OK, if you're not a geek as defined by an interest in a) technology, b) talent management software, or c) a mixture of the two, check back in Monday.  Today we're geeking out about talent management software, mainly since we're at HR Tech - that's what you do when you're at a show that discusses talent management issues solved by technology, people.

Here's an interesting tradition at HR Tech - the shootout.  Each year, Bill Kutik pits software providers in similar spaces against each other, having them walk through the solution their software can provide to common business problems that HR pros and companies face.  Here's this year's description of the shootout that was held late Thursday afternoon:

"Our 13th Shootout – and signature event – will be an epic software battle now that two ERPs – Lawson and SAP – have agreed to go up against two Talent Management suite vendors – Plateau and Salary.com. For years, the smaller suite vendors have sold new customers by contending the ERPs’ applications for Talent Management are not as functionally rich or as integrated as theirs. While at the same time, ERPs like SAP and Lawson have been furiously building out and integrating their applications to meet that challenge. Now you can finally find out who was right, at least among these four. Each vendor will tackle a scripted scenario of problems – like those your managers and employees face every day – and show in live custom demonstrations how their software can help solve it. Leighanne Levensaler, Director of Talent Management Research for Bersin & Associates, will co-author the script, as she did the previous three. This one session will save you months of research and sales pitches. Come watch, listen, learn and then vote for your favorite."

The short version of this post is that Salary.com won the shootout, with the audience in attendance voting that Salary.com outperformed the other software providers in all three scenarios, that included individual performance, merit distribution and succession planning scenarios.

Congrads to Salary.com.  Well played.  The other providers looked good as well. 

With that being said, it was my first shootout, so here's my list of observations for the "game inside the game" related to the shootout.

--Don't read your script.  If you're coming to one of the premier shows in your industry, practice what you want to say and be able to perform without a script.  Salary.com won in spite of it's demo exec reading from pages printed out for him.  The others were better, with Lawson clearly being the most prepared.

--Functionality that makes sense matters.  Lawson pushed Outlook functionality in the first scenario, and as a result they were closest to Salary.com with a solution that made a lot of sense and a good pitch driving home the value of their approach.

--Bells and Whistles are nice, but make sure it's useful- Lawson showed the ability to drag the rating distribution chart to the desktop (auto updates) while tweaking.  SAP had employee names all on one screen to see rating distribution rather than clunky bar graphs.  Plateau had good flash-like visuals on the step-by-step for the review process.

--Because sometimes all you want is usability and fewer clicks- Salary.com had the least eye candy of all the providers, but it excelled at one thing - creating views where you could see all the information you needed on ONE PAGE (on one employee, but also multiple members of a team).  It felt more usable in every scenario.

At the end of the day, Salary.com deserved to win the shootout, although I thought Lawson would be a closer second place then they were (Plateau and SAP came in third and fourth) based on the strength of the Lawson exec presenting.

I had no idea Salary.com had all the functionality under the hood from a Talent Management/Performance Management perspective.  I'd love to see their relative cost vs. the others, because as a pure SaaS company, I'm guessing they're the most affordable.

Other notes:

--Kutik does a great job at jumping in and landing quips to keep the crowd loose.  In many ways, he's the perfect MC for a conference.

--The execs all had their game faces on.  They need to loosen up when they aren't presenting, even if they're faking it...

--The companies participating had all their employees in attendance sit in a bullpen in the front of the room.  It looked like each had a posse the size of Lebron James or Vinny Chase.

Final notes.  Great value added segment as a part of HR Tech.  To the CEO's who participated I have three words for you:  DEMO TO WIN.  Don't read your script.  Could you sell software as an Account Executive doing that?  Some were good, some were in between and some were bad.  Give it up to the VP of Product Management or your VP of Sales if you don't have time to learn your lines and flow.

Great conference. Glad I came...

OK - so every show has the moment of genius when a vendor shows up with the cool booth that everyone talks about.  No, I'm not talking this year about the money booth where you can go in and get your hair tussled or the opportunity to talk to Kevin Grossman of HRMarketer (which is nice, btw...), I'm talking about the gritty street campaign that gets everyone's attention.

Without further adieu, the guerrilla marketing award from the Capitalist goes to..... 

