A) Millennials have a “need for speed,” which roughly translates in my mind to “are driven by instant gratification without concern over accuracy or thoroughness.” In other words, “Good is good enough, because I wanted to be done with this task I’m performing yesterday so I can go play on the Internet.”

We all faild, wich weve decided meenz r teechur duznt like us becuz we r smarter then her. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

B) Millennials “are focused on collaboration and relationship-building,” implying that these people can’t do — or more frighteningly, don’t want to do — anything by themselves. They even tried to get hired together — as if one incompetent person wasn’t bad enough! (I have to wonder, does the group take some poor smart kid hostage and try to ride his coattails into a workplace? Whatever happened to individual merit?)

“You’re going to get me that job, or I’m going to destroy your NOC and your face!” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

C) Millennials “want to find entertainment in their work” — ’nuff said.

Work rules! Oh, wait — this isn’t work? Well, then, how am I going to get paid? This is all I like to do! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Before I begin my official rant based on these three premises, I should probably define the Millennials/Generation Y.  Considering I am in my 30s and notice dramatic differences in mentality between me and those even as little as five years younger than me, I’m going to define the Millennial generation here as roughly anyone born after 1985 and before 2005. The line is blurry, of course, and there are exceptional Millennials, but I have to say my experience coming across those is spotty.

And now, 5 areas in which the Millennials will epically fail with their current mentality:

1) Education. Let me first point out that I’m aware our educational system in this country already sucks. It has become a money-making scheme as opposed to a betterment of our citizens, as evidenced by the many students I had to pass while teaching in grad school who couldn’t even punctuate a sentence let alone form coherent, organized sentences and paragraphs… and all because we had to make room in our classrooms for new money coming in — and besides, what were the failing students paying for, anyway, if not a passing grade? So you can forget being able to read any publication by the time 2030 rolls around. It’ll all be texting abbreviations and hashtags.

Familiarize yourself with LOLcat language now because it’s the way of the future. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It wasn’t always like this, though, and the Millennials — undereducated by a system that doesn’t give an at’s rass about it — are the least qualified people for the job of teaching the generation after them. Combine that with their connectivity (most students were trying to hide their texting and Web browsing from me and my fellow teachers during class), and you’ll probably end up with something like this in a classroom: “Now, see, Billy, 2 + 2 actually equals — Hold on, I got a text. Ooh, it’s from my boyfriend! OMG, this is hilarious! Have you guys seen this Dizzy Kid yet?”

Didn’t you hear? Ignorance is the new black! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

2) STEM — the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics that have become critical not only in conducting day-to-day tasks — unless you’re Amish, in which case, you probably had it right all along — but also holding any sort of respectable position as a global leader. See, the Millennials love technology — smartphones, tablets, the Internet, apps, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. — but most of them love using it, not actually doing the hard work of creating it (again, going back to a complete lack of patience and deep need for instant gratification). Worse still, they love to complain about when these sites malfunction (again, going back to that instant gratification thing), though they wouldn’t have a clue about what it takes to fix it. I’d love to see what would become of a Millennial’s social life if all the social media sites in the world suddenly disappeared — something Gen X-ers don’t fear, as we didn’t grow up on these things and actually have face-to-face social skills.

Well, there go my plans for Friday night… and Saturday night… and Sunday night… and every other night for the rest of my life. How will I decide what to do with the rest of my life now that I can’t chat? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3) Medicine. Again, this is tied to education as well as the STEM areas detailed above, but will Millennials find this — or STEM — “fun” enough to pursue? Let’s given them the benefit of the doubt for a moment and say they will. Even with the best education and a genuine interest in helping people, if Millennials have the attitude that “good is good enough,” surgery mortality rates will be sky-high by the time they’re running our health care system. “We’re sorry to inform you, Mrs. Smith, but your husband didn’t make it. We cleared two out of his three clogged arteries, though, and two out of three ain’t bad. Go, team!” (Millennial doctors then proceed to high-five each other.)

