Is it your turn to shut up? There's an app for that...

A couple of months ago I joined my friend Kris Dunn the HR Capitalist, and Mike Carden the CEO of Human Resources technology vendor Sonar6 for a webcast titled 'Please Shut Up: The Idiot Proof Coaching Tool for Managers'. The presentation was about some simple, yet powerful strategies managers could use to become more effective as performance coaches.  You can still access the replay here. And you should give it a listen. The audience feedback was phenomenal, save for the one person that complained that perhaps the three of us were a bit 'too jocular'.

As you may be able to tell from the Sonar6 webcast presentation title, shutting up was a big part of the coaching tool that we talked about - the main point was that all too often managers tend to dominate these kinds of performance discussions, prattling on and on about what the employee needs to do to become more effective, to stop acting like an idiot, and to finally come around and see the bosses way of doing things.

As those of you with kids understand, this kind of browbeating, 'dominate the conversation' approach really begins to lose effectiveness on them at around age 11 or 12. Maybe sooner.

So maybe you buy in to the notion that whether you are in performance coaching conversations with employees, or interviewing candidates for open positions, that shutting your trap just a little more often would be a good strategy. Or maybe you are trying to convince hiring managers or recruiters on your team that 'actually letting the candidate talk' might be the best way to help make some of those tricky cultural fit judgments, then be cheerful, as is the case for almost everything these days - there's an app for that.

The Talk-O-Meter is an iPhone app that uses voice recognition and biofeedback to calculate, in real time, which person in a conversation is doing most of the talking. Simply fire up the app, set the iPhone on the table in between the participants, do a quick voice level and tone calibration, and from there the Talk-O-Meter monitors the conversation in 1, 3, or 5-minute intervals. At the end of each interval, the app displays a bar split into two colors, representing the ratio of who spent the most time jawboning.

Face it, almost all of us like the sound of our own voices. It can be really hard to warm up to the notion that the other person might actually have something important, interesting, and relevant to add to our own little daily soliloquies. I get that.

But a simple little tool like the Talk-O-Meter might be just the thing you need to get a bit of self-awareness going, and may even help you see just how much you are dominating the proceedings, be it a performance review/coaching session or an interview.

Or when faced with your next meeting with Mr. or Ms. Knows it All and isn't afraid to make sure you know that they know it all, just do a quick, and sly Talk-O-Meter drop on them and show them the error of their ways.

What do you think - would this kind of an application be a useful coaching tool?

Can I Work There if I Live Here?

There are really only a few, perhaps ten or so, major decisions that people take in their lives that have such significant and long-lasting impact on the quality of their lives, their happiness, their financial and physical health, and even their legacies, that they usually require long and careful consideration before they are taken. 

Where to go to college, what career path to pursue, what kind of job to take, where to live, whether or not to continue to date that slacker in hopes you can change him, (cut him loose, you know he will never change), and so on.

But for job and career related decisions, at least for now when the majority of jobs still require reporting most days to a central work location, be it an office, store, factory, etc. - geography and it's associated impact on the decision process is an ever-present but at times under appreciated part of the complex dynamic. Sure, companies and candidates both spend lots of time evaluating skills match, career objectives, company culture, salary and benefits, and the like, but often questions like 'How long will it take me to commute each day?' or 'Can I afford to live anywhere near where the facility is?' or 'Are there any childcare options on the way to the office?', are not typically emphasized in interview and assessment process. Sure the candidate thinks about these issues some, but often only as a secondary set of considerations to the actual job itself, and usually the candidate is left to sort out the answers to these questions on their own.

And these are critically important questions, ones that will effect the potential employee's likelihood for success, and certainly their quality of life outside of work. So how can organizations try to better help candidates address these concerns, as well as provide some insight to the challenges that the candidate (or even the existing employee base), might be facing in terms of geography, commuting time, and other real-world considerations?

How about with an interactive map that shows office locations, median real estate costs, average commute times, and other practical, real, and really important data points to help candidates and employers make more informed decisions? Take a look at an example of what such a map would look like, this one for the San Francisco area: (click here, or on the image to try the map out yourself).

This map was created by Stamen, a Design and Technology studio from San Francisco.

To work with the tool, simply plot your starting point or destination point on the map, then on the left side, select from different modes of transit, ranging from car sharing to biking to walking. After that, you can indicate the desired length of commute, and the housing price range you can work with. After your selections are made, the map then shades in all the neighborhoods that lie within your parameters. It tries to help answer the basic question - 'If I live here, can I afford to work there?'

For people and potential employees not familiar with the area, this kind of a tool is a fantastic resource, and one that I could see a large employer in any given market or geography using to both inform, educate, and even attract candidates.