Sonar6. (To see any way that this award might be conflicted by my meager position in the industry, I invite you to put me under the microscope by reading this: My Frauenheim Disclosure)

So, here's the deal about Sonar 6.  I'm the market for performance management play, and I've talked to these guys and really like the solution.  So I'm a prospect in their pipe and was looking forward to meeting them here in Chicago.  Once I arrived, I heard that there was a t-shirt (or a couple of t-shirts) in play that had statements like "I'm a 3" on the front (a clear call out to the 5 point rating scale and the cop out that is the rating of 3 - "you meet expectations" - YEAH!!!), then the back said "myperformancereviewsucked.com".  As it turns out, the co-founders are attendees, and were wearing the shirts on the floor on Wednesday.

The campaign is also tied to a website that looks like it's created by disgrunted employees - you have to squint at the bottom to see that it's Sonar6 - find it here...

So Sonar 6 gets the award.  Here's my rating of their campaign (scale of 5, with 3 being "meets", of course):

Originality: 5
Edginess: 5
Marketing Material (web and t-shirts): 5
Execution: 2 (ouch!!!!)

Dudes, I give you a 5 overall (we don't weight the objectives, I just come in at the end and give you an overall rating like the King), because you had a killer concept.  This would have been the year to rent the booth and go all out.  I didn't know about it until a friend told me about it.

Well played, Sonar 6.  Next time, spend some money and sponsor the bus so I can get videos of your mock employees instead of the Kenexa dude (nothing wrong with that, but I've seen it 10 times now) wearing the v-neck t-shirt with 3 buttons unbuttoned as a result).

I'm out....

I'm at HR Tech, one of the best HR/HR Tech shows that you've never heard of.  If you haven't heard of it, consider coming in 2010.  One of the reasons I love it is because most of the conversations revolve around talent/HR, viewed in the framework of how technology can make those who manage the talent smarter and more efficient.  That makes it cool - and not boring...

Today's Tech Analyst panel was moderated by show chair Bill Kutik, and included industry insiders Josh Bersin, Naomi Lee Bloom, Jim Holincheck and Lisa Rowan.  It was the usual panel stuff, but you always pick up nuggets.

The nugget, out of this panel, that made me think - the topic of convergence in HR and Talent Management systems.

Convergence as defined by Kutik and the panel asks the simple question: Will HR tech providers be able to survive as stand alone players in a single product category (think performance management, learning management or recruiting), or will they have to develop an entire suite of products to survive?  Example - you're offering a great Performance Management solution - do you also have to get good at a Recruiting solution and eventually even dip your toe into a core HRMS to ensure that you survive as a company and give the customer what they want?

The panelists weighed in on this in a variety of ways:

Bersin - Noted that the small to medium size company wants convergence in a big way, and the providers that serve that end of the market are attempting to provide.  He feels that convergence will happen in a big way over the next 5 years.  Unfortunately, he didn't have time to indicate how that would happen, and what some of the trends would be.

Kutik- Rightfully identified the "system of record" (slang for your core HRMS system that keeps track of the boring employee data, benefits, comp, etc) as being at the center of any convergence play.  As Bill alluded to, you have to do that complex system well to be a player with any converged type of system.

Holicheck- Notes that true convergence will probably never happen, and there will always be new players on the fringe of any convergence as new types of solutions initially come to market.

Rowan- Points out that "convergence" plays by some of the non "system of record" companies don't really offer the full functionality of the core HRMS.  For example, she pointed out that SuccessFactors has some employee data functionality in their latest release, but let's face it - data on how many LOA's an employee has gone out on is a far cry from the workflow necessary to tie it to requests for leave, an approval process, auto tie-ins to benefits, etc. 

Me?  As a VP of HR and someone who is actively looking for solutions for the company I just joined awhile back, I'm hopeful that Josh Bersin is right and we'll have solid progress towards convergence in 5 years.

I'm not hopeful.  Guess why?  As a HR pro, I need the system of record/HRMS that Kutik so accurately identified.  The problem is that the HRMS providers in my space aren't very innovative.  They do well with payroll and a HRMS tie in.  They make the trains run on time, which is essential.

The problem is that all the innovation is happening with the single solution providers.  Look at the performance management and recruiting vendors - they're all doing great things.  That's where innovation is.

Meanwhile, I have to have the HRMS/system of record.  So I can get that and then take the half-baked attempt at performance management that someone can do for me there, or I can go get the stand-alone performance management solution that includes all the functionality/thought leadership/innovation that I desire.

Classic "rock and a hard place" situation.  Sucks to be me, because true convergence is a lie.  I hope Josh is right and it gets here in the next 5 years.  I suspect the true innovation will always occur outside of the converged application, which means you'll have to go stand-alone to get the cool stuff.

The one dark horse in my on-demand, small business world - Taleo.  They've got performance management and recruiting, do they dare mess around with HRMS/System of record?  That would be interesting...