Whitespace: Do you measure up? Self-quantification at work

Issue 82: February 2012

Every footstep you take in week, each coffee consumed daily, the quality of last night's sleep, your mood at 3.45pm yesterday, the number of breaths inhaled on the walk to the office kitchen: useless information or valuable insight?

Advocates of the rapidly accelerating self-quantification trend believe this kind of data can make a big difference. They argue the measurement of our actions, habits and rituals has the potential to make people smarter, healthier and more productive.

Riding on the success of smart phone applications like the Nike+ app, self-quantification is reaching tipping point as a growing number of consumers embrace self-tracking software to change themselves for the better.

But this trend isn't confined to personal lives. Self-quantification is also emerging as a powerful workplace movement as employees look to smart phone based data crunching software as a means of boosting productivity.

A data driven approach to self-help

The self-quantification trend reflects the science maxim that you can't change what you cannot measure. Advocates argue the quantification of everyday actions reveals largely hidden patterns that can be altered to achieve personal goals.

Of course there is nothing new about recording outputs, both Benjamin Franklin and Andy Warhol were active quantifiers. What the new era of self-tracking brings to the table is a more convenient, largely automated way to measure performance.

According to this New York Times article, tiny sensors, ubiquitous smart phone use and cloud computing have combined to make the collection of self-quantification data much easier than entering figures into a spreadsheet.

While self-quantification tools that focus on fitness are currently receiving the most attention, tracking tools that build productivity, forecast workload and measure mood are all predicted make an impact in the year ahead.

Say goodbye to time wasters

Whether it's joke emails, social media or real estate sites, everyone has a secret vice with many workers remaining unaware of how much time these distractions actually waste. And that's where productivity apps claim to come to the rescue.

RescueTime is just one of many web-based programs that aim to highlight hidden time-wasters. This automated personal-analytics service reveals how a user spends their time and suggests tactics that can build the ability to stay focused.

Designed for professionals who want to improve their organisational skills, Rypple is a self-tracking app that works with the user to set goals. And to keep the process on track feedback on the achievement of goals is also provided.

The future fantastic

There are few constants in the world of business, a fact that makes it hard to predict how the working day will pan out. But what if knowledge workers were privy to data that revealed long-term trends about their working lives?

The identification of these trends is the promise of workload forecasting apps, programs that autonomously analyse data sets to predict busy periods in addition to identifying quieter times that lend themselves to 'big picture' thinking.

Other future focused programs help users understand and predict their moods with the gottaFeeling app asking its users how they are feeling throughout during the day. The analysis of this data is said to provide insight into a worker's stress triggers.

All in the mind

Many professionals are prone to ignore the relationship between lifestyle factors and work performance. When it comes to diet and exercise, sometimes it takes a set of numbers to highlight the negative (or positive) impact of daily habits.

Not surprisingly, self-quantification apps are making a big impact in the health and well-being space. The Jawbone UP device is currently receiving a lot of media attention thanks to its ability to trace the relationship between sleep patterns and work outputs.

Other apps focus on a "feel good" factor. To highlight the goodwill that spreads through a company as a result of CSR initiatives, Wattzon helps professionals track and reduce their work-related CO2 emissions.

Do we really need to self-track?

Many will perceive self-quantification as the latest techno-fad. However these tools have emerged for a very good reason: most people have a poor sense of time. A realisation that is often only achieved when data on time use is made evident.

Some professionals will be put off by security concerns about sharing personal data and the possibility exists that being too wrapped up in measuring personal actions may be counterproductive, a form of data-driven navel gazing.

But like it or not the era of big data has arrived. And there can be little doubt self-quantification tools that help navigate this flood of information will be part of every self-aware manager's future to some degree.

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The Australian Institute of Management's Whitespace discusses emerging business trends, and represents a 'space to think of the future'. Register now to have this monthly feature emailed to you.