Analyzing interactions

One approach is to examine such data as employees’ email history, meeting schedules and contacts with customers to look for boosts to or drags on performance.

Take Delve Analytics, a new capability in Microsoft’s Office 365 office suite. Drawing on technology developed by VoloMetrix, a people analytics startup Microsoft recently bought, Delve allows individuals and teams to analyze all their interactions–their emails, chats, video calls, meetings and the like. The result: They can get unique insights that help them work more efficiently. For example, employees can discover how much time they focus on work without distractions or how often they’re in meetings.

“People can make changes that, across a company, can add up to real change at an organizational level,” says Ryan Fuller, co-founder of VoloMetrix and now a general manager at Microsoft, in a video interview.

Fuller points to a company that regularly had a weekly staff meeting for 11 managers. No one felt the gatherings were productive, but they kept on attending. After an analysis of the data, however, managers learned that, the business put in around 300,000 hours a year on the meeting, adding up to about a $45 million investment.

“Before this analysis, people just rolled their eyes and went to the meeting,” says Fuller.

“But now they could see how much it was costing them, so they made some changes.”

Collecting data from sensors

Boston-based startup Humanyze takes that approach one step further.  A group of researchers at MIT Media Lab started the company in 2011, coming up with a way to combine several technologies to analyze ways to boost productivity.

Researchers outfit their clients’ badges with everything from a Bluetooth sensor to detect whether someone else nearby is also wearing a badge and how close that person is to an infrared scanner, which reveals employees’ positions. The scanner can determine if they’re facing each other, an accelerometer measures movement and two microphones record tone of voice and volume. Beacons placed inside rooms figure out what office employees are in.

All of this adds up to technology collecting more than 100 data points a minute, gathering data on everything from how often individuals are interrupted to how frequently they face other team members while talking, an indicator of engagement.

With all that data in hand, the system can analyze patterns of communication that correlate to effective team performance. It also creates maps of how teams are doing on various dimensions, like energy and engagement. Those displays instantly convey areas of weakness and strength.

Similarly, Hitachi recently started testing its own employee badges for measuring happiness, using data on employee movement—time spent sitting, walking and so on– collected by sensors.

The underlying idea is that the happiness level of a group correlates with productivity and can be determined by patterns of physical movement.

Some critics question people analytic systems, especially those using sensors, fearing potential threats to privacy. Advocates, however, say companies generally use the data in aggregate.

“This helps us better understand what makes employees happy overall,” says Isson.

For his part, Humanyze‘s Waber calls his company‘s process “Moneyball for business.

” That refers to the now-famous data analytics approach general manager and now executive vice president Billy Beane employed to improve the performance of the Oakland A’s Major League Baseball team. “We use behavioral data to build out the team,” he says.

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The contents or opinions in this feature are independent and may not necessarily represent the views of ICT-Hardware. 

 

Used with the permission of http://thenetwork.cisco.com/.

    | Artical  by Anne Field

The potential for countries to prosper in the coming decade is staggering. During the Digital Age, up to 500 billion people and things will be connected by 2030 – and this changes absolutely everything. It means we can no longer make excuses. Parts of the world that were left behind in the Information Age will have the infrastructure and information needed to move their nations forward.

They can assert themselves in the Digital Age and provide access to new levels of healthcare, education and transportation. They’ll have more data and knowledge to make the right decisions like never before.

Fundamentally, lives will change for the better.

How does country digitization work?

Considering the complexities of developing a plan to digitize an entire country, the process from evaluation to having an executable plan happens at almost warp speed at Cisco – between 90 to 120 days.

Before our team comes in, leaders must sponsor their nation’s involvement.  With the help of Cisco Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins and Cisco Executive Chairman John Chambers, an agreement is reached to move forward on the journey together.

So what happens during those first 90 to 120 days?

After the country leader meets with Cisco’s executive leadership, the CDA Team performs an analysis following our proven CDA process. We examine the country’s digital agenda –then small teams from Cisco and the government work to extract key objectives the country wants to accomplish.

Those are broken down into three project-focused horizons and placed into a CDA Program Architecture. We then develop an execution strategy and capture it in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The government leader signs the MOU with Cisco’s Executive Chairman or CEO, and we immediately begin digitizing the country.

Countries are digitizing at a rapid pace. We are hard at work on CDA programs in several countries including France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Israel, Italy, India and Mexico, and more than a dozen countries are being evaluated for CDA at this moment.

Entire nations are reaching new heights in the Digital Age, and Cisco is their trusted technology partner for the journey.

Just because a country was successful during the Information Age does not guarantee prosperity in the Digital Age.

New countries will emerge as global powerhouses over the next twenty years because of their early commitments to invest in digitization.

Every business, every city and every country will be challenged like never before to establish and maintain a dominant position – and first movers will have a great advantage. When Cisco partners with a country, we partner for life. Through accomplishments and challenges alike, Cisco remains steadfast and dedicated to the long-term prosperity of our CDA countries and their citizens.

That’s our promise as we work with our government, industry and academic partners to change the world.

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The contents or opinions in this feature are independent and may not necessarily represent the views of ICT-Hardware. 

Used with the permission of http://thenetwork.cisco.com/.

ICT Hardware is one of Cisco Partner  since 2013