Basketball, media, and robots coming for our jobs

With the events of last week's election pretty much consuming and subsuming national attention last week you probably missed this really interesting story on the intersection of sports, media, and technology, one that raises some interesting questions about the future or automation and work.

First a little background on the story from last week, then some thoughts on why it is interesting beyond the narrow, 'sports' focus.

Last week Mark Cuban, famous rich guy and owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks suddenly revoked the media credentials at Dallas' arena for two Dallas based ESPN basketball writers, Mark Stien and Tim MacMahon. From the first reports that came out, Cuban made the decision to revoke the ESPN pair's credentials because he was disappointed that MacMahon would not be covering every Mavericks game, a change from prior years; and Stein, as a national NBA reporter was thought to only want to cover Mavs games to gain access to players and coaches from the Mavs opponents as they came through Dallas. It was reported that Cuban was particularly miffed by the fact that no ESPN media attended and reported on the Mavs opening night game.

If this story was just about a team owner trying to play strong arm a major media outlet into providing more coverage for his team, it would not be all that interesting, and I would not have decided to write about it here.

But a day or two after the initial media credential ban was announced, the story became more nuanced, and well - interesting. 

What Cuban was also protesting, in addition to the reduced coverage of Mavs games in general by ESPN, was what he feels like is going to be the inevitable replacement for at least some human media game coverage - automated game summaries and stories generated by machine learning and algorithms.

Here's some additional detail from an email Cuban sent to the web site Deadspin, who had been reporting on the Mavs-ESPN kerfluffle: (Note: I edited this some for brevity and clarity, the full email is at the link above)

Two things triggered this whole thing. First was when I found out they (ESPN) had cut back or had always offered reduced coverage for 19 nba teams I had no idea this was going on

The second was when espn didn’t cover our opening night and the resultant coverage on their website was a tweet, One highlight and a wire service story

It made me realize that I had expected to be covered by all media, but it no longer was a given

Even though espn was covering the same number of games, if they didn’t think it was a big deal to miss opening night. I had a problem. Not necessarily an espn problem , but a coverage problem

And if it’s 30 games now for 19 teams. What would keep it from being 60 games for 25 teams ?

What was their long term thinking ?

When you realize that the hottest area in technology, and it’s not even close , is machine and deep learning , then it’s an easy step to see where this was going

I told espn this was my concern. They didn’t say they were taking this path. They didn’t say they weren’t. But I voiced these concerns to them

They said they would run their business . I can run mine

So the next question is where would it leave Mavs fans who wanted game results coverage of nothing changed and espn didn’t send a reporter for 30 games ?

It meant for 30 games and inevitably more in the future they wouldn't have a good experience with espn

It meant it was likely that in the near term when they went to espn Dallas they find a couple videos, tweets and a wire service story

How is that positive for any nba team or their fans when 30 games have second rate coverage ?

And what happens and what message is sent to fans when those games are covered by an algorithm in the future ?

Short term this is a Mavs issue. Long term it’s a certainty that our games will be covered algorithmically. Thats a problem across the board for us and the NBA

IMO that devalues our brand . It devalues the fans experience. I feel strongly that now is the time to partner with those who commit to the Mavs and to sending real people to cover the games for Mavs fans

It may seem like we are picking on espn or telling them how to run their business. We aren't. We are trying to protect ourselves and our fans and our future by partnering with those in the written media who commit to us

I know the whole automation thing may not make sense to some. But to me this is no different than saying that streaming would change media in 1995. Or social media would change coverage of sports , etc

Machine and deep learning and algorithmic coverage of sports events is going to happen.

This isn’t about replacing writers. The best writers will always have a place

This comes down to how do we value reporting on a game . Right now I value it more than espn and others and want to partner with the DMN FWST (media outlets), and use our own writers as our focus

Really interesting takes coming from a guy who got rich back in the day, selling a technology company, (Broadcast.com) for millions to Yahoo. Cuban is no Luddite or technophobe.

But at least in 2016, he (probably rightly), feels that despite advances in machine learning and automation that NBA game coverage is still best produced by actual human reporters and not the algorithms. And if you think that the entire idea of an algorithm replacing a human reporter to write sports event coverage think again - it is already happening mostly via technology created by a firm called Automated Insights. You can learn more about what they are doing with automated reporting of minor league baseball games here.

Let's go back on one line of Cuban's email above - "Long term it’s a certainty that our games will be covered algorithmically. Thats a problem across the board for us and the NBA."

