At our team meeting Friday, Maureen held our attention as she told of her week’s most uncomfortable moment. It was one of those awkward, feeling-bad-for-the-vendor events that we couldn’t hear enough about.
Now, Maureen is not some shrinking violet here. She’s a industry veteran, running a PeopleSoft HRIS system for 11 years before being lured away to the dark side of consulting by tales of our hilarious chicanery and awesome daring-do. She’s seen her share of vendor face-plants and meetings that have gone south. She even tried to save this particular vendor by sending an emergency e-mail/IM, but her efforts were in vain.
Earlier in the week, she was part of a virtual meeting where a vendor was showing off their great HR Technology, a Benefits Administration system. The employer-client was on the web presentation, as were a couple of folks from the vendor to demo different aspects of the system. 
Our clients are typically folks who sit in HR and they come in all shapes, sizes and personalities. Now to you, “HR practitioner” could possibly trigger a stereotype of someone prim and proper; perhaps something like a bevy of British folks at afternoon tea. While some HR folks certainly are circumspect, not all are. I’m not sure if this vendor even thought about her audience prior to her presentation.
In this case, the employer-client was a little straight-laced. When the vendor minimized her browser window showing her application, everyone on the call was left looking at her desktop image. Often that’s pictures of kiddos or cute puppies. But not in this case. Everyone was looking at a graphic repeated across and down the vendor’s screen proclaiming: DO EPIC S***. Maureen recalls the call got incredibly quiet and she could almost hear the employer squirm. The vendor never caught on and an hour later, once again proudly displayed her life motto for all to admire.
We’re all for bold statements and living life large here in our practice – in fact, that would be a pretty cool graphic to stick on our walls to remind us to be bold daily – but we also know how important it is to “know your audience.” Too often, something that is well intentioned can shut out someone if it is perceived poorly. There’s so much of communication that can be sabotaged by the little things. And in this case, the employer-client seemed to be a little offended. There’s so much riding on a good system demo that we’re sad to see non-HR Tech things get in the way.
Homework for the vendor:
Write 100 times: “When in a web demo, I will only share my application, not my desktop.”