Its not a bad idea, but I think it misses the potential that YC was suggesting.
Read the book 'Making Things Talk' - think about the potential of measuring things in the analog world, temperature, weight, flow, force, sound, etc, and correlating these things with enterprise data.
Maybe you can start off by measuring things like heartrate, blood glucose levels, physical mobility, dietary intake, etc. For instance, if someone is stressed all day, this probably is going to correlate with productivity.
I started down this path, looking at things like:
- number of people who Emailed an individual asking about a specific topic
-percent of time spent in Outlook vs Visual Studio vs WoW (RescueTime-esque stuff)
- number of IMs initiated from someone at least one level higher than them
But at the end of the day, can that really tell you quantitatively that Bob is better than Suzie? Even the example above about being stressed - I know people who are super chill and excel at their job, and others who are stressed all the time and also excel (and vice versa).
Maybe the answer is to pull in hundreds of these variables and run a neural net against actual performance rankings to see if any statistically significant correlations pop out?
I think you are right about pulling in hundreds of these variables to correlate with both intuitive and quantitative tests that we have to define 'productive' employees. Then you can send an electric shock whenever someone's theta waves get too low or something..
Seriously though, our first level of productivity is dictated by things biological, and if you can create models to paint a strong enough picture of a productive worker then it gives you a feedback loop. And don't forget, not everyone is a knowledge worker like us, people still drive trucks for a living, pick fruit, do construction, etc. That is a huge market.
I was just thinking about the same things earlier today. I thought of doing an experiment where different volunteers are fed different amounts of food, and then give them standardized tests to see what the effect (if any) is of food on brain function that same day.
It's probably been done. If anyone knows of something like this, please let me know.
I would also like to mention an anecdote; a teacher once told me a student of his bet he'd get positive results from taking LSD (or something, it might have been extasy) on the day of the PSU, the once-a-year standardized test that determines admission to Chilean colleges. He flunked.
Comments
Its not a bad idea, but I think it misses the potential that YC was suggesting.
Read the book 'Making Things Talk' - think about the potential of measuring things in the analog world, temperature, weight, flow, force, sound, etc, and correlating these things with enterprise data.
Maybe you can start off by measuring things like heartrate, blood glucose levels, physical mobility, dietary intake, etc. For instance, if someone is stressed all day, this probably is going to correlate with productivity.
That books looks sweet, thanks for pointing it out. Reminds me of a good post by Seth Godin I read the other day: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/07/let-me-see.h...
I started down this path, looking at things like: - number of people who Emailed an individual asking about a specific topic -percent of time spent in Outlook vs Visual Studio vs WoW (RescueTime-esque stuff) - number of IMs initiated from someone at least one level higher than them
But at the end of the day, can that really tell you quantitatively that Bob is better than Suzie? Even the example above about being stressed - I know people who are super chill and excel at their job, and others who are stressed all the time and also excel (and vice versa).
Maybe the answer is to pull in hundreds of these variables and run a neural net against actual performance rankings to see if any statistically significant correlations pop out?
Hell yea its sweet! :) I initially was pointed there by this great presentation: http://www.tomtaylor.co.uk/talks/delighting-with-data
I think you are right about pulling in hundreds of these variables to correlate with both intuitive and quantitative tests that we have to define 'productive' employees. Then you can send an electric shock whenever someone's theta waves get too low or something..
Seriously though, our first level of productivity is dictated by things biological, and if you can create models to paint a strong enough picture of a productive worker then it gives you a feedback loop. And don't forget, not everyone is a knowledge worker like us, people still drive trucks for a living, pick fruit, do construction, etc. That is a huge market.
I was just thinking about the same things earlier today. I thought of doing an experiment where different volunteers are fed different amounts of food, and then give them standardized tests to see what the effect (if any) is of food on brain function that same day.
It's probably been done. If anyone knows of something like this, please let me know.
I would also like to mention an anecdote; a teacher once told me a student of his bet he'd get positive results from taking LSD (or something, it might have been extasy) on the day of the PSU, the once-a-year standardized test that determines admission to Chilean colleges. He flunked.