In the same message where Cuban admits to using some tough negotiating tactics to push ESPN to continue to provide quality, human coverage of Mavs games, he admits that the algorithmic coverage of these games are a certainty. Today while technology like the one provided by Automated Insights is inferior to human reported coverage, over time it seems apparent to Cuban that the difference in quality will matter less to the media company than the sheer cost savings and efficiency gains that could be realized by replacing human reporters with a computer program.

And Cuban has a problem with that, as it is in his best interests to have top-notch coverage of Mavs games in the media, as he sees that as an extension of his team and of the Mavs brand.

I know this post has gotten pretty long, especially for a busy Monday, but I thought it important enough to try and lay out the context before hitting what I think is the main takeaway which is this:

Just because something can be automated away or a job be done by a robot or a machine instead of a human doesn't mean that it necessarily should. Your customers will decide and balance the tradeoffs between costs, convenience, and quality about the products and services you are offering. 

You might think, or your CEO might insist, that automation is always the way to go, but until the robot or the algorithm can do the job almost as good as the human it is replacing, then don't be too quick to agree.

Think I am wrong?

Take a look at the 'self-service' checkouts sometime at a busy grocery store or big box home improvement retailer?

Anyone using those? Do they provide a great experience?

Or would you rather wait an extra few minutes and check out with a human cashier?

Have a great week all!

HRE Column: How to choose which disruptive HR tech solutions to chase

Here is my semi-frequent reminder and pointer for blog readers that I also write a monthly column at Human Resource Executive Online called Inside HR Tech that can be found here.

This month, in the aftermath of the HR Technology Conference and still thinking about all the innovative and potentially disruptive HR tech solutions that continue to appear in the market, I thought about how much more difficult it must be getting for HR and business leaders to assess and evaluate and decide which types of disruptive technology to pursue.

Note, I am not really talking or thinking about specific technology evaluations like, "Which ATS should we license?", but rather larger questions of "Which types of potentially disruptive HR technology would benefit our organization, given our needs and our circumstances?", and "What should be the impact of these technologies on the organization and our people?"

I came up with three general categories or impacts that potentially disruptive HR tech can (and perhaps should) have on the organization, and some thoughts on how HR leaders can better evaluate new HR tech in this model. I tried to describe what this kind of categorized impact assessment looks like in my HR Executive column. From the HRE piece:

One of the highlights of the recently concluded HR Technology Conference and Exposition^® was the record-breaking Expo Hall, which featured nearly 400 technology solution providers offering an almost dizzying array of tools, technologies and innovative approaches to help organizations with HR, talent-management, employee-engagement and other workplace challenges.

But such a plethora of modern and innovative technologies also presents quite a challenge for HR and business leaders in that the growth of the HR-technology market and landscape has made the identification, research, assessment and eventual selection of the "right" technology solution all the more challenging. Probably the most frequent type of question I get from HR leaders over the course of the year is: "There are so many HR-tech solutions out there; how can I figure out which ones I should give my time and attention?"

Note that this kind of question is different from "Which applicant-tracking (or learning-management system, or payroll solution) system is the best one?" I do get those questions too, of course, but probably less frequently than in the past, as most HR leaders today understand that there is never a universal "best" solution for anything, but rather a "best" solution for the individual organization, and its unique goals, requirements and circumstances. Lately the discussions and challenges I hear about from HR leaders seem more focused on trying to make sense of a complex and growing HR-tech market, and how to best take advantage of all this growth and innovation.

One way for HR leaders to approach these kinds of challenges and determine how to spend their time and resources is to consider innovative and potentially disruptive HR technologies across a set of three criteria or broad categories of impact. I'd like to take a look at these three broad-impact categories and offer examples of how new HR-technology solutions fit into each.

Category One: If the HR solutions reduce or eliminate organizational barriers for HR and employees

There are a slew of HR technologies that are necessary and essential for organizations to either own or license for regulatory and compliance reasons. In other words, every organization that has regular employees has to, at a minimum, have a way to pay them, and to complete all the required tax filings and payments. This category is not really about those kinds of technologies. (If your organization has a critical need to solve such compulsory challenges, then you probably should take care of those before entertaining the idea of adopting new or disruptive HR technology.)

This category is more about enabling organizational success via the elimination or reduction of the friction points that can hold people back from getting work done effectively and efficiently. You can get to the direct impact of implementing technologies in this category by asking questions such as, "Where does our employee's workflow get bogged down?" or "Where do we have data manually replicated in multiple systems?"; or simply by asking teams and leaders can simply be asked to talk about "What is it that makes my job more difficult than it needs to be?"

