Podcasts about Humanyze

Summary:Ben Weber is the President and Co-founder of Humanyze. Ben is particularly passionate about the power of behavioral data and analytics and its ability to improve organizations and how people work in general. He has been featured in Wired, CNN, and The New York Times, among other outlets, and his work was selected for Harvard Business Review's List of Breakthrough Ideas and Technology Review's Top 10 Emerging Technologies. In this episode, Ben talks about collaboration data, AI, and expertise. Chapters:[0:00 -5:32] Introduction•Welcome, Ben!•Today's Topic: Collaboration Data, AI, and Expertise[5:33 -15:37] What is collaboration data and why does it matter?•Understanding how people communication and work together•Striving for complete data sets vs “good enough” data sets[15:38 -29:38] Adaptive statistics (i.e., AI) and its role in data analysis•How developments in technology have allowed us too find correlations within massive data sets•Are we holding onto unrealistic expectations for AI?[29:39 -39:55] How does expertise impact people analytics inside of an organization?•Unlearning that it's best practice to copy success•Using hypothesis backed by data to improve an organization[39:56 -42:47] Final Thoughts & Closing•Professional ethics' role in people analytics•Thanks for listening!Quotes:“When companies look at things like collaboration technologies that are purpose built for very specific applications, [they] better understand the implications of that for how people work, because even if it makes a particular team's task more efficient—if it detracts from the coordination and collaboration that has to happen across teams, it may be negative.”“I like to call [AI] ‘adaptive statistics' because that's what it is—these things are correlation engines, and what makes them more productive is lots of data. So why suddenly have things been able to get a lot more predictive or [why] can we [generate images] with these algorithms much better than we could in the past? It's not because the algorithms themselves are different, [it's because] now we can literally mine every single piece of text on the internet.”Contact:Ben's LinkedInDavid's LinkedInDwight's LinkedInProduction by Affogato MediaPodcast Manger: Karissa Harris

Ben Waber, Ph.D., is the President and co-founder of Humanyze. He is a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab, previously worked as a senior researcher at Harvard Business School, and received his Ph.D. from MIT for his work with Alex “Sandy” Pentland's Human Dynamics group. Waber's work has been featured in major media outlets such as Wired, The Economist, and NPR. He has consulted for industry leaders such as LG, McKinsey & Company, and Gartner on technology trends, social networks, and organizational design. His book, People Analytics, was published by the Financial Times Press in 2013.At Humanyze, we believe that a company's greatest assets are its people and how they collaborate (and have the data to prove it!).Born in MIT's Media Lab, we are redefining the future of work through science-backed analytics and data-driven insights that help companies make continuous workplace improvements that benefit both employees and the business.With a global presence spanning the Americas, Europe, and Asia, our mission is to help leading companies around the world unlock their organization's full potential with workplace analytics. https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminwaber/https://twitter.com/bwaberhttps://humanyze.com/Rebel HR is a podcast for HR professionals and leaders of people who are ready to make some disruption in the world of work.We'll be discussing topics that are disruptive to the world of work and talk about new and different ways to approach solving those problems.Follow Rebel HR Podcast at:www.rebelhumanresources.comhttps://twitter.com/rebelhrguyhttps://www.facebook.com/rebelhrpodcastwww.kyleroed.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-roed/Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched! Start for FREEDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

On today's show and the theme of The CRO Series we will be discussing topics like; Cx, GTM, Functional Alignment, Metrics that Matter, Pipeline / Forecasting, Digital Strategies, Digital Transformation and today it's all about RevOps. Again, we promise to give you actionable insights from our guests who are tenured and experienced CRO's who come from high growth SaaS companies. Today we welcome Gregg Carman, CRO at Nuvolo, previously CRO at Humanyze, Senior Vice President at Mattersight and CRO at Kaleo Software. He brings with him a wealth of experience where he grows revenue by 3X and doubles his team size. We kick off by asking Gregg to share his journey with us and what has led him to where he is today? Technology for nearly 30 years Started as developer Siebel Systems Moved on to management for 10 years We ask Gregg how much of that is down to product market fit, the execution piece, what do those categories look like in his world? Starts with people and the team Hiring people who are highly competent Shared values Follows the same north star Collaborative, listening first Quantitative and qualitative Next we ask Gregg, what is your sales motion, is it enterprise, partner led etc? All of the above Partner ecosystem Strategic advisory group Consultants and specialists Technology alliances Distribution strategy We ask Gregg, what informs the GTM planning piece and how do you decide which markets to go after? 8 years into the journey US public sector US and Canadian health care markets Recurring value for your customers High velocity business The value piece In terms of revenue planning, we ask Gregg to share his insights. What has the journey been Bottoms up approach Are you underinvesting Lastly we ask Gregg, what he feels is his super power? Finding highly talented people --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gloabl-tech-leaders/message

