it is a no brainer, slam dunk to do  – how else are you using social media?

• Jay Smith from Target says to use social networking in Onboarding  to find who is like you, skills like you, etc
• Andy Valenzuela from Dell says to use social networking for project management, mentorship – find/connect w/a mentor in the org, internal updates – tech details etc instead of sending hundreds of emails.  Built in sharepoint environment and includes IM technology to really connect with them – see if they are online, at their desk, etc.

There are a lot of blogs on all the stuff around HR Tech – so I’m going to post on the sessions that really made a big impact on me…more to come…