The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently published its Occupational Outlook for 2018 (the next 10 years) and it is well worth reading.  This data, coupled with a number of meetings I"ve had recently with HR and L&D executives, clearly tells me that we are about to re-enter a new "war for talent. " This phrase has been thrown around for years, so many of us have become somewhat dulled to the concept. Read the Full Article

On April 6-8, 2010, in St. Petersburg Florida, we will be hosting our third-annual Research Conference on Enterprise Learning and Talent Management: IMPACT 2010.   The lineup for this year's conference is the best ever - so I want to give you my thoughts on why you should bring your team to Florida for the best event in our industry. Read the Full Article

Today Skillsoft announced that the company is being acquired by a private equity firm for approximately $1. 1 billion.  This acquisition price reflects a 14% premium over the public share price and a price to sales ratio of 3. Read the Full Article

Today SuccessFactors announced plans to acquire InfoHRM (renamed Inform Business Impact) - a small but very well established leader in the area of HR and Talent Analytics and Workforce Planning.  We believe this acquisition is very significant for the talent and HR systems marketplace: it now establishes SuccessFactors as the emerging leader in the broad and important area of delivering actionable talent and HR measurement and analytics. Consider some of the most important yet difficult questions all companies face: how many employees do I have on the payroll today? What is my retention rate for high-performers? Which managers are driving the highest levels of performance (or retention or leadership growth)? What are the characteristics of the most successful new hires we bring into the organization?And consider some of the even more strategic workforce planning questions organizations have: what is the impact of the potential reorganization or merger we are considering? What are the biggest gaps in our talent pipeline as we move into China, Brazil, or another emerging market? How will the aging baby boomer affect our professional workforce in the next three years? Where in our talent mix do we have the greatest risk?These questions, and many more, plague business leaders in all functional areas: CEO, Sales, Customer Service, Operations, and even internal groups like Finance and IT. Read the Full Article

This week I had the opportunity to keynote the largest learning conference in the UK, the UK Learning Technologies Conference (developed and run by Donald H. Taylor, one of the most knowledgeable professionals in our industry). The title of my presentation was “Informal Learning: What, Why, and How – and what it means to You. Read the Full Article