– “Know what’s awesome, Dr. Canfield?” – “What’s that, Doogie?” – “Millennial doctors will perform more like actors than actual doctors, and we led the way!” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

4) Law. Who wouldn’t be suing such incompetent people on the daily? The problem is, though, some Millennials will be lawyers, too — and even (gasp!) judges — meaning the least incompetent of the bunch will likely win the case as opposed to true justice being served. Has anyone seen “Idiocracy”? Anyone, anyone? I’m starting to have nightmares reminiscent of this scene from this movie already (forward to 0:45).

5) Manufacturing. Actually, we’ll probably be okay here, since everything’s made in China. Corporate America gave up on our citizens doing this work a long time ago.

Don’t you worry your pretty little heads; your phones and computers will work if they’re made by us. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My boss reminded me this week of one other thing the presenters of this session had said: We’d better get used to the way Millennials do things, because they will be running the show someday, and it’s unlikely they will change or accommodate us. I therefore advise anyone over the age of 30 to think about leaving the country — and potentially the planet — now. I’m certainly considering it.

Acquisition fills an urgent need requested by SuccessFactors customers

HRchitect featured SuccessFactors in our release of The Suite Life of Integrated Talent Management and also includes them in our list of top Talent Management Systems vendors that businesses should consider. HRchitect is proud to sponsor the 2011 SuccessConnect event in San Francisco.

If you are looking for a new Talent Management System, or any HR system, don’t rely solely on “recommendations” or published reports. Do yourself a huge favor and talk to HRchitect first. After 14 years, HRchitect has unparalleled knowledge of the HR and Talent Management vendor community and can save you time and money in selection and implementation. Simply put, do not invest in any kind of HR technology without consulting with the experts first. HRchitect is always available to help!

SuccessFactors, Inc. (NASDAQ: SFSF), the global leader in business execution cloud-based SaaS software, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Plateau, the leading learning management system (LMS), a Next Generation Portal technology, and CaaS- Content as a Service. This acquisition forms a symbiotic combination with SuccessFactors’ acquisition of social video mobile learning provider Jambok.

Customers will now have the ability to further increase employee development and business execution by implementing a comprehensive social and traditional learning strategy that includes evangelizing internal experts, utilizing easy-to-use video creation and sharing tools, as well as managing, developing, and deploying online, instructor-led and self-study training. 

“I first met Paul Sparta, CEO of Plateau, 8 years ago, and what struck me, and has stayed with me, more so than any founder or CEO whom I have met in our industry, was how seriously and incredibly committed he was to two key drivers: 1) his customers’ success through superior product and domain expertise; and 2) building a financially strong and profitable business,” said Lars Dalgaard, founder and CEO of SuccessFactors. “With more than 15 million combined users, and the biggest R&D budget and largest domain expertise, in the HCM cloud-based SaaS industry, we can compete more effectively with some of the incumbent HCM vendors’ total suite, and continue to surprise and excite customers with the next decade of innovations.”

“Plateau will accelerate SuccessFactors’ strategy markedly. SuccessFactors’ game-plan’s four key drivers will all be strengthened substantially: 1) customers achieving better results through the SuccessFactors suite, expertise and commitment; 2) building for great cash profitability; 3) continuing to build towards one of the SaaS cloud-based HCM industry’s strongest global customer and sales field force; and 4) offering a leading comprehensive suite of relevant and proven Business Execution applications. Like SuccessFactors, Plateau has had success with the biggest and most complex customers, including Plateau’s long time customer General Electric, and this makes Plateau the best choice for SuccessFactors, and we believe an excellent choice for customers, and prospects,” Dalgaard continued.

“SuccessFactors approaches integrated talent management in an innovative way that really impacts our business,” said Carol Anderson Chief Learning Officer at Marriott International, Inc.   “With the additions of Plateau’s LMS and Jambok’s social learning technology, SuccessFactors is clearly changing the market and offering a unique advantage to its customers.”

