Thanks for opening the discussion, it certainly is nice to see so many people attempting to get first hand experience to help craft their thoughts and opinions. I appreciate that.

Of course, you didn’t actually say this but I have seen it said elsewhere.

As for tapping into existing social network platforms I wrote a somewhat satirical posting about that here – I think it’s an interesting possibility and agree that open source networks will be more effective than private ones but I don’t think we’re there yet.

http://ls-workgirl.blogspot.com/2009/02/future-of-business-applications.html

http://grandmaslaw.com/?p=23

The key phrase in what you wrote (and what the ATS companies don’t seem to get yet) is “I do not have just work-related relationships, I have personal relationships”. The way to use social networking in a long-term recruiting and retention sense is not to try to build a private social network that you force candidates into (i.e., come join the XYZ Company Private Talent Community), but rather to insert yourself into candidates existing social networks (i.e. please let XYZ join your existing networks and be in a long-term relationship with you). In order to do this, you have to follow all the “rules” of social networking, or you become just another commercial venture spamming people’s network with self-serving messages. It will be hard for companies to master the art of creating a network experience that resonates with candidates, alumni, etc. and doesn’t come across as blatant self-promotion. I predict we will see an explosion of consultants helping companies do just that. It’s not what we do at SharpObject Consulting, since we only work with RPO providers, but maybe we should consider adding that service…

Betsy Burton and I did “maverick” Gartner analysis on the future worker 2015 several years ago and we offered several hypotheses that mesh with your concept: 1) Future successful employers will be *clients* of the energized workforce. 2) High-trust social patterns will underlie 21st century success. 3) Companies that act as if they own or control people will be obsolete by 2015. (With huge companies faltering after playing electronic shell-games with people’s money, that rings especially true.)

People tapping into the best of themselves and into the best of others is the heart of being human. Doing so in the context of business and institutions is only a by-product.

- Syris, Thanks! That is what I was going for.
- Jason, Cool presentation. There are definitely some good thoughts on the intersection of talent management and social software. I agree that is how it is evolving right now. However, it feels more like an add-on (social software as a layer on top of talent management), than it is a different way of think about about the employer/worker relationship and the value of that relationship over time. We should continue to discuss.
- Jon, you are right that employees who leave are often much more valuable when they return. That is also something different from the customer relationship. There is no additional value generated when a customer leaves and buys from another organization. However, an individual’s value often increases as they grow in knowledge and experience. I agree with both you and Jason that there is a notion of a profile that marries structured data (like competencies) with unstructured data that is captured from various internal and external applications. ZoomInfo is my favorite example of this kind of dynamic profile generation. As Jason has pointed out in previous discussions, it is what you do with the data that matters. The concept of TLV provides a different lens on the value of the individual/organization relationship. There is a reason professional sports teams recruit athletes at such a young age these days. I think they intuitively understand the concept of TLV.

David, you highlight an important point in the broader definition of talent. Talent is not just full-time, part-time, and contingent workers. Talent should includes customers, partners, and vendors as well. The notion of the extended enterprise is not only relevant in understanding your current talent supply, but in this context it is relevant because an individual may move between these different categorizations multiple times during their working career. The relationship dynamics and relationship value may intensify or diminish multiple times.

Scott, you bring up a great thought on security and privacy. With all of this data floating around there are certainly legitimate privacy concerns. As you say, an individual can choose whether or not they participate in various forms of social networks, but employers have to be careful about how they use the data that they mine about the talent relationship. I could see serious problems if it is used to discriminate or for other nefarious purposes.

Lisa, you are quite right. It is a two-way street. An individual employee can not only enhance his or her own value by collaborating, building, and contributing to their network, but it can also create value for their employer (or even former employer and potentially future employers, if my thesis is correct).

Naomi, it is important to point out the power of networks. It is interesting that your domain model needed little tweaking to accommodate social media. I have been of the opinion that it would be hard to create a structured data model that would encompass the breadth of information available on the web and via social media, but would love to hear more about what you have found.

Thought provoking. I wonder, though, if putting it into the nomenclature of the life cycle limits some facets of socialization. It isn’t just about the employer to talent linkages but also about the network that the talent builds on its own and how that can positively impact business, e.g. employee blogs and/or twitters and has the chance to improve the name recognition of the employer brand (and their own brand.) Personal example, I saw a client tweet a general question and I answered if offline and was thought to be helpful, without this a missed opportunity for achieving good customer service.

Make sense?
Lisa