It’s a question I asked to myself after having read this note from Thomas Otter who was wondering what will be the next innovation in HCM Software.

Even if everything can be improved, I think that “administrative” systemes won’t experience a real revolution. In the other hand I think the pure “Human Capital” side is very promising.

Even if human capital assessment systems have been existing for years, I’m not sure they fully reach their goals. This inspires me two things.

When talking of assessment we also mean assessment context : and the perpetual assessment doesn’t exist so things are always biased. More, we only assess what we want to assess and we may neglect some aspects of one’s capital. In the other hand, as stakes are more and more about tacite and ability to work into human networks, we have to assume these kind of things are far from being captured and harnessed by the existing systels.

At last, we often talk about control and assessment systems, but hardly never of systems facilitating human capital realization.

Then, what if the next innovation in tools was not about tools but about their usages. Not because of the processing capacity of tools but because of their ability to help people to fully realize their capital in a networked in tacit context.

Perhaps, in certain cases, it’s worth a glance at Enterprise Social Software.

But since everything has to be measured (at least at then end), perhaps it will be possible to rely on these tools to assess, to evaluate. Social graph is a first track. Semantic may also help to mesure the alignment (or gap) between the corporate message and the way it’s received, between enteprise’s priorities and day to day job reality, between one’s job description and his real skills, expectations, or daily tasks.

In short, perharps looking at the development and realization side before considering control and assessment would be a good idea.