Measuring informal interactions can improve the chances of a major project's success. Ben Waber, CEO and co-founder of Humanyze, stresses the importance of these hidden social levers and networks within your teams to facilitate better communication. He points out that organizations can improve workplace performance with the right employee analytics tools.  In this episode, he shares stories from his book, People Analytics. Learn how managers and human resources teams can use network metrics to look at the big picture, identify communication gaps, and improve teamwork. Episode Quotes:What is a big, fundamental change happening in the workplace that helps companies understand their teams better?The bulk of how work happens is, that these more informal networks, these collaboration patterns, and these changes. And that not just in the digital world, but also the physical world with more sensors, with other things that can help us understand face-to-face interaction. We can just understand at an unprecedented level of detail what's going on. What that means is not just that we have a better idea about what's happening, but that we can also start to test the decisions we make. And we can, of course, ideally make better decisions. But we're still, I'd say, very much in the early phases of that, where there's still just this only growing awareness that this is possible.How can companies use people analytics to bring real value to organizations and management science?So, imagine a factory floor because people bring that up: ‘Hey, that's a quantified environment. It should matter how you spend time'. And it does. But now imagine that you're a factory floor worker and that I want you to produce ten widgets an hour. Now, maybe you figured out a better way to produce those widgets so that you can do 11 widgets an hour. Now, if you spent an hour of your day helping your coworkers learn that new method, your individual performance will go down, right? So, you would go to nine. And so, a dumb algorithm, which lots of companies are doing this exact thing, would say, ‘Hey, your productivity is down, you're fired.' Versus what they care about. What do they care about? Well, actually spending that hour dramatically improves the performance of everybody at the company. So, you want that. And this is why I really think that this individual focus of a lot of these technologies are fundamentally misguided. Because really, the value of organizations, again, its people coming together to do things they couldn't do themselves.Why is it important to consider duration of data gathering and qualitative, and subjective analysis when reviewing team performance?It's that these numbers alone certainly help focus your attention on things, but you're invariably not going to get the whole picture even understanding this real, massive depth of insight into how work is happening. What you can do now, is say, ‘hey, here's some team that is super overworked.' Or, then again, we talk about the remote work environment today. These are the teams that appear to be most impacted in terms of how they collaborate. But it doesn't tell you why those are happening. And so, that's where the subjective, qualitative side comes in and says, okay well, it turns out that we've got some huge supply chain issues. So, this team is doing something super differently than they were before. It totally makes sense. This team, it actually is concerning because they should be doing the same thing. No algorithm is ever going to figure that out.Time Code Guide:00:01:25 The big fundamental change happening in the workplace that helps companies understand their teams better00:05:25 How did data capture in social science changed and how did this flow back to management science?00:10:46 Using sports team that use analytics to extract the best performance from a team00:13:03 How the pandemic help advanced the data-driven model in improving work00:15:22 How science networks helped us to rethink how people work00:20:12 The importance of cohesion in the context of network00:24:34 Understanding how density of interaction affects the depth of the network connection00:29:36 Will aggregating enough data on software and development enable large companies to spot the network patterns predictive of bugs or defect downstream?00:32:42 How do walls and cubicles affect how we work00:34:47 Virtual happy hours and new creative ways to promote nonwork interactions00:36:45 The challenges of remote work00:41:47 Infectious disease models as model of transmission of ideas and information00:49:07 Measuring the impact of specialists and generalists in terms of breaking silos00:54:20 How can the HR team rethink its role in terms of facilitating optimal information flow in the organization00:59:12 The configuration of physical space and how it's shaping information flowShow Links:Guest Profile:Profile at Stern SpeakersProfile at M.I.T.Ben Waber on LinkedInBen Waber on TwitterHis Work:Humanyze Official WebsiteArticles on Work Design MagazinePeople Analytics: How Social Sensing Technology Will Transform Business and What It Tells Us about the Future of Work

Ben Waber is the president and co-founder of Humanyze, a workplace analytics company based out of Boston. Born out of the MIT Media Lab, the company's goal is to help business leaders improve organizational effectiveness. The company analyzes workplace interactions (over 20 billion interactions, to be exact) to see company-wide trends around how work gets done in order to inform and improve management decisions that positively impact financial performance and the employee experience. Specifically, one of the core focuses of their analysis is the impact of working from home on the workplace, HR, and digital transformation initiatives and how those affect organizational health. Ben discusses the impact of remote work on organizations across the globe, best practices, and thoughts to consider when returning to work, and the power of data to inform business decisions. About Humanyze Founded in 2011, Humanyze is a world leader in understanding team dynamics and work patterns. With over 10 years of research into organization network analysis and behavioral science, led by leaders in the world of social physics and graduates of the MIT Media Lab, they help companies understand how work gets done. Humanyze counts with a global presence spanning the US, Europe, and Asia, and are on a mission to improve the future of work.

Ben Waber, Co-Founder and President of Humanyze, discusses the impact of the pandemic on employees, sentiment around returning to the office, and adapting to the new hybrid work model.

Q&A with Ben Waber, President and Co-Founder of Humanyze. Listen more to understand how data analytics, AI and other technology allows users to get a better handle on the workplace.

For this episode, I invited Gregg Carman, Chief Revenue Officer at Humanyze. When he first joined this group of MIT scientists, Gregg was tasked with building a customer-facing team from the ground up. He shares with me his method of leadership, emphasizing the importance of balance and sincerity in the workplace, how to find the right team members to hire, and how to coach them with an equal pairing of criticism and opportunity. To help build and manage his team, Gregg uses the metaphor that everyone is playing a part in a movie -- even with individual roles, everyone is reading from the same script. With this style of teamwork and a leader who is present in the coaching box, there is little that can go wrong. If you’re wanting to reach out to Gregg Carman, or join his team as VP of Sales or VP of Product, you can reach him at gregg@humanyze.com or jobs@humanyze.com. Over Quota is also sponsored by the j. David Group, a software sales recruiting firm. If you're looking to hire a sales leader or individual contributor, click here. to schedule a call. On the other hand, if you're an overachieving sales leader or sales rep, click here to discuss potential opportunities that would be a good fit for you

Ben Waber, PhD, is the president and co-founder of Humanyze, a workplace analytics company. The Humanyze AI platform and one of a kind Humanyze Organizational Health Score provide the world’s most comprehensive objective measurement of the workday and the group collaboration behaviors that lead to an effective and healthy organization. Our SaaS-based analytics, benchmarks, and indicators are used by enterprises to inform and accelerate their Operational, HR, Workplace, and Digital Transformation initiatives. He is a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab, previously worked as a senior researcher at Harvard Business School, and received his Ph.D. in organizational science from MIT for his work with Alex “Sandy” Pentland’s Human Dynamics group. Waber’s work has been featured in major media outlets such as HBR, Wired, The Economist, and NPR. He has consulted for industry leaders such as LG, McKinsey & Company, and Gartner on technology trends, social networks, and organizational design. His book, People Analytics, was published by the Financial Times Press in 2013.

Subscribe to the newsletterToday's interviewees: Bhushan Sethi leads PwC's workplace strategy business and Ben Waber is the CEO of workplace analytics firm, Humanyze.Read the Humanyze research about the way work has changed since lockdown. Here's the previous episode I recorded with Ben Waber. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ben Waber, Ph.D. President and Co-Founder of Humanyze defines organizational health and describes why it is so important for leadership development. He also shares some of the analytics and methods he uses to understand how work “gets done” and why those insights are critical for team development and leadership. Finally, Dr. Waber shares the key takeaways you will learn from his keynote presentation at HCI's Learning and Leadership Development Conference, from September 21-22, 2020. Register for the conference today: https://www.hci.org/2020LLD