Some real HR-technology solutions that help to solve problems in this category include learning systems that can surface content and assets in real-time and in context when employees need them the most or even more technical solutions that better integrate, validate and keep clean key HR-data elements and values across multiple systems. Almost every new HR-technology solution you introduce into the organization should solve at least one important "barrier" problem and eliminate a pain point for your targeted audience once it is adopted.

Category Two: If the HR solutions help to elevate customer service -- for internal customers or external customers

At the HR Tech Conference, one of the more interesting technology developments I remember seeing was an example of a deeper integration between an employee self-service type of portal and the company's HR-shared-service-center knowledge base and help-desk functionality. The idea here is that if employees were viewing their payslips or benefits enrollments and needed more information or had a question about the information they were viewing, they could, with one click, launch a "help" ticket or process to indicate to HR they needed assistance. HR practitioners would not only see that the request was made, they would automatically have all the needed context from the page or subset of information the employee was viewing...

Read the rest of the HR Exec column here 

Good stuff, right? Humor me...

If you liked the piece you can sign up over at HRE to get the Inside HR Tech Column emailed to you each month. There is no cost to subscribe, in fact, I may even come over and rake your leaves car or clean out your gutters or even help you pass out the candy on Halloween. 

Have a great weekend!

HRE Column: Three Lessons Learned Programming the #HRTechConf

Here is my semi-frequent reminder and pointer for blog readers that I also write a monthly column at Human Resource Executive Online called Inside HR Tech that can be found here.

This month, I took a look back at what I learned, or have think I have learned, from the last four years of programming the upcoming HR Technology Conference, and tried to tease out some of the trends and themes that are important for HR and business leaders to keep in mind as they consider their current and future HR technology programs.

I came up with three big lessons from all this thinking about and seeing HR Tech solutions that I tried to describe in my HR Executive column. From the HRE piece:

The last four years I've spent as the co-chair of the HR Technology Conference and Exposition^® (Oct. 4 through 7 in Chicago) have provided me with a unique perspective and view of HR-technology innovation, insight into the major trends and shifts in HR-technology solutions, and a better understanding of how the most successful organizations are applying these solutions in their enterprises to achieve superior business results. The last four years have been spent taking software demonstrations from hundreds of innovative HR-technology start-ups, meeting with and attending customer conferences and analyst meetings with many of the industry's leading solution providers, and perhaps most importantly, talking with HR and business leaders who have presented at the conference about their challenges and successes. These experiences have given me a large data set to consider when I think about how I would approach HR and workforce technology if I were back in the role of selecting, implementing and supporting such solutions for an enterprise.

With this year's conference just about a week away, I thought it would be interesting and hopefully informative for HR leaders if I shared what I think are (at least some of) the most important pieces of advice about the HR-technology market and how HR leaders can best increase their chances of success with their investments and programs. These are not in any particular order of priority or importance, just a few things that come to mind as I think back on all the technology I have seen and people I have learned from these last four years.

Lesson One: If the HR solutions in your organization can't communicate with each other, they are probably less valuable by half.

There's been a big trend these last two years, in particular, for many of the leading HR-technology solution providers to create application marketplaces that are more open and easier for HR and HRIT leaders to use to better integrate different solutions from different providers. These marketplaces -- from providers such as ADP, CornerstoneOnDemand and iCIMS, among others -- are explicitly designed to make supporting and complementary solutions work more seamlessly with the "core" HR solutions such as payroll and applicant tracking, to name just two. This trend toward openness and easier integration is likely to continue as HR leaders recognize the additional value and cost savings of simpler, faster services supported and backed by the providers themselves, not just the customer's own IT resources.

Lesson Two: Analytics may not have taken over HR, but what is coming in the next evolution of analytics just might.

At previous HR Tech conferences, we devoted considerable time and attention to HR analytics. But even in 2016, it still seems that the organizations presenting their analytics success stories at the conference are still in the decided minority, and that most organizations have yet to embrace and implement many, if any, of these analytics-heavy technologies. But I actually think the next phase of innovation in this area will...

Read the rest of the HR Exec column here 

Good stuff, right? Humor me...

If you liked the piece you can sign up over at HRE to get the Inside HR Tech Column emailed to you each month. There is no cost to subscribe, in fact, I may even come over and rake your leaves car or clean out your gutters for you if you do sign up for the monthly email.

Also, if you are interested in the HR Technology Conference that will be held next week, (October 4- 7 in Chicago), you can learn more, see the full agenda, and still register to attend at the HR Tech website - www.hrtechconference.com.

One final note: With the Conference next week the blog will be quiet for a little bit, I hope to get back to it the week of October 10.

Have a great weekend and hope to see many blog readers at HR Tech!

