Take a Different Seat: What Are We Really Looking for at HR Tech Events?
Host: Chris Havrilla, Podcast Host & Founder of AI Alchemists™
Guests: Joanna Clark and Matthew Brown
Summary
What are you looking for when you walk into an HR technology conference? A new solution? The latest AI announcement? A vendor shortlist? A glimpse at where the market is headed?
In the debut episode of Take a Different Seat, host Chris Havrilla starts with that seemingly simple question and invites two experienced HR technology leaders to examine it from very different seats.
From the buyer perspective to the vendor and customer experience side, the conversation explores what really happens when organizations, technology providers, and practitioners come together at industry events. The answer turns out to have far less to do with collecting product information and much more to do with understanding the problems organizations are actually trying to solve.
The discussion digs into the growing disconnect between buyers and sellers, the pressure to adopt AI, and the danger of applying new technology to processes built for yesterday’s work. Instead of starting with a product or feature list, the group makes the case for starting with the business problem, asking better questions, and staying curious long enough to understand what a solution will actually mean inside a specific organization. As the conversation progresses, another important gap emerges: the difference between what technology looks like in a demo and what it takes to make that technology successful on day one. Buyers may not always know what questions to ask, while providers can easily allow their own talking points to drive the conversation. The challenge for both sides is to move beyond the pitch and get closer to the realities of the work, the organization, and the people who will ultimately use the technology.
And by the end of the episode, the original question has changed. Instead of asking people at the next industry event, “What are you here to see?”, perhaps the better question is: “What do you need to learn more about?”
Topics Include
- Why the same HR technology event looks very different depending on the seat you're sitting in
- How buyers can move from shopping for solutions to understanding the business problem
- Why AI is exposing old processes rather than automatically fixing them
- The disconnect between technology demos and the reality of implementation
- Why learning, curiosity, and better questions matter more as technology changes faster
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