“Plateau has a long history of delivering innovation and has consistently been recognized in the top 1 or 2 position as a leader in LMS from analysts during the last couple of years, including Forrester, Gartner, IDC and Bersin & Associates.  Plateau is also recognized for its industry-leading levels of customer satisfaction, and what made an acquisition of this size possible is that Plateau’s renewal rates are at approximately 99 percent. We have been overwhelmed by the number of customers globally who have requested LMS, specifically on SuccessFactors’ enterprise platform. We estimate 80 percent of our sales force has active opportunities, and customers have specifically identified having Plateau’s industry-leading LMS on SuccessFactors’ platform as particularly desirable, which has helped to reduce the financial risk,” Dalgaard continued.

“Plateau has been recognized for its traction in SaaS, and technologically.  SuccessFactors and Plateau are more alike than any other platforms. We think the fact that Plateau, like SuccessFactors, is built using Enterprise Java, J2EE, also reduces the execution risk and thus, helped make the case for this acquisition a lot more compelling. Since J2EE is delivered with a focus on interoperability, portability and true enterprise class scalability, both teams anticipate a cleaner and smoother code assimilation. SuccessFactors has set achievable, yet aggressive, timeframes to fully integrate Plateau’s LMS solution,” said Aaron Au, co-founder and CTO of SuccessFactors.

“Plateau has many great team-members who are excited to join forces with us to deliver a robust HCM SaaS offering to companies everywhere,” Dalgaard continued. “Their track record, customers, team members, recognition, recurring revenue stream, existing demand and real pipeline, and extraordinary smorgasbord of innovation were enough to do the acquisition. Add Plateau’s strong presence in the Federal business, and the pharmaceutical industry, the excitement and strength of the Plateau team and its new “Flex” UI that both companies see as innovative to the industry, and the acquisition became a lot more valuable.”

“Plateau’s solutions are designed to help companies improve organizations’ operations across the board by providing employees, executives, and the extended enterprise clear visibility and access to the information and learning needed to perform effectively.  In practice this includes managing learning, compliance, goals, positions, compensation and many other aspects of an organization,” said Paul Sparta, chairman and CEO, Plateau.  “Plateau’s strategy fits hand-in-glove with the broad strategy of SuccessFactors’ Business Execution.  Where SuccessFactors and Plateau have common approaches to many parts of the HCM lifecycle historically, we are now positioned exceptionally well to quickly unify what is common and more heavily invest in the kinds of innovation the market has yet to see in HCM.”

“In short, I am personally relishing the opportunity to work with some of the great minds that SuccessFactors has now assembled.  I very much look forward to sharing it with the world in the coming months,” Sparta continued.

Through its acquisitions over the past year, SuccessFactors has continued to build on its core BizX solution and revolutionize the market. This acquisition extends the company’s leadership by enhancing its current career and development planning offerings, integrating the entire employee lifecycle experience, as well as positioning the company as the leader in the HCM cloud-based SaaS market. Based on initial estimates, the combined companies will have more than 15 million users.

“Learning and development is an integral part of the entire employee lifecycle starting with the on-boarding process and how quickly new employees can be productive,” said Karie Willyerd, vice president of learning and social adoption, SuccessFactors, and founder and CEO of Jambok. “Historically the primary role of a learning management system was to reduce the cost of training and training administration, improve compliance, provide a platform to improve employee skills and time to competency, and to standardize processes and content.  At SuccessFactors, we are moving beyond these ‘core’ drivers of learning to now address business performance and aligning business goals and skill requirements with learning and development, using cutting-edge SaaS technologies.”

Plateau brings more than 350 customers to SuccessFactors. After the deal closes, Plateau’s SaaS based LMS will be integrated directly into SuccessFactors’ BizX suite providing deeper opportunities for companies to bridge the execution gap by more effectively on-boarding, training, certifying, and linking learning to overall performance, goals, and employee engagement.