Joanna really misses her office. Taking Zoom calls from the kitchen in her dimly lit Brooklyn apartment doesn’t compare to her bright, open office filled with friendly coworkers. In this episode of How To!, Ben Waber, an organizational scientist, co-founder of Humanyze, and author of People Analytics, tells us how to use our home office to our advantage. It’s easy to spend all day chained to your computer, but Ben says we need to find ways to take breaks and foster human interaction. After all, chats around the water cooler—or virtual coffee dates—actually boost productivity. And if you’re Joanna, a midday bath might be where you come up with your best ideas. What are your toughest challenges during the pandemic? And what have you found is working for you? Leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001. We’re collecting your problems and solutions for our recurring Quarantine Q&A. Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts and bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence. Sign up now to listen and support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joanna really misses her office. Taking Zoom calls from the kitchen in her dimly lit Brooklyn apartment doesn’t compare to her bright, open office filled with friendly coworkers. In this episode of How To!, Ben Waber, an organizational scientist, co-founder of Humanyze, and author of People Analytics, tells us how to use our home office to our advantage. It’s easy to spend all day chained to your computer, but Ben says we need to find ways to take breaks and foster human interaction. After all, chats around the water cooler—or virtual coffee dates—actually boost productivity. And if you’re Joanna, a midday bath might be where you come up with your best ideas. What are your toughest challenges during the pandemic? And what have you found is working for you? Leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001. We’re collecting your problems and solutions for our recurring Quarantine Q&A. Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts and bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence. Sign up now to listen and support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ellen Nussbaum is the Chief Executive Officer at Humanyze. Previously, she was the Senior Vice President of Services and Customer Success at Veracode; she also led consulting and technical teams at software firms including Fidelity Information Services, ProfitLogic, and Oracle. Ellen holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and serves on the Board of Advisors of WGBH, a leader in public broadcasting and content creation.

Ethan Bernstein, associate professor at Harvard Business School, studied how coworkers interacted before and after their company moved to an open office plan. The research shows why open workspaces often fail to foster the collaboration they’re designed for. Workers get good at shutting others out and their interactions can even decline. Bernstein explains how companies can conduct experiments to learn how to achieve the productive interactions they want. With Ben Waber of Humanyze, Bernstein wrote the HBR article "The Truth About Open Offices."

An innovative leader in the field of people analytics, Ben Waber discusses the creative ways companies can unleash the full potential of their employees. Through data, companies can devise new management techniques, adjust the physical environment, and even re-design the employee experience to improve performance at all levels. Companies already have mountains of data available to them through ID badge scans, emails, meeting assignments and much more. Driven by a passion to help companies interpret this data, Ben Waber has created a company that uses AI to simplify the numbers and help leaders make better decisions.In this interview, Ben talks about the creative environment at MIT. He explains how analytics can be used to inform company-wide decisions, understand how teams are working together, and improve individual career development. Ben also describes how the data can help us better understand bias and influence decision making. Finally, Ben talks about the future implementation of the technology and the ethical questions it may raise about employee and user privacy.Ben Waber is President and Co-Founder of Humanyze, a behavior analytics company. For over 15 years, Ben has studied, researched, and implemented new technology to better understand human behavior.

En este capítulo, el tema central es la igualdad salarial. La noticia laboral del Perú se relaciona a la publicación de los acuerdos del VIII Pleno Jurisdiccional Supremo en Materia Laboral y Previsional. La noticia laboral del extranjero se relaciona al debate en torno al uso de los badges elaborados por la empresa Humanyze para monitorear la actividad de los trabajadores durante su jornada laboral. Los links a las noticias comentadas podrás encontrarlos en el blog de Miranda & Amado (https://mafirma.pe/blog/). No te olvides de revisar nuestro informativo laboral para que estés actualizado con los últimos cambios normativos y criterios jurisprudenciales. ¡Gracias por escucharnos!

The idea of universal learning aims to transform the future of education in order for each student to be totally ready for their role in the industry. But how ready are we to reinvent education? Phil Komarny, Vice President of Innovation at Salesforce.com, has been known to lead innovation and transformational applications of technology at each level. He talks about future of education through Chainscript. More than having the right data to support an analysis, getting data real time will be advantageous in many ways. We know for a fact that wearable technologies have been around to track and provide real time data. Dr. Ben Waber, President and CEO of Humanyze, is an expert in people analytics, collaboration, and wearable technology. He talks about sensor data and walks us through the benefits of this technology, particularly in the workplace, and how it provides data with an unprecedented level of accuracy in order for companies to see what’s going on internally. Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here’s How »Join the Take The Lead community today:DrDianeHamilton.comDr. Diane Hamilton FacebookDr. Diane Hamilton TwitterDr. Diane Hamilton LinkedInDr. Diane Hamilton YouTubeDr. Diane Hamilton Instagram

In this episode: What new kinds of sensor data can tell us about the merits of open offices and remote work. Do open offices foster more collaboration, or just more frustration? Should managers encourage employees to telecommute, or is a scattered workforce less cohesive? The conventional wisdom on these issues swings like a pendulum, and for managers the only constant seems to be anxiety that they’re not getting it right. But new technology may offer some real answers. Ben Waber, a former MIT Media Lab doctoral student, is president and CEO of Humanyze, a Boston startup making software and sensors that give companies a better picture of how people actually work. He says the data the company gathers can predict employee performance and fuel a new form of “people analytics.” This episode is sponsored by Citrix, the company powering the digital transformation inside organizations of all sizes. In the second half of the show, Citrix's chief security strategist Kurt Roemer says technology can help sustain work environments and policies that serve workers of all backgrounds and needs. Business Lab is hosted by Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau, the CEO and publisher of MIT Technology Review. The show is produced by Wade Roush, with editorial help from Mindy Blodgett. Music by Merlean, from Epidemic Sound.

Det har vært en rolig start på året og etter en nesten tre ukers pause er vi tilbake igjen. I helgen som var hadde UFC sitt først ESPN event, og vi fikk sett T.J Dilleshaw vs. Henry Cejudo i en superfight mellom to champs...som varte i 30 sekunder. Men vi catcher up litt, small-talker om Humanyze, horse blinders for mennesker, og fasting. - Catch up om ting har skjedd siden nyåret og snakker om castene våre fremover - UFCs nye champ (Power Ranger) belte - Conor McGregor vil ha et stykke av Tenshin Nasukawa - Nye announced fights - Rockhold flytter opp til 205 - Deontay Wilder vs Tyson Fury Rematch Vi går selvsagt gjennom fightsene som har vært denne helgen samt alt fluffet rundt.   Get in touch! @fightnightoslo fightnightoslo@gmail.com

