Waber, B: People Analytics

Preface xix Chapter 1 Sensible Organizations: Sensors, Big Data, and Quantifying the Unquantifiable 1 Telescopes, Microscopes, and "Socioscopes" 4 Unbiased? 6 Digital Breadcrumbs 7 "Socioscope" 8 Enter the Badge 14 Big Data = Big Brother? 17 Trust and Transparency 20 Chapter 2 Evolution, History, and Social Behavior: Our Wandering Road to the Modern Corporation 21 Back to the Future 22 In the Shadow of Man 22 You Say "Groups," I Say "Organizations" 26 Individual < Tribe < City-State 28 Do as the Romans Do 30 Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution 31 New Information, New Communication 35 The Organization of Today 37 (In)formal Processes 39 Informally Important 48 The Social Network 50 Organizing the Path Ahead 55 Chapter 3 The Water Cooler Effect: Why a Friendly Chat Is the Most Important Part of the Work Day 57 Talk Your Ear Off 58 Cohesion versus Diversity 59 Blue-Collar versus White-Collar Water Coolers 70 Banking on Change 71 Peanut Butter Jelly Time 74 Break Value 77 Chapter 4 The Death of Distance? Measuring the Power of Proximity 89 So, Should I Stay at Home and Work in My Pajamas? 92 Co-Located Offices: The Gold Standard? 96 More Than a Tape Measure 100 Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder? 102 Long Table, Short Table 104 So, Where Should I Sit? 106 Chapter 5 I'm the Expert: Why Connections Are More Important Than Test Scores 109 The (Electric) General 114 The IT Firm Study 115 IT Firm Study Results 116 Expert Puzzle 117 Being an Expert Expert 118 Chapter 6 You Look Like the Creative Type: The Importance of a Diverse Network 123 Cartoon Wars 125 Lessons from South Park: The Roots of Creativity 130 Chapter 7 Tough It Out versus Stay at Home: Modeling Disease Spread Through Face-to-Face Conversations 137 Corporate Epidemiology 140 Chapter 8 Why We Waste $1,200,000,000,000 a Year: Mergers and Acquisitions, Corporate Culture, and Communication 151 I'll Call, and Raise 152 Fixing the Problem 155 Chapter 9 Attach Bolt "A" to Plank "Q": Matching Formal Dependencies with

Ben Waber is President and CEO of Sociometric Solutions, a management services firm that uses social sensing technology. He is also a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab, where he received his Ph.D. He was previously Senior Researcher at Harvard Business School. Waber's work has been featured in Wired, the New York Times, on NPR, and he has given invited talks at Google, EMC, and Samsung. His research was selected for the Harvard Business Review 's List of Breakthrough Ideas and the Technology Review's Top 10 Emerging Technologies.