Nobody actually wants complexity. People usually just want to get a job done effectively, and quickly (and probably for the lowest possible cost). Most of the time what we actually need is ‘good enough’…

Unnecessary complexity making your life miserable? Feel better: read the Good enough is the new black color paper online or download from http://www.sonar6.com/colorpapers/good-enough

Last year at HR Tech we had an imaginary booth.

Imaginary…? I’ll explain.

We decided that while expos can be fun, they’re hard places to learn about vendors; we’ve always said that the best place to learn about Sonar6 is right here on the internet. So we started the “Going to HR Tech? Don’t visit our booth” campaign, featuring our fantastic imaginary booth.

Because it didn’t exist (and therefore had an unlimited budget), it was the best booth ever – laser shows, smoke machines… soon others started spreading the news about our world-beating booth. The one that didn’t exist.

This was funny for a while, but our unbooth made some people unhappy. So this year we are having a real booth. Sort of.

By ’sort of’, we mean we are actually having a real, quite large, cardboard box.

You see, we still think we should spend our money on developing great software, not on shiny stands and acrobats.

But we also want to meet y’all. So come and find us over by the big cardboard box.

Sometimes it seems like we know we need performance management (after all, we have a review once a year – usually) but we’ve forgotten why…

Really useful performance management starts with really useful performance reviews, but it doesn’t end there!  Read the ‘Really useful performance management’ color paper online or download from http://www.sonar6.com/colorpapers/really-useful-performance-management

The Auckland office recently bid a fond farewell to Peter Romeyn as he goes to head up Sonar6’s new Sydney office. We’ll miss Peter of course (although he is still heavily involved in our New Zealand business), but we’re also losing our part-time office dog Boston – who could always be counted on for a half-hearted game of fetch, or to clean up anything of interest that you might have mistakenly left in your rubbish bin…

Because Boston and his family are relocating to a new apartment, Mike had the not too common task of writing a doggy reference. Which we thought we’d share…

Best of luck to Boston and the rest of the Romeyn family on their big Oz adventure!

We’ve recently added a bunch of friendly new support staff to our US office, so we’ve had to find somewhere a lot bigger to keep them all. After a bit of a search for just the right spot, Sonar6’s US base has moved to new premises in Sausalito:

Sonar6 in the USA
2658 Bridgeway
Suite 207
Sausalito
CA 94965

In addition, we’ve just opened an office in Sydney, Australia. Sales Exec Peter Romeyn will be heading this up, and we’ll be hiring more local support for our Australian customers in the very near future.

Sonar6 in Australia
74 Cascade Street
Paddington NSW 2021

If you’re in the area – any of them – stop in and say hi!

Remember last year, when we were named in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific  top 50? We thought you might like to see the award itself, as cheerfully accepted by Sonar6 Finance Manager Amy Booth (R).

All Sonar6 v3 Administrators now have access to the enhanced reporting  module as standard

All users with access to reporting will see the new Reports tab beside the Admin and Reviews tabs on the main menu screen; individual reports can be selected from the list on the Reports screen.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 13th Annual HR Technology® Conference & Exposition is on in Chicago from September 29 to October 1, and if you register in advance with promo code SONAR6 you can save $500 off the registration cost. Check out the agenda to see what’s happening this year.

We’ll be at the Expo (the mysterious and unmissable Booth 145) on September 29 & 30, so if you can’t commit to the full conference grab an Expo Only Pass, come along and have a chat. We might even hand out a few of our highly-coveted t-shirts if we feel the love…

See you there!

Register for the HR Technology® Conference & Expo
Conference: September 29 – October 1, 2010
Expo: September 29 – 30, 2010
McCormick Place, Chicago

HR Happy Hour is a weekly online radio show – hosted by Steve Boese and Shauna Moerke – that features various HR experts, analysts, commentators, vendors, listener call-ins and a level of hilarity not usually associated with HR.

Excitingly, Sonar6 has been invited to come along and talk about our unique take on performance reviews; how it’s increasing user engagement and helping companies get better results.

So tune in on August 5 at 8PM EDT (12pm Friday 6 for the kiwis) to hear Mike discuss the Sonar6 perspective and some of the cool things we’re doing in the coming months. Participation is encouraged so if you have burning questions you’d like answered, call in and put him on the spot…

You can listen to the show live at the HR Happy Hour BlogTalkRadio page, or call +1 646 378 1086 to hear the show over the phone. Quizzing Mike live on air is as easy as calling up and pressing ‘1′, so we expect to hear from you!

Join Sonar6 on HR Happy Hour!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Steve-Boese
Thurday August 5 2010 8-9PM EDT (Friday August 6 12-1PM NZ)

We’ve all heard the standard complaints about members of Gen Y – they’re disloyal, lazy, have short attention spans, you practically need to throw parades when they accomplish the simplest tasks, they want the top job on day one, don’t respect experience, won’t be long term employees, are only motivated by money, need work to be fun… But then every generation complains about the next one.

Now Gen Y is among us, what can they teach us about better performance management?

Read the ‘Never Should Have Added My Boss on Facebook’ color paper online or download from http://www.sonar6.com/colorpapers/added-my-boss-on-facebook