142 - Growth of Self-Service Human Resources; The Future of the Meeting in the Digital Age; Vertical Market Content Grows

1. Growth of Self-Service Human Resources: The growth of on-line
self-service resources and transactions within corporate Human Resources is
powerful and an interesting "surround" for learning and technology. Almost
every large and mid-sized corporation that I have visited in the last year
is in the midst of moving their HR transactions to a self-service model.
The idea is simple and compelling....the employee can make the bulk of their
transactions with the HR function via a corporate intranet. It gives the
employee greater control over the timeliness of the information, it shifts
the clerical task to the employee and it provides the ability for 24 x 7
access, even from home in some cases.

This profound growth of self-service HR is seen in investments in ERP
systems in this area and in the growth of service bureaus and application
service providers targeted at this space. On a recent visit to a large
manufacturing company, the CIO proudly pointed to the ability of any
employee to make the following transactions from any browser in the world
(with proper password access):

- Manage their retirement funds
- View their past performance reviews and current work targets
- Access a database of talents and resources of colleagues in the workforce
- Update personal and benefits information and choices
- Request vacation
- Apply for internal jobs
- Access a HR coach on an anonymous basis
- Participate in 360 feedback surveys
- Take a wide range of personality and skills assessments on-line
- Join a digital community dialogue on work and outside interests
- Enroll for any learning and training activity

In large measure, these companies are using the intranet and browser to
dramatically explode the access to Human Resource information and to orient
employees around a self-service model. This will condition the workforce
to use their desktops to access knowledge resources and for ongoing
development. The last item in the list above is popping up as organizations
are using enterprise systems to allow employees to view and select training
and learning options via a self-service model. We have seen some very
intriguing systems that engage both the employee and their manager in
shaping learning objectives and building a learning contract on-line, rather
than just handling the transaction side of the learning event.

Watch for the growth of HR self-service systems as a great cousin for the
adoption of e-Learning and on-line learning approaches. For a great list
of links on the topics of using technology for the delivery of self-service
HR options go the Society for Human Resource Management link page:
http://www.shrm.org/hrlinks/hris.htm

2. The Future of the Meeting in the Digital Age: Last week, I led a two
day dialogue of meeting planners from large organizations on the future of
meetings in the Digital Age. Clearly, technology has the capability of
dramatically changing the format and role of the traditional meeting. Here
are some comments from the group about their view of how meetings would
evolve as our use of technology grows:

- Meetings Focus On Process Rather than Information Transfer: The group
felt that the meeting format would be used to do things that were not doable
on-line. So, pure information downloads and one way presentations would
not be the core of meetings. More of the meeting time would be focused on
dialogue, interaction, decision making and hands-on work. Meetings would
have a digital introduction, taken prior to coming to the meeting, that
might actually build the agenda and even the final invitation list.

- Meetings as Content Capture: More meetings will be used to capture
content for people that might not be able to attend. While audio or video
taping a meeting rarely yields usable results, a more indexed content
capture, to allow others to drill down to a specific question and answer,
would be a great benefit of meeting time. Meetings might also be used to
create a Knowledge Capture Session, where the stories and knowledge sets of
key workers could be captured.

- Meetings as Social Experiences: This was not really about having more
parties or golf sessions, but it did address the need for us to get human
face time as we go more digitally in our relationships. The thought was to
make sure that when we did gather people together for face to face meetings
that the social experience be considered and built into the process. Often
our agendas do not include real valuation of the social nature of teams
building trust and other norms that are critical to their success.

- Meeting Technology in the Meeting: There was some great brainstorming
about the meeting room of the future. What technology would we add to the
meeting room of the future. I would love to get TechLearn TRENDS readers
views on this topic. Send us a quick note about the types of technology
that you would imagine would be in a meeting room in the year 2003. Send it
to meeting@masie.com and we will post a summary in a week or two.

3. Vertical Market Content Grows: Real Estate University Launched - We are
seeing the growth of vertical market on-line content collections. Here is a
recent one that came across our screen:

Real Estate University.com (REU). www.realestate.university.com. REU offers
its users over 300 hours of courses, including technology training and
professional development classes

Watch for dozens of new universities and content portals to be announced in
the next few months by both associations and for-profit learning ventures.

Upcoming MASIE Center Events:
* TechLearn '99 (Oct 31 to Nov 3 - Orlando) We have 2,079 paid
registrations, with a limit of 2,500. Please register ASAP at
http://www.techlearn.com
* Free Seminar for Associations: The MASIE Center and The Washington
Speakers Bureau are presenting a free 1/2 day session on Thursday, November
18th entitled Associations in the Digital Age. Go to
http://www.washspkrs.com/whats_new/show.htm to reserve a space in this free
session - for Association staff only.