Maybe automation will hit managers as hard as staff

Super (long) read from over the weekend on the FT.com site titled 'When Your Boss is an Algorithm' that takes a really deep and thoughtful look at the challenges, pain, and potential of automation and algorithms in work and workplaces.

While the piece hits many familiar themes that have been covered before in the ongoing discussion and debate about the cost/benefits of increased automation for front line workers, (Uber and the like largely controlling their workers while still insisting they are independent contractors, the likelihood of reduced wage pressure that arises from increased scheduling efficiency, and how the 'gig economy', just like every other economy before it, seems to create winners and losers both), there was one really interesting passage in the piece about how a particular form of algorithm might just impact managers as much if not more than workers.

Here's the excerpt of interest from the FT.com piece, then some comments from me after the quote:

The next frontier for algorithmic management is the traditional service sector, tackling retailers and restaurants.

Percolata is one of the Silicon Valley companies trying to make this happen. The technology business has about 40 retail chains as clients, including Uniqlo and 7-Eleven. It installs sensors in shops that measure the volume and type of customers flowing in and out, combines that with data on the amount of sales per employee, and calculates what it describes as the “true productivity” of a shop worker: a measure it calls “shopper yield”, or sales divided by traffic.

Percolata provides management with a list of employees ranked from lowest to highest by shopper yield. Its algorithm builds profiles on each employee — when do they perform well? When do they perform badly? It learns whether some people do better when paired with certain colleagues, and worse when paired with others. It uses weather, online traffic and other signals to forecast customer footfall in advance. Then it creates a schedule with the optimal mix of workers to maximise sales for every 15-minute slot of the day. Managers press a button and the schedule publishes to employees’ personal smartphones. People with the highest shopper yields are usually given more hours. Some store managers print out the leaderboard and post it in the break room. “It creates this competitive spirit — if I want more hours, I need to step it up a bit,” explains Greg Tanaka, Percolata’s 42-year-old founder.

The company runs “twin study” tests where it takes two very similar stores and only implements the system in one of them. The data so far suggest the algorithm can boost sales by 10-30 per cent, Tanaka says. “What’s ironic is we’re not automating the sales associates’ jobs per se, but we’re automating the manager’s job, and [our algorithm] can actually do it better than them.”

The last sentence in bold is the key bit I think. 

If the combination of sensor data, sales data, and scheduling and employee information when passed through the software's algorithm can produce a staffing/scheduling plan that is from 10% - 30% better (in terms of sales), than what even an experienced manager can conjure himself or herself, then the argument to replace at least some 'management' with said algorithm is quite compelling. And it is a notable outlier in these kinds of 'automation is taking our jobs' stories that usually focus on the people holding the jobs that 'seem' more easily automated, the ones that are repetitive, involve low levels of decision making, and require skills that even simple technology can master.

Crafting the 'optimal' schedule for a retail location seems to require plenty managerial skills and understanding of the business and its goals. And at least a decent understanding of the personalities, needs, wants, and foibles of the actual people whose names are being written on the schedule.

It seems like algorithms from companies like Percolata are making significant advances, at least on the first set of criteria, that include predicting traffic, estimating yield, and devising the 'best' staffing plan, (at least on paper). My suspicion is the algorithm is not quite ready to really deeply understand the latter set of issues, the ones that are, you know, more 'human' in nature.

Or said differently, it is unlikely the algorithm will be able to predict a drop in productivity due to issues an employee may be having outside of work or adequately assess the importance to a good employee of the need to schedule around a second job or some other responsibilities.

There is probably a long way to go for algorithms to completely take over these kinds of management tasks, you know, the ones where actually talking to people is needed to reach solutions.

But when/if all the workers are automated away themselves? Well, then that is a different story entirely. 

VIDEO: Steve on DisrupTV talking HR Tech, Disruption, and the NBA

Quick spot for a long holiday weekend getaway Friday. Wanted to share some video from Ray Wang and Vala Afshars' DisrupTV show, where I made an appearance I did last week.

On the show, Ray, Vala, (and with a special late in the show appearance by Holger Mueller, talk about HR Technology, digital disruption and transformation, and I even make a VERY bold prediction for the upcoming NBA season.

You can catch DisrupTV on the show's Vimeo page here, my appearance, (about 20 minutes), is here, and also embedded below, (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through).

DisrupTV Featuring Steve Boese, HR Technology Conference 8.26.16 from Constellation Research on Vimeo.

Hope you found the topics interesting and maybe, just maybe, you will agree with me on my NBA dark horse pick!

This was a really fun conversation - thanks to Ray and Vala for having me on the show!

Have a great, long weekend!