Today’s digital technology has the power to influence our behaviour on a global scale, for better and for worse. And with financial rewards often disrupted by the need for other workplace values, such as flexibility, it’s in an employer’s best interest to ensure its digital workplace is ticking all the right ethical boxes. But what does an “ethical” digital workplace look like? Join us as we discuss who’s got it right and who’s got it wrong, trust, user centricity and striking a balance. Show notes, links and resources for this episode: Cennydd Bowles: https://www.cennydd.com Digital Workplace Wellbeing: http://www.digitalworkplacewellbeing.com Future Ethics”, by Cennydd Bowles: https://www.future-ethics.com “Your workplace is watching you!”, Digital Workplace Impact episode featuring Humanyze: https://digitalworkplacegroup.com/dwg_podcast/workplace-watching-you

Welcome to another episode of The Future of Work Podcast. With this week being a holiday week in the States, the format for this episode is a little bit different. Instead of the usual format where I interview one guest every episode, for this week’s episode we are going to hear clips from multiple past guests on the topic of Big Data and Analytics. You will hear from the Chief Learning Officer at SAP, the CTO of Dell EMC’s Services in their Big Data Practice, the Global Head of People Analytics at PayPal, the President and CEO of Humanyze and others today. I get a lot of questions about this topic, so I hope that this episode is helpful, interesting and motivating and I hope it will inspire you to think about how you can leverage these concepts and ideas inside of your organization.   What You Will Learn In This Episode: How to define Big Data How to start using People Analytics in your organization How companies like Humanyze use sensors to gather data in real time and how companies leverage that data Important tips, tricks and advice on how to use the data you gather How to use data and analytics to track retention and attrition

Why are we being watched more and more by technology, including in the workplace? Is it an aid to hard work, or prelude to oppression? Wiretap co-founder Jeff Schumann creates software that monitors employee activity on workplace messaging apps. He says his technology is good, and can protect employees from backstabbing co-workers.But to many, this technology has sinister potential. Professor Andre Spicer at Cass Business School in London says it is a reminder for employees of who is boss.Ben Waber, president of a firm called Humanyze, tells presenter Ed Butler it has huge potential when it comes to spotting the previously unknown patterns of good productivity. Even having bigger lunch tables in the office canteen can increase output, as workers have more opportunity to chat and share ideas, he says.(Photo: Giant surveillance desk with monitors. Credit: Getty Images)

If someone told you that his company was all about “people analytics,” would you understand what that meant? How about if he added: “Sort of like *Moneyball* for business”? Bet that would make things crystal clear--at least for the multitude of baseball and/or Brad Pitt and/or Michael Lewis fans out there! That is, in fact, how Humanyze's CEO, Ben Waber, described his firm to Continuum SVP Kevin Young, in the most recent installment of *The Resonance Test.* In a sprightly digital dialogue, the two talk through such topics as: the use of data in the modern work environment, how privacy functions in Humanyze's work, and why the U.S. should look into adopting EU privacy standards. If you want to a glimpse into the future of the work place, you should pay attention to this podcast, and note when Waber says: • “You don't care what Bob's doing at 2:30 on Tuesday. No one cares. What you care about is: ‘What's our most productive team do differently that everybody else? How much does management talk to the sales team?' Those really big questions. That's what we care about.” • “Humans, by our very nature, we're not recording devices. We're also incredibly inaccurate when I even ask you questions about these things. *Who'd you talk to yesterday?* Only about 30% accurate.” • “Essentially our customers use our technology to inject *real* intelligence into all their different people decisions.” • “We give people consent forms, that show them the actual database tables we collect. That's a legal contract between us and our users. That's important especially in the U.S., to give people legal guarantees around what their rights are with the data.” • “Because our technology enables you to literally, at a millisecond level, understand what's going on, you can act that much more quickly.” • “Just figuring out where somebody is at any given time is not that hard. And you can see how that can be abused—which is why having regulations out in front of that is really critical.” • “Our average opt-in rate is over 93%, so we've gotten quite good at rolling this out. But... you have to take your time, and you have to be *transparent* about what you're doing with this data.” Host: Pete Chapin Editor: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

Dr. Ben Waber is the CEO and co-founder of Humanyze. He is a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab, previously worked as a senior researcher at Harvard Business School, and received his Ph.D. from MIT for his work with Alex “Sandy” Pentland’s Human Dynamics group. Waber’s work has been featured in major media outlets such as Wired, The Economist, and NPR. He has consulted for industry leaders such as LG, McKinsey & Company, and Gartner on technology trends, social networks, and organizational design. His book, People Analytics, was published by the Financial Times Press in 2013.

Paul Miller speaks to Gregg Carman, Executive VP of Global Commercial Operations at Humanyze about how they are helping their clients to replace performance reviews and employee surveys with “people analytics” to make their organizations more productive and profitable, along with improving the experience for employees. Your workplace is watching you but with the objective of creating a more engaging and satisfying place in which to work. Follow the conversation as Paul and Gregg discuss AI and the science behind the analytics; how Humanyze’s thinking has developed over time; and the ever-sensitive subject of respecting employee privacy. Show notes, links and resources for this episode: “Digital workplace integration: Key approaches to drive benefits”: free report by the Digital Workplace Group – https://digitalworkplacegroup.com/resources/download-reports/digital-workplace-integration-key-approaches-drive-benefits “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow” by Yuval Noah Harari – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Homo-Deus-Brief-History-Tomorrow/dp/1910701874 Digital Workplace Impact: How NASA explores digital space in the 21st Century (with David Meza) – https://digitalworkplacegroup.com/dwg_podcast/nasa-digital-space-21st-century

Ben Waber is the CEO of Humanyze, a firm that spun pioneering work from MIT into the world's leading people analytics business. Their technology can track how your office is working. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Is the future of HR, IT and FM at the mercy of people data analytics? This episode Ian speaks with Ben Waber, ex of MIT and CEO of Humanyze about their IoT-enabled ‘Moneyball for business’ approach… essential listening. Huge thanks to the British Institute of Facilities Management for allowing Ian to interview Ben before his ThinkFM keynote in June. Enjoy!