If you are say recruiting hard to convince a candidate to leave an area like San Francisco to come to perhaps, Birmingham, (cultural capital of the South), you could clearly and in an interactive manner demonstrate some of those 'quality of life/cost of living' angles that you play up on the phone. And additionally, having access to this kind of interactive data would better inform company leaders planning the next office location, or possible re-organization. You could easily develop this tool a bit further to plot the addresses of employees and build some intelligence to calculate changes in average commute time, energy use, and even impact on company happiness (a stretch, but just go with it), that would accompany a physical office move.

What do you think - would like to have a tool that allowed you and your candidates to better assess more of the real-life variables in the recruiting process?

Have a great weekend!

Can Games Make You Healthy?

Last week marked the official launch of Keas, the latest entrant in the growing market for technology-enabled platforms to support employee wellness/fitness. Keas attempts to drive and encourage better habits, increased levels of exercise, and more adherence to the healthy behaviors we all know we should be exhibiting, but for some reason are not. Keas - Goal Setting Page

Actually, I think we know the reasons - exercising and eating right kind of stink, and given the choice, too many of us are quite happy to have another donut or sleep in on Saturday instead of biking 12 miles to the Whole Foods to have some kind of a green energy drink concoction.

So Keas, like similar solution offerings like Redbrick and Virgin HealthMiles, has turned the 'Eat Less and Exercise' spiel, (that as we said we ALL know, and mostly ignore), into a social game. Once an employer has signed on with Keas, employees can form fitness and wellness challenge teams, set their individual and team goals for things like walking, yoga, eating vegetables, and taking health quizzes, (and lots more), track their progress and results using the Keas portal or their smartphone, and finally and at the discretion of the employer, receive cash and other rewards for participating and/or winning team challenges.

Keas in particular, emphasizes the social and gaming aspects of what are all essentially behavior tracking services, in order to advance in the game, or 'level up' to use the gamer term, the entire employee team (usually 5 or 6 people), must achieve their goals together. This 'we are all in this together' factor produces some interesting dynamics - employees are more motivated to meet their goals for fear of letting the rest of the team down, and everyone is more encouraged and supportive in a social sense to try and 'win' the game.

And while cash and other rewards can be a part of an organization's social wellness program, these rewards might not really be the ultimate driver of participation. According to a recent article about Keas and some of the other similar services in the Wall Street Journal, one executive observed that participants were more motivated by the social aspect than the cash, stating "In the beginning, I thought it was going to be about the prizes,” but, “People like being on teams, people like to be social. We had people going for walks together, we had people sharing recipes.”

The basic premise seems to be that turning activities that the nation's growing obesity rates, levels of chronic but often preventable disease, and spiraling corporate health care costs tell us we simply are not doing enough of on our own, into a social, interactive, and competitive game, will somehow engage a mostly disinterested, (and really busy), workforce into changing our behaviors not only for our own good, but for our wellness teams and our organizations.  Maybe it will.  The execs from Keas are claiming high and sustained levels of engagement from beta users of the platform, and Keas and other companies in the space have attracted some significant venture capital to build out and market their gaming/social/get off your butt and take a walk solutions.

I think it is an interesting and an area of workplace technology to keep and eye on, although I do worry a little about potential 'real' work ramifications or implications for someone perceived as letting down their wellness teammates in some kind of vegetable eating contest. 

What do you think - can these kind of games drive real and meaningful behavior change?

Making Data Come Alive

Yes, this is yet another 'sports' post. Kind of. Actually it is another in the occasional series of posts centered around innovative presentations of information -examples that highlight ways where a variety of organizations have managed to move beyond the expected and routine - 'Look, sales trends for the last 5 years in a bar chart!', to create interesting, engaging, and increasingly interactive tools that really transform both the data and the user experience. One of the best signs that a data presentation tool is effective is not just the initial reaction from users, but rather that the tool or technology makes users want to learn more, see more, and continue to engage with the solution.Patrick working the analytics

I came across such a solution this past weekend at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY. On Saturday the museum unveiled a brand new exhibit - One for the Books: Baseball Records and the Stories Behind Them. The new exhibit tells the story baseball's most cherished statistics and records through more than 200 artifacts in the most technologically advanced presentation in the Museum's history. 

Any fan, or casual observer of baseball knows that numbers, stats, records, etc. are as much a part of the game's history as the players themselves. Iconic records like Joe Dimaggio's 56 game hitting streak, Cy Young's 511 career pitching victories, and Ted Williams .406 batting average can be cited easily by baseball aficionados. Baseball is truly a numbers game - no other sport, (and few other businesses I bet), measure, track, analyze, and report statistical information about the games at the level of detail that major league baseball does.

