The other day, I was talking to a colleague who is trying to solve a very difficult problem. Essentially, the core objectives of the business are creating a tidal wave of attrition. I told my colleague that he needed to talk with ‘a guy I know who does employment branding’. He responded by explaining to me that this wasn’t an employment branding problem, that it could be solved by more clearly defining performance requirements. The response was so quick, it made my head spin.

The focus on being a generic “employer of choice” is an inadequate vision for effective long term labor supply management. Brands only matter to the people who care about them. Mention the brand name outside of the circle of people who have the relationship and you will receive shoulder shrugs. Mention it inside the circle and you can spark a conversation full of passion and opinion.

Traffic Development is the yin to the Employment Branding yang. Without adequate quantities of the right traffic (on the web and through the recruiting shop), there is little chance that the right quality of candidate will emerge in your database. Not all traffic is created equal.

We’re at the edge of a great transformation. Recruiting Marketplaces (BountyJobs), Staffing Agency Replacements (ReadyForce), Contingency Labor Exchanges (eLance), RPOs (RiseSmart), Learning and Collaboration Platforms (Saba), Recognition Systems (Rideau), Job Boards (theLadders) and Talent Management Systems (Stepstone) are in the process of blurring familiar boundaries. These companies are building market expertise into their data processing systems.

Somewhere between 120 and 200 HR, and Recruiting industry folks wedged themselves into the sub basement of the hotel in a windowless series of rooms and foyers. They consumed about 35 tracks of information from a cadre of presenters, experts, raconteurs and entrepreneurs. You could feel the passion (particularly when it was passing for real knowledge). The tracks themselves ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime. At one end of the spectrum, old war-horses held court and opined the strong views of elders. At the other extreme were conversations that barely merited their allotted time led by the passionately uninformed.

Facebook has become the global water cooler. Tidbits of information pass themselves off as intimacy and understanding. The barrage of minutia is warm and snuggly, just like the feeling you get before you die from hypothermia. Meaningless noise, delivered with appropriate timing, passes for a deeper reality. Our social instincts are fooled by constant stimulation. Facebook helps us maintain the illusion that obnoxious little sound bites and cleverness are a substitute for intimacy and depth. We trade bumper sticker sensibilities. We posture to make our little accomplishments seem bigger than they are. Somehow, the constant pinpricks of awareness soothe our anxieties. We belong to the great oneness and have immediate access to transcendent experience. Abraham Maslow died a little too early; Facebook is ushering in the era of instant self actualization through marginal disclosure.