The Integration of Talent Management Systems Comes to Forefront
Josh Bersin, Bersin & Associates, February 22, 2012.

I've noticed this as a trend as well: the consolidation of the enterprise talent management industry. "In the last 90 days we have seen SAP's acquisition of SuccessFactors, followed by Oracle's acquisition of Taleo, and then the smaller Kenexa acquisition of Outstart and PeopleFluent acquisition of Strategia. And while all this is going on, CornerstoneOnDemand announced a strong end to 2011 (revenues up to $75.5 Million up 62%), SumTotal announced 90% revenue growth, Saba's stock is up 21% this month, and LinkedIn announced that its revenues in the recruiting market have now eclipsed that of Taleo (136% YTY growth)." What does it mean? Bersin identifies three major elements:
- Buyers of talent management systems want integrated talent platforms (and data).
- The (long-predicted) merger between ERP and Talent Management is now coming.
- The key to success will be "integration" of systems, not only organically built software.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Mergers and Takeovers, Google]

Guilia Forsythe talks Sketchnoting
Jim Groom, bavatuesdays, February 22, 2012.

You've probably seen sketch-noting - that's what RSA Animate does when they create those nice short videos. You hear an audio track of someone describing a concept or idea, and the video shows someone sketching an animation to go along with the audio. In this post, Giulia Forsythe uses the art of sketch-noting in order to discuss sketch-noting. "It makes technology feel more comfortable. Doodles just feel really simple and organic. They remind me of my own hand-written notes from middle school."

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Schools, Video, Online Learning, Audio]

E-Interview Research Framework
Janet Salmons, Vision2Lead, February 22, 2012.

Interesting bit of design work. The E-Interview Research Framework was introduced in Cases in Online Interview Research (Salmons, 2012). This Framework is a tool for analyzing a study’s research design, ethical issues and approach for using communications technologies to collect data with interviews and related observations. The E-Interview Research Framework includes eight interrelated categories of key questions that can help a researcher think through the design of a study that uses data collected with online interviews." Via SCoPE: Seminars.

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Research, Privacy Issues, Ontologies]

Describing learning – should we?
Zoë Rose, Memexer, February 22, 2012.

Seb Schmoller sent me this link today just after my online discussion with Diana Laurillard, and it so encapsulates many of the same sort of points I wanted to make in my presentation. "If I show you carrots mentioned in 'Jamie’s yummo roast beef', you will understand the carrot-to-recipe relationship immediately and unambiguously. …and so will everyone else who encounters instances of our Things, with very few exceptions. Yay! Consensus! Now let me ask a different question: what type of Thing would you look at and say 'that is a Competency'? Would your definition match – or, would you have consensus with – with the person next to you?"

[Link] [Comment][Tags: Discussion Lists]

Muzzling of Canadian federal scientists makes international headlines
Véronique Morin, University Affairs, February 22, 2012.

From the report: "Attendees at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science heard from reporters that the Canadian federal government is controlling interviews with government scientists, by scripting answers for them or denying them access to journalists. The session was reported widely by international media." Here's the session recording.

"On Saturday, the story was reported by BBC World Service, and by the end of the day, it had become the most-visited story on BBC’s news website. In an opinion piece that followed his coverage, Pallab Ghosh, science correspondent for the BBC, said, 'It is more than a little embarrassing for the Canadian government to be accused of ‘muzzling’ its own scientists when it is hosting one of the world's largest scientific conferences in Vancouver.'"

[Link] [Comment][Tags: BBC, United States, Canada]