Organizational Engineering Using Sociometric Badges

10 Pages Posted: 16 Dec 2007

See all articles by Benjamin N. Waber

Benjamin N. Waber

MIT - Media Laboratory

Daniel Olguin Olguin

MIT - Media Laboratory

Taemie Kim

MIT - Media Laboratory

Akshay Mohan

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Koji Ara

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Alex Pentland

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Date Written: May 20, 2007

Abstract

We show how a wearable computing research platform for measuring and analyzing human behavior can be used to understand social systems. Using a wearable sociometric badge capable of automatically measuring the amount of face-to-face interaction, physical proximity to other people, and relative location, we are able to construct a dynamic view of an organization's social network by viewing interactions as links between actors. Combining this with email data, where e-mail exchanges indicate a social tie, we are able to form a robust view of the social network, using proximity information to remove spurious e-mail exchanges. We attempt to use on-body sensors in large groups of people for extended periods of time in naturalistic settings for the purpose of identifying, measuring, and quantifying social interactions, information flow, and organizational dynamics. We discuss how this system can lead to an automatic intervention system that could optimize the social network in real time by facilitating the addition and removal of links based on objective metrics in a socially natural way. We deployed this research platform in a group of 22 employees working in a real organization over a period of one month, and we found that betweenness in the combined social network had a high negative correlation of r = −0.49 (p < 0.05) with perceived group interaction quality.

Keywords: social networks, wearable computing, job satisfaction

Suggested Citation

Waber, Benjamin N. and Olguin Olguin, Daniel and Kim, Taemie and Mohan, Akshay and Ara, Koji and Pentland, Alex, Organizational Engineering Using Sociometric Badges (May 20, 2007). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1073342 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1073342

Benjamin N. Waber (Contact Author)

MIT - Media Laboratory ( email )

20 Ames St.
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
United States
617-253-4662 (Phone)
617-253-6285 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.media.mit.edu/~bwaber

Daniel Olguin Olguin

MIT - Media Laboratory ( email )

20 Ames St.
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
United States

Taemie Kim

MIT - Media Laboratory ( email )

20 Ames St.
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
United States

Akshay Mohan

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

No Address Available

Koji Ara

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

No Address Available

Alex Pentland

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ( email )

77 Massachusetts Avenue
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
United States

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