But raw statistics, be they describing normal business or workforce data, or even the data produced by such a compelling an activity as baseball, can still fall flat, feel one-dimensional, and fail to completely tell the story buried in the figures if the presentation and interface for interaction with said data is mundane, fully expected, and one-way. Tools that not only present the raw numbers, but allow the user to not only choose the data they want to see, but to also experience the data and really engage with it are the future of information presentation.

Case in point the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum's new 'Top 10 Tower' interactive information display at the new 'One For the Books' exhibit. The Top 10 Tower, in true iPad-like fashion, is a touch activated series of screens and displays that allow the baseball fan to learn about some of the classic and lesser-known statistical history of the game.  By selecting variables such as Pitching or Batting, choosing specific focus areas to drill into, and using a cool 'timeline' slider to see how the results and records have moved over time, the Top10 Tower created a fully immersive and engaging interactive presentation of what are really 'just' numbers.

Make selections on the lower display of the tower, and the large video screens on the upper section automatically update, showing not only figures and images, but also allowing touch access to additional multi-media content about the record holder, of the timeframe the recored was established. The Top 10 tower also presents data in different dimensions, even ones not expressly requested by user, as the designers of the tool know that context matters in the review and analysis of baseball statistics, as it is likely equally important in the business and workforce metrics we produce and review all the time.

I know what you are saying, the Top 10 tower is really just a fancy way to present some simple lists, and it really is not a big deal, and certainly has no meaning to the business world that has to be concerned with 'real' data, not just batting averages.

Sure, keep telling yourself that. Your data is important, and baseball is just a game. 

Have any idea with the batting average of your hiring managers is? For this season? For all-time?

Apps for Everything - Notes from Lumesse Conference

This morning at the Lumesse Journey 2011 User Conference in Austin, Texas both Lumesse CEO Matt Parker, and CTO Martyn Arbon shared their observations around talent management, business software, and more directly their sense of the future of talent management technology.

In both presentations, Parker's that described the journey that has led to the current incarnation of Lumesse, (the company formerly known as Stepstone Solutions); and Arbon's, which provided more insight into current state and near-term Lumesse product roadmaps; both gentlemen described the increasing 'consumerization' of business technology, and the need for technologists, particularly in the HCM space, to effectively create and deploy flexible, easy to use solutions that will more and more resemble the look and feel of consumer-based applications. 

We have heard about this trend for some time now, certainly creators and developers of business applications have taken inspiration from popular and eminently usable consumer sites like Amazon.com and Ebay for years. But this approach has up to know been directed mainly about user interface improvements, attempts to streamline translational processes, and with the goal of improving HR organizational efficiency by driving more processes out to the employees and managers in the form of Employee Self-Service, (ESS) and Manager Self-Service, (MSS).

But the problem with ESS and MSS for many organizations is that many employees and managers really hated it. It forced employees and managers to use systems that they did not find all that friendly, following processes that were proscribed centrally and were not that flexible, and using systems that may have been in theory personalizable to some extent, but in practicality were often too difficult for the average employee and manager to use in anything other than their delivered, default configuration. ESS and MSS were kind of the like the old VCR machines in your parent's house, the time of day always blinking on 12:00.

So where this next generation of HCM solutions for core HR, for Recruiting, or for Talent Management process support has an opportunity to really become more transformational and leveraged more fully and effectively throughout organizations will likely be driven by how well suppliers of these technologies can adopt and adapt the latest 'consumerization' trends to the enterprise - apps, mobile support across platforms, and easily personalized.

As Martyn Arbon correctly noted in his talk this morning, no two people have the same exact set of applications loaded on their iPhones, even if said people perform the exact same role in the organization. Traditionally enterprises have deployed or made available to staff a general set of access controls and capabilities for systems and tools based on high-level, and fairly generic set of definitions. 

If you were a staff recruiter, or a purchasing agent, or an office manager, then you received the same set of tools and systems as the other staff recruiters, purchasing agents, or office managers. It did not really matter if you worked in a different style, a different location (perhaps remotely), had more or less appetite and expertise in technology, etc.  This 'role-based' access dominated, (and still dominates), most technology deployments. But what consumerization or 'appification' is doing is fundamentally changing employee's demands and expectations of what enterprise technology should and needs to support - the ability to tailor capability and functionality at a true personal level, i.e., just like their iPhones work.

The first wave of consumerization of business technology was mostly about user interface improvements and porting tools to the web, this next phase, at least for the companies that will be successful at it, is about delivering a much more personal, flexible, and truly individual experience.

The team at Lumesse spent a lot of time this morning showing that they have these ideas in the forefront of their strategy and thinking - which is certainly an encouraging sign for their customers.