Discover powerful hidden social "levers" and networks within your company. Then, use that knowledge to make slight "tweaks" that dramatically improve both business performance and employee fulfillment! Drawing on insights from his book, People Analytics, MIT Media Lab innovator Ben Waber shows how sensors and analytics can give you an unprecedented understanding of how your people work and collaborate, and actionable insights for building a more effective, productive, and positive organization. Ben Waber, President and CEO, Humanyze; Visiting Scientist, MIT Media Lab  

In this podcast we take a look back on some of the interviews I did in 2016 and listen to some of the past guests talk about key issues they feel are shaping the workplace of the future. In 2016 I had a lot of great conversations with a wide variety of senior leaders. Last week I took a look back on the 2016 podcast interviews and discussed six lessons I learned from my guests last year. This week I wanted to let the guests speak for themselves, so I gathered up some highlight clips from last year’s podcast interviews and put them into one podcast mashup.The subjects range from how innovation is changing to automation and AI to the six reasons why we work. The first interview I looked back on was the one with Jeff Wong, the Global Chief Innovation Officer at EY. In our discussion we talked about innovation during a disruptive era and one of the main points was about how innovation is changing. Wong said he believes that innovation is changing a lot and it is really driving companies to think about themselves differently. Companies are now forced to pay attention to things like training, environmental and community impact and inclusive capitalism in order to be successful. Wong says companies need to think about whether they are “training a workforce for the future, or are you training a workforce to do the function of today”. He believes that his job as a Chief Innovation Officer requires him to “do old things in new ways”. One of the fascinating topics I touched on with a few guests last year, was the subject of People Analytics and how it is revolutionizing the way we think about employee experience. Ben Waber, the President and CEO of Humanyze, talked to me about what makes up people analytics. He said that while survey data is useful, “it is not data about behavior, it is data about perception”. Because you cannot survey people every single day, you lose the ability to accurately get a picture of the day to day workings of your office. With People Analytics you are able to get real world data in real time which allows you to fix issues as you go instead of waiting for the end of the year. Ellyn Shook, the Chief Leadership & Human Resources Officer at Accenture, talked about the problem with annual employee reviews which points to why the topic of people analytics is so important for the success of a company. She says the problem with annual reviews is just that; they are only done once a year. She says “very little works in annual cycles anymore”. We are a society that is used to immediate feedback, so telling employees to wait a year to see how they are doing at work is not realistic. Shook says that her company realized that they were putting a lot of time and effort into their annual reviews, but they were receiving very little value from them because they “spent too much time talking about their people, instead of talking to the people”. In order to get the best results you need “forward looking, real time and on demand” data and feedback for your employees. Employee experience was another hot topic I discussed with several guests last year. Some of the guests who touched on the subject were Monika Fahlbusch, the Chief Employee Experience Officer at BMC Software, Francine Katsoudas, the Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer at Cisco and Karyn Twaronite, the Global Diversity & Inclusiveness Officer at EY. In our discussions we defined what employee experience is, how large companies are able to scale employee experience across a wide range of languages, locations and cultures, and the importance of focusing on diversity and inclusiveness. Fahlbusch says that to create employee experience you first must listen to your employees. Your employees will help you find the overarching problems, or “pain points” if you learn how to listen to them. You also need to look at your individual company and figure out what experiences you should be focusing on. To do that you need to understand things about your company such as what are your values, what are you trying to celebrate, where are you trying to go in the future? Katsoudas talked about scaling employee experience across hundreds of countries and thousands of employees. She says Cisco’s belief is “one size fits one”, meaning they understand that the ideal employee experience in India will not be the same as that in England or the US and that’s okay. Twaronite gave an example of why it is so important for senior leaders of companies to not just list out the available benefits for employees, but they should also be role models who walk the walk. She shared a story about the EY Chairman and CEO, who was giving the keynote for a company wide event, and during his speech he apologized to everyone and explained that he would be leaving the event early in order to honor a commitment he made to his daughter. In doing this he was transparent, authentic and helped employees feel that the work flexibility benefit was not just a bunch of empty words. One subject that I am always fascinated with is technology dealing with robots, AI and automation. Three guests I spoke with who got into this topic of discussion were Robin Hanson, Thomas Davenport and Mihir Shukla. Robin Hanson, who is the author of “The Age of Em”, the Associate professor of Economics at George Mason University and the Research Associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University, spoke about the extremely futuristic topic of what an Em is. Hanson discusses the fact that there are two different scenarios that could happen to get us to a point where we have robots that are as smart as humans. One way would be to “slowly write and accumulate better software on faster and cheaper machines”. This is what we are doing now and if we continued on this path it would take several centuries to reach this point. Another way would be to port the “software” from our brains into an Em. If we find a way to do this, the Em age could happen within one century. Thomas Davenport talks about how there are two camps of people today, those who are opposed to the move towards automation and those who are embracing it. The people who are opposed are scared about the implications of automating jobs. They feel that this shift in our economy will create chaos and wipe out jobs for humans. The camp of people who are embracing it feel that automating certain jobs could be a good thing and that we will always find a way to create new jobs for humans. Davenport believes that reality is somewhere in between the two camps. Mihir Shukla talks about how software bots can complete mundane tasks, and also tackle more complicated problems as well. Many employers want their workers to complete today’s problems while thinking about tomorrow’s challenges using yesterdays technologies and approaches. Processing invoices, verifying documents, generating reports, data entry, and other mundane tasks still need to be completed, but by humans or bots? Introducing mundane and complex tasks to the digital workforce allows the human employees to think, create, discover, and innovate; basically doing things that humans do best. Other subjects that are touched on in this episode include recruiting millennials, whether or not open workspaces are the next best thing, how to identify a Superboss, the six reasons why we work, how to drive behavior change and entrepreneurs vs. freelancers. Looking back at the guests from this last year it is easy to see that there are a lot of changes happening in the workplace and I am excited to see where we go from here. I am working on lining up a great list of podcast guests for this year, so be sure to stay tuned and keep listening to the weekly future of work podcast!   (Music by Ronald Jenkees)

