Hey there!

Next week will be a fun one in Las Vegas, as I will attend and exhibit at both the 2013 HR Tech conference  as well as SuccessConnect. If you are roaming the exhibit hall, please stop by to see me and my Worklogix colleagues at booth #119 at HR Tech and #304 at SuccesConnect.

Both events will bring their share of interesting information. At HR Tech, I am looking forward to perhaps one of the most exciting atmospheres yet at this conference, as all three major ERP vendors are fully entrenched in HCM cloud and selling its benefits. It will be interesting to again see the three ERP super powers with Workday, one of the conference darlings. There’s even a band called Wrokday. Perhaps we see an opening act by Ocarle? A few session have especially caught my attention:

•  The J&J story “More Than a Bandage for Johnson & Johnson’s HCM” will be an interesting one, as I have been a part of their HR transformation on the SAP side. The session title is definitely provocative.  Of course, we also get to hear from a legend, Dave Duffield.
• The “First Annual NextGen Influencers Panel:  Getting Out From Behind the Baby Boomers” with my friend Jarret Pazahanick (Managing Partner, EIC Experts) will be a highlight. He is a knowledgeable dude and will be great to see him in action with some other great folks like Madeline Laurano (Research Director, Human Capital Management, Aberdeen Group), Trish McFarlane (Head of HR, Perficient; Blogger, HRRingleader.com) and Maksim Ovsyannikov (SVP Product, SmartRecruiters).
• I am also looking forward the session ” Recognition Technology Gives JetBlue a Lift” with Michael Elliott (VP of Employee Relations, at JetBlue Airways) alongside Eric Mosley (CEO of Globoforce). JetBlue has been a longstanding client of ours, and is an overall kick-ass company.

Some veterans I hope to catch up with include Bill Kutik (his 16th and final year leading up this conference!), Naomi Bloom, Paul Sparta, Lexy Martin, Josh Bersin, Holger Mueller and Jason Averbook.  Just a ton of great folks to see. There will be an HR Tech Meet / Tweet up which I will try to make, but it does conflict with some partner activities over at SuccessConnect, so not sure I will be able to, but this sounds like a fun event.  Luke Marson is buying drinks for everyone….right, Luke? ;o)

At SuccessConnect, I am excited to be a part of the action where I believe SAP/SuccessFactors is in a position to share some more on their integration roadmap (i.e., hybrid deployment scenarios) as well as their additional plans for Employee Central. Employee Central is such a vital part of their cloud strategy – the sooner they build out the functionality, the sooner they compete head on with Workday for full HCM cloud. Of course, SAP’s got Workday beat from a Payroll perspective (by a mile), but it will be great to know about SuccessFactors’ plans with time management, benefits, and enhancing Employee Central Payroll.

Later this fall, I am lucky to be doing the SuccessFactors Talent Management seminars with colleagues Prashanth Padmanabhan (Senior Director with Solution Management at SAP), Kellie Fitzpatrick, CEO from Symphony Consulting, and Venki Krishnamoorthy (my co-author on 2 SAP PRESS books, who is a manager in the SAP / SuccessFactors practice of Deloitte Consulting).  It’s great that we have Prashanth there, so he can articulate the SAP roadmap directly to attendees. Kellie and Venki come to the table with a ton of experience and knowledge. Check out Prashanth’s blog as well , as he has been posting some really neat stuff too.  I love the drawings – all 100% his own sketching.

I hope to see you next week in Vegas. Please stop by the booth and say hello.  If you can’t make it, I will be on Twitter so please follow me @jeremymasters and I am sure the Twitterverse will be on fire with hastags #hrtechconf and #sconnect.