The talented Mr. Kutik

I spent some time this week at Bill Kutik's annual HR Tech conference in Chicago. I had not been to the conference in a few years and boy, has it grown - 250 vendors in the Expo, over 2,000 attendees.

The other big change - other than in the title of the conference, no one seems to use the term "Human Resources" any more (of course, some organizations never migrated past "Personnel"). First person I ran in to at the Expo was Terry Hunter (of  The Hunter Group fame) a fixture in the market segment and he summarized it "Every vendor here is pitching Talent Management. And of course, SaaS".

Bill Kutik's signature session during the conference - a vendor "shoot out" - focused on, you got it - Talent Management (Authoria, Cornerstone, salary.com and SoftScape provided the props for the OK Corral)

Jim Holincheck, who has tracked the market for a while now at Gartner and can claim much of the credit (or blame) for the Talent Management moniker told me it is a term both buyers (even at the CEO level) and vendors can relate to. Alternatives like "Human Capital Management" were too high-falutin'. 

While vendors appeared to outnumber buyers at the conference, I met with 2 Lawson customers and 3 Workday customers. For different reasons (to be covered in a separate post) they all seemed very happy with their solutions. Update: here is the post about the customers I talked to.

While there was a smattering of innovation - a panel on how web 2.0 will affect the discipline,  a handful of "cool HR vendors" - you had to wonder how the masses of vendors differentiate when everyone claims to do Talent Management. Indeed, Jason Averbook who runs Knowledge Infusion told me some of his more sophisticated clients like Target have not been able to find even with that much choice a good fit for their needs.

Larry Dunivan of Lawson interviewed me about what innovations I would have liked to have seen at the show and I gave him my perspective. Update: download my chapter on HR Innovations in a new book HR Horizons

I did leave the show with admiration for Bill for having grown the show successfully for years now. And with a note that I needed to see Matt Damon again in this movie..after all, talent is the buzzword du jour.

Update: Bill Kutik's own POV on the event, and links to other bloggers who posted on the event

Comments

[Bill Kutik]

Vinnie, I was actually honored to be compared with the duplicitous, manipulative, and scheming star of the Matt Damon movie, "The Talented Mr. Ripley"! Truly. That's what it has taken to put together this show every year for the last 11.

But let me corrected some misimpressions in your video interview with Lawson's Larry Dunivan -- LIVE! From the Show Floor! -- that if you thought there were more vendors than practitioners there, you were probably spending too much time on the Show Floor and not enough in the sessions! There, they were indeed in the majority with vendors like Workday and Taleo bringing 30 staff or so to the event.

All the vendors I talked with (hardly a scientific sample) were delighted with the large number of senior practitioners they spoke with at their booth.

For your post, the show has always been called the HR Technology Conference, at least for the 11 years LRP has owned it. Under a previous owner, when I ran its last year and you participated at the Javits Center in NYC, it was called "HRMS/Expo 97."

And while you were right, again in the interview, that there was no attention on the physical changes companies will have to make for the aging workforce, every Talent Management vendor (could you possibly count them?) brings up the large number of coming retirees as one of many reasons to get on the TM bandwagon.

So glad you could come back after all these years. And then write (and speak) so cleverly about it. But what, after all, is your name?

Best....Bill Kutik

[vinnie mirchandani]

guilty as charged...the events I go to, I like to spend most of my time talking to attendees - getting the pulse of the market, as it were...This blog is aimed more at buyers, I did get to speak to several customers and consultants who are working with buyers at the event...tough to do that in sessions. Given my limited time there, I did say a few times - wish I could have gone to that session.

Thanks again for having me.

Glad you don't mind being associated with Matt and Jude :)

[vinnie mirchandani]

On the aging workforce issue, sure the talent mgt functionality may be able to tell you how serious the issue is, but then waht...I would like to see knowledge capture tools, bridign tools between the generational gap, alumni networks, larger displays, mice and keyboards to adjust for aging employees etc etc. Customized Solutions rather than waiting for hardware or other vendors to get there