Social networking and collaboration, integrated learning and talent management, and training the extended enterprise: these are today’s most important trends in workforce technology, according to today's HR thought leaders and exemplified by the delegates at Cornerstone OnDemand’s client and partner conference, Convergence 2008.
 
Convergence 2008 is a trade conference focused on integrated learning and talent management (ITM) software, content and services. This year's event brought together industry thought leaders and organizations from around the globe to discuss best practice and the emerging trends in successful talent management strategies.
 
Dr John Boudreau, Research Director at the Center for Effective Organizations and Professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, gave a keynote speech - ‘Beyond HR to Talentship: A New Science of Human Capital’.
 
Boudreau,discussed the importance of identifying pivotal roles within organisations as well as his breakthrough work on ‘talent decision science’ that challenges business leaders to make their talent a true source of competitive advantage.
 
Heidi Spirgi, President of Knowledge Infusion, a strategic workforce consulting organisation, spoke on ‘Emerging Trends in Talent Management: People, Process and Technology’.
 
Spirgi discussed how talent management requires a paradigm shift in the way HR defines its mission and measures its success, and went on to show how leading organisations are redesigning people structures, rethinking talent processes and using new technologies to transform the way talent is managed.
 
In a well attended session which attracted interest from representatives of some of the world's largest companies, Vincent Belliveau, Cornerstone OnDemand's General Manager EMEA, spoke on how to prepare for, and deliver, global multi-country, multi-brand learning and talent management programmes.
 
Connecting people through social networking collaboration emerged as an important theme - and a key pillar in an integrated talent management strategy.