Join me as I take a look back on six lessons I’ve learned about the future of work from my podcast guests over the last year.   We are moving into a new year and I am excited to see what podcast guests we will have and the things we will learn about the future of work. I wanted to take a moment to look back over the 53 published podcasts of 2016 to discuss six lessons I learned from my guests this past year.  The first lesson I learned in 2016 is that we should be thinking of our organizations more like a laboratory and less like a factory. Over the past year I have had some great guests including the Chief HR Officer of Accenture, the Chief Innovation Officer at EY, and the President and CEO of Humanyze and all of my guests have been very honest in saying they don’t know everything. They understand that in order to be successful they have to treat their organizations like laboratories where they allow for testing, exploring, adaptation and innovation. They also embrace failure in order to learn from their mistakes.   The second lesson I learned from my guests is that the future of work doesn’t happen to you or to your organization, it happens because of you or because of your organization. We need to understand that the future of work is not its own entity that we cannot control, it is something that we collectively create. We design it, build it, manifest it and implement it. Our organizations need to play a more active role in the future of work.   The third lesson learned this year is that there are big changes happening to the employee/employer relationship. The relationship has to evolve with the growth of the gig economy, more flexible work arrangements and the changing demographics in the workplace. Employers have to be aware of the changes in the workforce and they must adapt accordingly. It is also vital for employers to understand their organization and their people when making changes instead of blindly copying what other organizations are doing.   Lesson number four is that technology seems to be taking centerstage. Technology is affecting everyone across the board--human resources, management, sales, IT, etc… We are seeing things like virtual reality, people analytics, AI and automation, collaboration tools and wearable devices. It is important to mention, though, that technology is just a vehicle. Just because you have technology does not mean you will necessarily achieve anything. You have to know what technology will work for your company and how to best implement it. This also ties into lesson number one, treating your organization like a laboratory and allowing things to be tested.   The fifth lesson deals with employee experience vs. employee engagement.  We have seen a huge growth in companies paying attention to employee engagement. Never before have we seen such an investment into employee engagement. The problem is, never before have we seen employee engagement levels so low. This stems from the fact that people do not realize that employee engagement is the effect, but we are not paying enough attention to the cause. The cause of employee engagement is employee experience. Employee experience has three basic elements that go into it; cultural environment, technological environment and physical environment. By investing in these three environments companies can create a better employee experience, which will in turn, create better employee engagement. And the foundation of employee experience is people analytics.   The final lesson I am going to touch on is that organizations seem to have a cautious optimism about the future of work. There has been a lot of talk about AI replacing jobs, political challenges, issues with globalization, etc…Basically, there is a lot of doom and gloom out there when talking about the future. But there is hope in the cautious optimism that I have seen among my 2016 guests. Most of them have expressed a desire to proceed into the future believing in positive outcomes while still preparing for challenges. Taking AI and automation for example, a lot of my guests believe that more jobs will be created than destroyed. They are, however, taking precautions such as retraining and educating their workforce in order to equip them with new skills that will help them stay relevant in this changing world.   Overall this has been a very insightful year for the future of work podcast. I had so many great guests and we touched on a lot of vitally important topics. I truly hope that you all learned a lot along the way as well. I look forward to sharing more of my conversations with senior level leaders as we discuss the future of work.     (Music by Ronald Jenkees)

Ben Waber is the Founder and CEO of Humanyze, a people analytics company. He is also the author of a book titled, People Analytics: How Social Sensing Technology Will Transform Business and What it Tells Us About the Future of Work.   People analytics is a truly fascinating and exciting field that is changing the way companies test and analyze their employees, and ultimately how effectively the company is operating. Unlike the techniques that have been used in the past, such as annual surveys or polls, people analytics uses behavioral data that is collected directly from the employees in order to get a broader look at the day to day activities of a company. Ben Waber defines people analytics as “using data about what people do at work to change how a company is managed”.   Humanyze is a social sensing and analytics platform that uses sensors in employee ID badges to measure important behavioral data such as where people are in the office at any given time and the volume and speed of an employee’s voice when talking with a coworker. Gathering these types of behaviors allows companies to get a bigger picture of the ins and outs of their company and the performance and patterns of employees. It can help find issues such as causes of stress in the workplace or the mishandling of how people are rewarded. People analytics can help companies answer basic questions such as, how much time should a salesperson talk with a customer or how much time does management spend with a certain department? These seem like basic questions, but they have not been answered up until now because we haven’t had a way to collect the data that is needed to provide answers.   With people analytics we can look at the percentage of time a manager spends with their team, the amount of time employees spend with their coworkers, how people talk to each other and motion patterns. It is important to note that the sensors don’t collect individual conversations or specific data about an individual, rather they collect the data to give analysts a broad look at the company. People analytics allows data to come in and be tested constantly, as opposed to once a year with a survey. This helps companies to analyze data on an ongoing basis to allow them to make decisions and continue to adapt in a way that keeps them at the top of their industry.   This doesn’t mean that companies should stop doing surveys and polls; those are good initial steps, but using surveys alone is not as effective as they measure employee perception versus reality.   One example of a company who implemented people analytics is a call center that hired Humanyze. This call center, as with most call centers, had a huge number of employees and the goal of management was to keep as many people on the phones at one time as possible as success is measured by completed calls. Because of this, all the employees were broken up into teams and each team member had a separate lunch break. In terms of the number of people on the phone at one time, this seemed to be the most effective way to operate for the management team. However, after starting people analytics and testing they found that the performance level was nowhere near where it needed to be and employees seemed to be stressed. In the end they found that it was due to the fact that the employees were not able to talk to their fellow team members during breaks and therefore they weren’t able to vent about problem calls or get support from each other. From that data the company changed their policy to allow lunch breaks to have 15 minute overlaps for team members. This resulted in calls being completed 23% faster, lower turnover rate, less employee stress, and more cohesive teams.   Without people analytics the call center may have never figured out what their performance issue was. As Waber states, “they didn’t have the data before, so they had no reason to change”.   At this point in time there are some challenges for people analytics. It is a new concept and a lot of people are skeptical or scared of it. There is also a cost, as it requires companies to create a new type of team with analysts and data scientists as well as HR professionals and it requires certain technical updates. But the cost of ignoring people analytics far outweighs the cost of implementing it. There are already several companies, large and small, who have started using people analytics and as we proceed into the future more and more companies will join in. Waber says on average people analytics increases top line performance by 10-15%.   Waber advises companies to “Take baby steps. You don’t need to jump out ahead, but do something that makes you uncomfortable and outside of your comfort zone”. Even if you haven’t started implementing people analytics yet, Waber says, “you are not that far behind, yet. But in the next couple of years it will be harder and harder to catch up”.   What you will learn in this episode:  What is people analytics  Different types of data that organizations can collect  We look at big data and people analytics and how those two things play together  Software and hardware in people analytics  Where we are today in people analytics and where they will go in the future  Privacy issues  The growing role of data scientists and analysts   What organizations are doing in people analytics and why Links From The Episode: People Analytics On Amazon.com Humanyze.com   (Music by Ronald Jenkees)