“This is, in my opinion, a merger of true leaders. SuccessFactors and Plateau are both thought leaders, product leaders and service leaders,” says Lisa Rowan, program director, HR, Talent, and Learning Strategies for IDC. “Plateau emerged as a leader this year in IDC’s annual MarketScape on Integrated Talent Management joining SuccessFactors there. A big part of Plateau’s ascension is the satisfaction of the Plateau client base. “

“In today’s fast-paced business environment, organizations need to rapidly integrate their systems for employee hiring, management, and development into a strategic process,” said Josh Bersin, President and CEO of Bersin & Associates, a leading analyst firm in corporate learning and human resources.  “SuccessFactors’ acquisition of Plateau brings together the market share leader in talent management with one of the market leaders in learning management to create a global powerhouse in end-to-end talent management software.”

Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, SuccessFactors will pay $145 million in cash plus $145 million in stock, approximately $15 million is for employee stock options and RSUs, for Plateau. The acquisition is subject to various closing conditions, including filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and the issuance of a permit from the California Department of Corporations, and is currently expected to close during summer 2011.

 For more information on SuccessFactors, please visit www.successfactors.com
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

Jambok acquisition will add mobile video creation and sharing technology to accelerate the future of corporate social learning and the smarter workplace

HRchitect featured SuccessFactors in our release of The Suite Life of Integrated Talent Management and also includes them in our list of top Talent Management Systems vendors that businesses should consider. If you are looking for a new Talent Management System, or any HR system, talk to HRchitect first. HRchitect has unparalleled knowledge of the HR and Talent Management vendor community and can save you time and money in selection and implementation. Simply put, do not invest in any kind of HR technology without consulting with the experts first. HRchitect is always available to help!

SuccessFactors, Inc. (Nasdaq: SFSF) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Jambok (http://www.jambok.com), the SaaS social learning company that draws on the consumer world’s popular web 2.0 tools like YouTube and Facebook, to offer even easier next generation on-the-fly mobile video creation, sharing, discovery and social networking that enables informal social learning within the workforce.

“We think Jambok has superior next gen mobile video and social learning technology. Jambok has surprisingly great growth and customers like NIKE, Mitsubishi, and Reuters. We love the team; Karie is a visionary learning practitioner and published bestselling domain thought leader, and Charles and the engineering team from Russia are exceptional,” said Lars Dalgaard, CEO and founder of SuccessFactors. “We all know 80 percent of learning happens on the job, Jambok-SuccessFactors allows any employee to immediately capture and accelerate that business execution opportunity, in a mobile social learning video. I personally found it easier than YouTube, and with the Social Learning platform it feels like a killer app for businesses to accelerate learning content and dissemination. SuccessFactors has found customers want to buy traditional integrated learning but delivered as part of SuccessFactors’ BizX Cloud Suite, and the Jambok technology will form a customer proven fresh Social Learning compliment to differentiate learning management in the BizX Suite.

“By solving a much larger comprehensive opportunity of making employees productive, not only on regulatory compliance, we intend to grow our expanding learning offerings faster than the market,” Dalgaard continued.

“At NIKE most of our learning happens on the job, in real-time and from the subject matter experts, not from canned videos and training alone,” said Joe Campbell, director of talent development & global design and delivery solutions, NIKE. “Jambok allows our team members, regardless of their technological capabilities, to complete screen captures, create videos, upload and share easily with the team, accelerating learning and helping to create a smarter workforce. This is the future of corporate learning and we’re ahead of the curve with Jambok.”

Although companies based in the U.S. alone spend more than $100B per year on training, the ability to tap into the informal learning that happens on the job is limited, and the power of user-generated content remains untapped. With this acquisition, SuccessFactors makes a significant step forward in defining the next generation of results-oriented learning for organizations.

