Just Five out of a Thousand

Often we underestimate the power of a small change or the potential for a tight but empowered collection of individuals to effect significant change to a level far more enduring than their small numbers suggest, or for seemingly minor but well-positioned and targeted interventions to have massive impact.Look familiar?

Case in point - studies of traffic congestion on German expressways have determined that a modern, real-time, and networked traffic monitoring system, that feeds information from cars on the road to each other and back to a central traffic monitoring center, can successfully and meaningfully reduce congestion, waste, and the associated societal angst that comes from incessant traffic jams with as few as five cars out of a thousand actually connected to the network, and providing traffic and road condition information back to the base.

More details from the Fast Company article that described the study:

The project consists of automobile-mounted, Wi-Fi-enabled sensors, which relay traffic data from car to car until they reach a roadside base station that sends the info to a control center, where engineers can monitor traffic jams, accidents, and construction zones and mount responses in the form of radio alerts and text messages. The surprising discovery is that even when such an automotive web is loosely knit and full of holes, connecting as little as .5 percent of cars on the road, the information it provides can help traffic managers ease congestion, potentially saving hundreds of millions of dollars in fuel costs--not to mention reducing the stress and anxiety of drivers, whether their rides are Wi-Fi-enabled or not

It seems like a simple, yet powerful mix of ingredients - a problem everyone would agree needs to be attacked, the smart application of technology and brain power to address the issue, and a solution flexible enough to realize that it won't be feasible or practical to get even a majority of drivers on-board to successfully implement, much less every driver. To me, that is the key to the story - the potential to effect change and likely significant improvement for all the actors involved, (drivers, businesses, families, the environment), while only recruiting so-to-speak a tiny minority of the players that in theory are engaged and passionate about the problem to be solved. 

Other potential lessons to take from the 'Five out of a Thousand' story? How about to reinforce the idea that in any complex, multi-player system consisting of a collection of individual motivations, attitudes, capabilities, and desires that effecting change or even incremental improvements might not always require a kind of universal buy-in and commitment in order to succeed. I think sometimes we can get caught up in making sure that every new system or process improvement reaches all the far corners of the extended enterprise or ecosystem, and can often spend enormous time and energy 'selling' to a portion of our constituents that are never going to come on board, and quite possibly won't even impact the overall success or failure of the initiative all that much either way. Perhaps you can think about using the precepts of Social Network Analysis inside the organization to better focus change initiatives and more quickly determine the right 0.5% for your efforts to target?

Admittedly most organizational or societal transformation projects will need more than 0.5% participation to be connected and engaged, but certainly 100% participation is usually not needed (or even possible).  

The trick is of course, finding the right 'Five out of a Thousand' that will make your project or passion come to life.  It's too bad people are more complex and harder to read than cars on the expressway. 

Aren't they?

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?

When work is always within reach

Last week the iPass organization issued their Global Mobile Workforce Report, a review of trends and preferences in technology selection, usage, and attitudes amongst those workers that classify themselves as 'mobile' workers.  These workers, mostly telecommuters, report an increasingly 'connected to work' lifestyle, enabled by the ubiquity of smartphones, and buoyed by the growing influence of tablets, (mainly the iPad).

Some interesting statistics from the report:

• 41 percent of mobile workers have a tablet and an additional 34 percent of mobile workers intend to purchase a tablet in the next six months

• 87 percent of mobile workers that own tablets use their tablets for at least some work

• 43 percent of mobile workers store their smartphone within arm’s reach when they sleep at night. Those that do this are 60 percent more likely than average to wake during the night to check their smartphone

• 29 percent of mobile workers find that their mobile technology usage causes friction in their personal relationships, specifically with their significant other or spouse

And finally a statistic that is not at all surprising given the hyper-connected, check-my-smartphone-for-email-at-3:00AM and the bring-along-the-iPad-while-I-watch-little-Joey's-baseball-game kind of culture we seem to be evolving towards:

• The average mobile worker works 240 hours a year longer than the workforce in general.

Again, interesting findings, if not exactly earth-shattering. Seeing friends, family, or colleagues tethered to their smartphones and tablets in airports, in auto repair shop waiting rooms, at professional events, and even at social gatherings is becoming so commonplace that we often fail to even notice or to regard it as unusual. And as more organizations, enterprise technology providers, media outlets, and other traditional institutions move towards creating new and better mobile (in all it's many forms), solutions and productivity applications, the urge and compulsion to have the smartphone or tablet within reach at all times will only keep growing.

Certainly the incredible advances in mobile solutions from both a device and application standpoint have greatly benefited that component of the workforce that demands increased mobility, for reasons of job design, personal circumstances, or those that simple find they are more effective not being forced or compelled to report to an office or 'official' workplace every day. Smartphones, tablets, and even the simple and old-fashioned laptop, and the development of applications and mobile solutions to enable connected, virtual, and flexible arrangements are almost universally seen as an important and necessary evolution in workplace technology, and that open up opportunities for many workers that for various reasons the 'normal' workplace and the typical schedule just simply do not work.

But with the growth and capability of mobile workplace solutions, the further blurring of the lines between work and well, not working, and with more and more of us sleeping with our smartphones, waking up in the middle of the night to respond to the gentle but persistent 'ping' of our devices, and more solution providers making sure that our iPads will become just as effective as the common laptop or office computer, there is the risk that we will become increasingly unable to truly separate from work as we used to. 

In some ways I guess it is the natural evolution of the work/life balance discussions - we know that even when we go to work, personal issues, concerns, commitments, responsibilities, etc. - never really go away, they accompany us at least in the back of our minds throughout the day. But it used to be we could leave work, and more or less not worry about it much until the next morning. Now, with the smartphone placed on the nightstand, work reminds us that it never really went anywhere once we left for the day.

Long term - will this be a bad thing?  I tend to think the net benefits of increased flexibility and capability that the mobile revolution has enabled do compensate for and actually exceed the negaitive or dark side of the 24/7 connection to work. But time will tell if sneaking off a few emails during the 3rd grade dance recital will ultimately be harmful to workers, relationships, and even society as a whole.

Sorry need to run now...

Ping. Ping. Ping....

New Technology for Recruiting - on the HR Happy Hour tonight

Tonight at 8:00PM ET on Episode 99 of the HR Happy Hour show, (can you believe Episode 100 is just one short week away?), we will be joined by Ty Abernethy of Zuzuhire, and Craig Fisher the genius behind TalentNet Live and a million other cool things in the recruiting and technology space.

You can listen to the show from the show page here, using the listener call in number 646-378-1086, or using the widget player below:

Listen to internet radio with Steve Boese on Blog Talk Radio

At the recent HRevolution event in Atlanta, Craig led one of the most popular sessions about 'Cool New Tools for Recruiting', and Ty has actually created and operates one of those tools at Zuzuhire. If you had not had a chance before now to check out Zuzuhire, give it a look - it provides an innovative and fun way to create online interviews and applicant screening processes that can incorporate video and audio response, text, and simple multiple choice questions.

But beyond the 'cool factor' of these new tools, tonight we will also dig a little deeper as to how corporate recruiters and hiring managers can make better decisions around technology in the hiring process, and even how candidates can better prepare themselves and make the most effective presentations in this rapidly changing space.

After all, cool is only cool if it helps us hire better, faster, and more efficiently.

It should be a fun show and I hope you can join us live, and be sure to follow the backchannel on Twitter using the hashtag #HRHappyHour.