Click Here Or On Above Image To Reach Our ExpertsSecurity Expert Says, "We Can Now Spy On Human Emotions" Emotional surveillance has an undeniably dystopian vibe, like George Orwell's 1984, but it's not science fiction. Banks are already signing up for services that incorporate it into their analysis of behavior. A startup founded by MIT graduates called Humanyze has created a sensor-laden badge that transmits data on speech, activity, and stress patterns.One of these days, the walls may know when you're happy, sad, stressed or angry by using an experimental device unveiled Tuesday by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that uses wireless signals to recognize emotions through subtle changes in breathing and heartbeat.Computer scientist Dina Katabi and her colleagues at the university's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab developed a radar system for vital signs that uses reflected radio signals to track movements, moods and behavior, with potential applications for smart homes, offices and hospitals.They posted their new research online Tuesday and plan to present their test results next month at a mobile-computing conference in New York.These wireless signals—a thousand times less powerful than conventional Wi-Fi—are designed to bounce off anyone within range, capturing variations in vital signs that can be analyzed quickly by a computer algorithm able to detect emotional states, the researchers said. To distinguish one mood from another, their system measures patterns of respiration, cardiac rhythms, and minute variations in the length of each individual heartbeat.“All of us share so much in how our emotions affect our vital signs,” said Dr. Katabi. “We get an accuracy that is so high that we can look at individual heartbeats at the order of milliseconds.”The system, which they call EQ-Radio, is 87% accurate at detecting whether a person is joyful, angry, sad or content, they said.By providing an accurate readout of moods, the system promises to loop people more directly into wireless sensor networks, the researchers said. While still experimental, the system could one day give buildings the capacity to respond automatically to changes in vital signs among the people living or working in them, without a need for explicit commands or a direct link to a body sensor, the researchers said.A hospital emergency room might automatically monitor patients awaiting treatment. An amusement park might modulate special effects by monitoring the involuntary reactions of people on an exhilarating ride. A house might one day react to a family's stress by playing pleasant music.PRO-DTECH II FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)“We have explored this idea of allowing a home to recognize someone's emotions and adapt to it,” said project researcher Fadel Adib. “The idea is to enable you to seamlessly interact with your home.”The team is already testing an earlier version of the system that tracks movements and behavior in about 15 homes in the Boston area, including that of Dr. Katabi. She uses it to monitor her sleep patterns and eating habits. It can track movements even if the person is in another room.“I would really like future homes to be more health aware,” she said.In the research made public Tuesday, Dr. Katabi and her colleagues tested the wireless system on 10 women and 20 men, between 19 and 77 years old, while in a standard office setting, which contained desks, chairs, couches and computers.CELLPHONE DETECTOR (PROFESSIONAL)(Buy/Rent/Layaway)During the tests, the volunteers sat from three to 10 feet away from the wireless sensors while attempting to evoke specific emotions by recalling emotion-rich memories. As a control, their vital signs during the experiment were also monitored using conventional electrocardiography and a video-based emotion recognition system that homes in on facial expressions.PRO-DTECH III FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)All told, the researchers collected measurements of 130,000 individual heartbeats. To classify the mood changes, the computer employed a machine learning algorithm to match the waveforms within each heartbeat.PRO-DTECH III FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)When they compared results, they found that the experimental system was almost as accurate in recognizing changes in emotion as the electrocardiograms. It was about twice as accurate as the facial cues recorded by the video system, they said.“We use the wireless signal to obtain the changes in the vital signs and then run a machine learning algorithm to get to emotions,” she said. “The algorithm can immediately recognize the emotions of someone new.”PRO-DTECH III FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)Wall Street Uses Technology To Spy On Traders Emotional StateThe trader was in deep trouble. A millennial who had only recently been allowed to set foot on a Wall Street floor, he made bad bets, and in a panic to recoup his losses, he'd blown through risk limits, losing $4.9 million in a single afternoon.WIRELESS/WIRED HIDDENCAMERA FINDER III(Buy/Rent/Layaway)It wasn't a career-ending day. The trader was taking part in a simulation run by Andrew Lo, an MIT finance professor. The goal: find out if top performers can be identified based on how they respond to market volatility. Lo had been invited into the New York-based global investment bank—he wouldn't say which one—after giving a talk to its executives. So in 2014, unknown to the outside world, he rigged a conference room with monitors to create a lab where 57 stock and bond traders lent their bodies to science.PRO-DTECH IV FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)Banks have already set up big-data teams to harvest insights from the terabytes of customer information they possess. Now they're looking inward to see whether they can improve operations and limit losses in their biggest cost center: employees. Companies including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have had discussions with tech companies about systems that monitor worker emotions to boost performance and compliance, according to executives at the banks who didn't want to be identified speaking about the matter.As machines encroach on humans' role in the markets, technology offers a way to even the fight. The devices Lo used—wristwatch sensors that measure pulse and perspiration—could warn traders to step away from their desks when their emotions run wild. They could also be used to screen hires to find those whose physiology is best suited to risk-taking—what interested the bank that allowed the MIT study.Wireless Camera Finder(Buy/Rent/Layaway)The most promising application, and the one with the most profound privacy issues, would be for keeping tabs on employees, Lo says. Risk managers could use it to spot problems brewing on a specific desk, such as unauthorized trading, before too much damage is done. “Imagine if all your traders were required to wear wristwatches that monitor their physiology, and you had a dashboard that tells you in real time who is freaking out,” Lo says. “The technology exists, as does the motivation—one bad trade can cost $100 million—but you're talking about a significant privacy intrusion.”MAGNETIC, ELECTRIC, RADIO ANDMICROWAVE DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)Emotional surveillance has an undeniably dystopian vibe, like a finance version of George Orwell's 1984, but it's not science fiction. Banks are already signing up for services that incorporate it into their analysis of behavior. A startup founded by MIT graduates called Humanyze has created a sensor-laden badge that transmits data on speech, activity, and stress patterns.COUNTERSURVEILLANCE PROBE / MONITOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)Microphones and proximity sensors on the gadgets help employers understand what high-performing teams are doing differently from laggards. The Boston-based company is close to announcing a deal with a bank that's moving some employees to new offices, according to Chief Executive Officer Ben Waber. The bank wants to use Humanyze badges to determine seating locations for traders, asset managers, and support staff to improve productivity, he says.Another startup, Behavox, uses machine-learning programs to scan employee communications and trading records. Emotional analysis of telephone conversations is a part of a worker's overall behavioral picture, according to founder Erkin Adylov, a former Goldman Sachs research