This acquisition will extend SuccessFactors’ leadership in Business Execution software with strong new social video creation and sharing tools that will be integrated into the company’s current social collaboration offering as well as other areas of the Business Execution (BizX) Suite, including social recruiting. Through its acquisitions over the past year, SuccessFactors has continued to build on its core BizX solution to help its customers’ workforce be more productive and to execute effectively against company strategy.

Adding Jambok technology to the BizX suite will offer customers: 

• Content Creation & Sharing: Simple and easy tools to share existing multimedia files, documents, videos and/or audio content through a webcam, as well as capture narrated screen casts. Instantly publish with one-click to the community using a web browser on your computer or mobile device.
• User-centric Social Capabilities: Powerful features including user-generated ratings of content, user-assigned taxonomy applied to content, user-based feedback on content, granular content sorting capabilities and content filtering.
• Community-based Approach: Flexible and secure targeting of content for specific groups of users based on topic, interest or projects.

The Jambok team will join SuccessFactors, including Dr. Karie Willyerd, CEO of Jambok, who will join as vice president of learning and social adoption. Willyerd is an industry veteran and the former chief learning officer for Sun Microsystems, where she led a team that won more than 30 awards from 2008 through 2010, including the ASTD No. 1 training department in the world. She is also the co-author of The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today (http://www.amazon.com/2020-Workplace-Innovative-Companies-Tomorrows/dp/0061763276/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300079826&sr=1-1).

“The Jambok team is extremely passionate about our social learning solutions. Our customers have seen early success in accelerating the learning curve by allowing their employees to generate and share content with each other. Jambok makes it simple and easy to post video, audio, bookmarks, photos, as well as screen capture their desktops in order to share knowledge within the organization,” said Dr. Karie Willyerd, CEO of Jambok. “Joining the SuccessFactors family will give us the momentum and network needed to continue to grow, expand and instantly reach additional customers with our solution.”

The acquisition is expected to close by Tuesday, March 15, 2011.

For more information on SuccessFactors, please visit www.successfactors.com
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

I know it’s not the most original quote in the world but for a moment, it made me smile. It also led me to consider some of the best quotes from Soundview’s Author Insight Series. This exclusive MP3 interview program gives Soundview subscribers unique insights direct from the authors of today’s best business books.

Since I previously covered the first half of 2010 in a previous post, here (in no particular order) are the best quotes from the second half of 2010′s Soundview Author Insight Series:

1. “When a bank or an investor sits down and decides whether they’re going to support your recovery plan going forward, you’re probably not going to be in the room.” — Shaun O’Callaghan, author of Turnaround Leadership: Making Decisions, Rebuilding Trust and Delivering Results After a Crisis

2. “‘I prefer you’ are the three strongest words today in the customer’s vocabulary, if you want to create profitability.” — Robert H. Bloom, author of The New Experts: Win Today’s Newly Empowered Customers at Their Four Decisive Moments

3. “The reality of it is that we’re really at a perfect storm right now of a number of factors that are coalescing that are preventing salespeople from working.” — Jill Konrath, author of Snap Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers.

4. “It’s hard to imagine that anyone would be willing to do all the things that you need to do as a leader and make the sacrifices that are required to get extraordinary things done if his or her heart wasn’t in it.” — Barry Posner, co-author (with James Kouzes) of The Truth About Leadership: The No-Fads, Heart of the Matter Facts You Need to Know.

5. “Just being that little bit more informed, just being that much more attuned to what the pulse of the marketplace is saying about you will allow you to do a better job.” — Charlene Li, author of Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead.

6. “Is your product going to evolve towards being the absolute pinnacle of quality and the best at what it is, the highest fidelity, or is it going to evolve toward the idea of being super convenient. If it tries to continue to be too much of both, it’s never going to be enough of either.” — Kevin Maney, author of Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don’t.

7. “If you can’t keep it in your head, that means that you have to go find it, and you can’t just go and find it online or in books, you need to be able to connect to other people who are, kind of, your ‘guild of experts.’” — Karie Willyerd, co-author (with Jeanne Meister) of The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today.

