CCH kicked off it's second annual User Conference this morning at the beautiful Boca Raton Resort and Club. Over 500 attendees are here, joined by 125+ CCH staffers and about a dozen hand-picked vendors offering services and products ancilliary to those provided by CCH. After opening remarks by Executive VP Mike Sabbatis the general session heard CEO Kevin Robert report on his company's continuing committment to the profession, to technology, and specificaly in today's troubling areas of "knowledge management" and "talent management". Robert skillfully walked the group through the scary statistics --- reminding them us of the looming problem that 75% of the AICPA membership will be eligible to retire in 15 years --- oops, he said, make that 14 years. Last year it was 15! His remarks were particularly well suited to introduce the keynoter --- Bruce Tulgan.
Tulgan is internationally recognized as a leading expert on young people in the workp
lace. He has authored or coauthored fifteen different books and numerous management training programs, and those in attendance this morning would tell you he is a world-class keynote speaker. [Complete bio here.] He extoled the attendees (from my vantage point virtually all "baby boomers" and older) about the trials and tribulations of people management in general and management of Gen X-ers and Gen Y-ers in specific. 
Gone are the days of the "pay your dues and eventually you'll make partner", having been replaced by what he termed as "just in time loyalty". Tulgan's emphasis was in solid support of the development plan described earlier by Robert --- knowledge management and talent management.
Attendees were treated to a complimentary copy of Tugan's book entitled "Winning the Talent Wars".
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PS: Watch www.TheTechgap.com the next several days for more on this and the upcoming Thomson CSI and Sleeter Conferences.
