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www.businessweek.com/...tc2009047_031301.htm - Cached - Annotated View

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Bertrandduperrin bookmarked on 2009-04-13 email contacts connections revenue management informationoverload socialsoftware socialnetworks socialmedia knowledge knowledgeeconomy

Researchers at IBM Research and MIT's Sloan School of Management found that the average e-mail contact was worth $948 in revenue. To unearth that and other data, they used mathematical formulas to analyze the e-mail traffic, address books, and buddy lists of 2,600 IBM consultants over the course of a year. (Their identities were shielded from researchers, who viewed them only as encrypted numbers, known as hash codes.) They compared the communication patterns with performance, as measured by billable hours.

  • The IBM-MIT study found that consultants with weak ties to a number of managers produced $98 per month less than average. Why? Those employees may move more slowly as they process "conflicting demands from different managers," the study's authors write. They suffer from "too many cooks in the kitchen."
  • IBM researchers fine-tuned management of industrial supply chains a half-century ago; now their challenge is promoting the flow of knowledge throughout the workforce.
  • IBM team at the company's Cambridge (Mass.) labs analyzes methods to introduce employees to colleagues they haven't yet met. The idea, says researcher Werner Geyer, is to create new connections within the global workforce and to encourage employees to share knowledge. "We want to incent people to participate," Geyer says. He notes that participation in the network has doubled in the past year.

This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 13 Apr 2009, by Bertrand Duperrin.

  • 13 Apr 09
    bertrandduperrin
    Bertrand Duperrin

    Researchers at IBM Research and MIT's Sloan School of Management found that the average e-mail contact was worth $948 in revenue. To unearth that and other data, they used mathematical formulas to analyze the e-mail traffic, address books, and buddy lists of 2,600 IBM consultants over the course of a year. (Their identities were shielded from researchers, who viewed them only as encrypted numbers, known as hash codes.) They compared the communication patterns with performance, as measured by billable hours.

    email contacts connections revenue management informationoverload socialsoftware socialnetworks socialmedia knowledge knowledgeeconomy

    • The IBM-MIT study found that consultants with weak ties to a number of managers produced $98 per month less than average. Why? Those employees may move more slowly as they process "conflicting demands from different managers," the study's authors write. They suffer from "too many cooks in the kitchen."
    • IBM researchers fine-tuned management of industrial supply chains a half-century ago; now their challenge is promoting the flow of knowledge throughout the workforce.
    • 1 more annotations...

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