The “Sociometric Badge”: Measuring the Flow of Information and Ideas in Teams

Imagine wearing an electronic sensor that recognizes your communication patterns, e.g., your body language, tone of voice, who you talk to, where you talk to that person. What may sound like science fiction, has already been tested in the real world including innovation teams, post-op wards in hospitals, customer-facing teams in banks, and call centers.

What do you think? Would you wear it?

Dashboard summarizes data and helps people adjust their behavior.

Here is an interesting video with Alex “Sandy” Pentland, director of MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory. He explains how it works. According to Pentland, the “dynamics are observable, quantifiable, and measurable. And, perhaps most important, teams can be taught how to strengthen them.”

Key findings:

• Patterns of communication are the most important predictor of a team’s success.
• The best predictors of productivity were a team’s energy and engagement outside formal meetings.

The summary of the article is available here.