analyst. When a worker deviates from established patterns—shouting at someone he's trading with when previous conversations were calm—it could be a sign further scrutiny is warranted. “Emotion recognition and mapping in phone calls is increasingly something that banks really want from us,” says Adylov, whose company is based in London. “All the things you do as a human are driven by emotions.”Emotions are reflexes that developed to drive behavior, scientists say, improving our prospects of seizing opportunity and surviving risk. They're accompanied by measurable physiological changes such as increased blood pressure, sweating, and a pounding heart. Their role in investing has been established since at least the time of economist Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing. More recently, John Coates, a University of Cambridge neuroscientist and former derivatives trader, has studied how financial risk takers' decisions are influenced by biology. His experiments, chronicled in a 2012 book, The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, show that hormones such as testosterone and cortisol play a part in exacerbating booms and busts.The volunteers in Lo's study were given a $3 million risk limit and told to make money in markets including oil, gold, stocks, currencies, and Treasuries. They came from across the bank's fixed-income and equity desks and ranged from junior employees to veterans with 15 years of experience. Top traders have a signature response to volatility, says Lo, who plans to publish his findings by next year. Rather than being devoid of feeling, they are emotional athletes. Their bodies swiftly respond to stressful situations and relax when calm returns, leaving them primed for the next challenge. The top performer made $1.1 million in a couple of hours of trading.Those who fared less well, like the trader who lost almost $5 million, were hounded by their mistakes and remained emotionally charged, as measured by their heart rate and other markers such as cortisol levels, even after the volatility subsided. Lo's findings suggest there's a sweet spot for emotional engagement: too much, and you're overly aggressive or fearful; too little, and you aren't involved enough to care. Veteran traders had more controlled responses, suggesting that training and experience count.There are other ways to infer emotional states. Researchers led by Kellogg School of Management professor Brian Uzzi pored over 1.2 million instant messages sent by day traders over a two-year period. They found that, as in Lo's study, having too much or too little emotion made for poor trades. Uzzi, whose study was published this year, says he's working with two hedge funds to design a product based on the research.As younger traders accustomed to biometric devices like the Fitbit enter the industry, applications designed to boost performance and monitor employees will become commonplace, says Lo, who expects it to be widespread in less than 10 years. “The more data we have, the more we're able to characterize the emotional state of the individual,” he says. “Everybody will have to have these kinds of analytics.”PRO-DTECH FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)Detecting Emotions In Thin AirOne of the most writerly things a person can do is to characterize air as thick, or emotions as tangible. Sadness lingers in the air. The best dinner parties are powered by palpable tension. The practice suggests that you are keenly attuned to your surroundings. Beyond observant, you use your senses in ways others had not thought possible. That is why people want to have sex with writers.But if you told me that the air is actually transmitting chemical signals that influence emotions between humans, I would add you to a list that I keep in my head. It's not a bad list, per se, but it is titled “Chumps.”One person who would not be on that list is Jonathan Williams. An atmospheric chemist, he describes himself as “one of those wandering scientific souls,” but not in an annoying way. He maintains a jovial British lilt after moving to Colorado to work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and then to Germany for a job with the Max Planck Institute (which describes itself as “Germany's most successful research organization”). There Williams and his colleagues study air.They focus on gases that come from vegetation in the tropics, as well as carbon industry. In doing so, the chemists use finely calibrated machines that sense the slightest changes in the contents of air. Taking measurements in the field, Williams and his colleagues always noticed that when they themselves got too close to the machines, everything went haywire.That made sense, in that humans are bags of gas. As breathing people know, we tend to emit carbon dioxide. (Though each exhalation still contains about four times as much oxygen as carbon dioxide.) And there are many subtler ingredients in the concoctions we breathe out. So Williams began to wonder, are these gases “significant on a global scale”? Could they be, even, contributing to climate change? Especially as the number of humans on Earth rockets toward 8 billion?The answer was no. Just a clear, simple no. By measuring gases in soccer stadiums, the Planck chemists found no consequence of human breath. There might be some effect at a global scale, but it's just nothing compared to the air-ravaging effects of transportation and agriculture.But Williams didn't come away from the stadium empty handed. As he sat and watched the fluctuating readings on the air sensors, he got an idea. In the manner of a typical European soccer crowd, the people went through fits of elation and anger,  joy and sorrow. So Williams began to wonder, as he later put it to me, “Do people emit gases as a function of their emotions?”If we do, it wouldn't be unprecedented. Tear some leaves off of a tree, for example, and it will emit chemical signals that may be part of a system of communication between trees. The behavior for bees and ants is clearly chemically dominated.“We're not like that—not like robots following chemicals,” Williams explained. “But it could be possible that we are influenced by chemicals emitted by other humans.”The idea of airborne pheromones—chemicals that specifically influence mating behaviors— has been a source of much fascination, but the actual evidence is weak. Some small studies have suggested an effect when people put cotton balls under their armpits, and then other people smell the balls—but in minor, unreliable ways.“I don't know why so many previous researchers have been so into armpits,” said Williams. “A much better way to communicate would be through your breath. Because you can direct your breath, and your breath is at roughly the same height as the person you're trying to communicate to, silently. In the dark, maybe, in your cave.” And if these behavior-modifying volatile chemicals exist (volatile meaning anything that goes into the air), then why would they be limited to sex? Why shouldn't we be able to signal fear or anxiety? It is true that birds seem to know that I'm afraid of them.Williams was so intrigued by the idea of gases and emotion that he designed another experiment—something more predictable than a German soccer game. This time he used a movie theater. Unlike the open-air stadium, the theater presented fewer variables. “You've got this box, the cinema, and you spool through air from outside at a continuous rate, and you have 250 people sitting there, not moving. And you show them all, simultaneously, something that should make them frightened or anxious or sad, or whatever.”The changes in any one person's breath might be minuscule, but a crowd of breathers could be enough to overcome the rest of the background signals. And more importantly, unlike a soccer match, the experiment could be done with the same film again and again. This could test the reproducibility of findings, which is critical to science.Rigging a mass spectrometer into the outflow vent of the theater, the Kino Cinestar in Mainz, Williams had a sense that the experiment as something of a lark. “I thought, we're probably just going to get a big mixture of popcorn and perfume,” he said. But, nonetheless, to measure relationships between scenes and gases, his team meticulously mapped out and labeled every scene in 16 films—from beginning to end. In 30 second increments, the team labeled each by its quality (kiss, pet, injury), as well as its emotional elements using a finite set of descriptors.