8. “Viral marketing forces companies to have good after-sale service for their customers. If you don’t, you’re going to suffer.” — Adam Penenberg, author of Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves.

9. “A weak leader seeks agreement and a fierce leader wants the truth.” — Susan Scott, author of Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and In Life One Conversation at a Time.

10. “Your customers will tell you how to get rich if you just ask them.” — Brian Tracy, author of How the Best Leaders Lead.

One of the more interesting findings is that the generation who helped propel the spirit of hope and change during the 2008 presidential election is now less enthusiastic about the voting and campaign processes. I was particularly struck by this quote from John Della Volpe, Director of Polling for the Institute of Politics:

“In 2008, Millennials took control of their own destiny, entered the political process and changed the direction of the country.  Two years later, the challenges they face as a generation could not be higher. Let’s hope they reverse the current decline in interest and participation, and continue the process of becoming this era’s defining political force.”

Millennials are in the spotlight right now as they are beginning to alter the world of politics. They also are a major focus for observers of the business world. In fact, one of the new summaries that Soundview recently published deals with the potential impact of this group arriving in the workplace. In The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today, authors Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd examine the ramifications of this large, paradigm-shifting group and how they will interact with the existing generations that currently occupy the offices and cubicles in every company.

One of the best ways you can keep up with the changes that occur in business is to become a Soundview subscriber. Join up today and get your copy of The 2020 Workplace!

I laughed when I read this line because it was a topic of conversation when Soundview’s editorial department was first considering The 2020 Workplace for summary. Have you ever had an experience where you’re looking at a painting with someone and you notice something the artist has possibly hidden in the piece? You wonder whether the other person can see it, and it’s usually quite funny when you have to practically point it out. That’s how I felt about the title The 2020 Workplace, and it’s been fun to see how many people pick up on this thought after seeing the title for the first time.

Soundview had the opportunity to interview Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd, the authors of The 2020 Workplace, and while secret meanings behind the book’s title did not come up in our conversation, many other insights were shared. In fact, they tell a story about an organization that defies all preconceived notions about the security risks of social technology. Who is it? You’ll have to check out Meister and Willyerd’s appearance on  Soundview’s Author Insight Series. This interview is available exclusively to Soundview subscribers, but it’s never been easier to join the ranks of Soundview’s network of thought-leaders.

I think it’s safe to say that connections between this title and 20/20 vision are pure coincidence. However, there’s little doubt that reading this summary will help make your vision of the future of the workplace a little more clear.

Cover via Amazon

Thank you so much to everyone who replied, either on the comments or to me privately, about great books to read!  I really appreciate the suggestions!

Here are some that were sent to me directly (i.e. they were not in the comments of my last post):

• Integral Life Practice
• A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
• Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life by Barry Oshry
• The 2020 Workplace by Jeanne Meister & Karie Willyerd
• The Resilience Factor by Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte

I could go on.  The great thing about everyone’s suggestions was that they were so diverse.  I look forward to my now LONG reading list!

So, besides having a great list of books, I found another way to motivate myself to get through some of these business books – sign up for something that gives me a deadline.  In this case, I signed up to attend the BC HRMA Book Club.

This month, we read Grown Up Digital by Don Tapscott.  The book is quite insightful, I would highly recommend it (and so would my fellow book clubbers!).  However, more importantly, getting together with some intelligent and thoughtful people to talk about the book was the really inspiring part.  By discussing our general thoughts about the book, our likes, our dislikes, our lessons learned, etc., I felt like I got so much more out of the book.

The great thing is book clubs are so easy to find and to set up.  While joining the BC HRMA Book Club is an option, your company might already have one or would support it, you could get a group of friends together, you could start an online forum, etc.

It is so easy, it is great motivation, and it really brings books to life. I would highly recommend joining or starting one of your own!