I’ve been reading David Maister’s book “Strategy and the Fat Smoker”. It’s full of practical information to help manage professional services firms. Chapter 13, “Accountability: Effective Managers Go First,” got my interest because it begins with teh true story of a firm’s president proclaiming to all his employees that he would resign if he did not succeed in improving their ratings of his performance as a manager by 20 percent within one year. Any manager who makes such a statement will get their employees’ attention and, admiration – after all, that manager is declaring their desire to improve.

I promised to follow up on our Web 2.0 discussion and I’m making good…

The Social Networking Conference took place a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve found some good resources from speakers at the event. Shiv Singh of the App Gap has posted his presentation, Web 2.0 and the Enterprise: A Symbiotic Relationship on the blog, free for download. A good general introduction to the benefits and challenges of using social networking in the workplace. In particular he has an interesting perspective on how social media allows each of your employees to act as an ambassador, even a recruiter for your company. Worth a read!

The New Talent Management Network recently released their 2nd Annual Talent Management Survey. The study has some great insights that are incredibly relevant in the current economic climate, and are definitely worth a look.

Back in the Fall, we met Steve Boese from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) after reading one of his great blog posts. He teaches the Leveraging Technology course in the Human Resource Development Masters Program at RIT and was looking for a vendor to work with him to provide his students with the opportunity to use a real talent management system. It’s a few months later and now the graduate students in Steve’s class are up and running using the Halogen system in their coursework this quarter.

Happy Monday! We were so pleased to have announced such great news to kick off 2009. Last week we shared that we ended 2008 with our 25th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth, and an impressive 40% revenue growth over 2007.