Skip to main content

Stream of consciousness


" I wonder if today will be different thought Influential Irene, praying that she would not be barraged with questions throughout the day.  Overwhelmed Oscar, only two weeks with the organization is filled with anxiety just knowing he can't remember everything he's learned.  How do I process payroll again he asks himself as he works quietly for hours hoping to hide his incompetency" .  If there was a mechanism, one which would point them in the right direction, to help them with every day "in the moment" questions.  Even if everything was static, new and tenured employees alike simply forget details, especially those tasks which are done infrequently.  The amount of time spent and frustration endured each and every minute of the working day is significant and often happens without any visibility. 



Natural language processing and chat bot technologies are emerging as strong candidates to help us all address this life-long challenge of relevant responses to a stream of consciousness inquiries.  While that is fantastic news and I encourage you to start experimenting within your organizations today, the real work will be creating a culture which learns to feed and train the bot.  Contrary to many who believe that "SkyNET" and terminators will inhabit the Earth in the near future, augmented intelligence is the next stepping stone.  These computer based robots (bots) are highly dependent on humans for their base knowledge.  Certainly, once fed and cared for, these bots can provide perspectives and insights, only when humans pure of purpose provide meaningful content.  Make sure that the expectations are set appropriately that all within your organization will become consumers and contributors to make the corpus of knowledge a key element of your culture.



Several bot frameworks are in the market, start slow with common questions and expand to cover all areas of the business.  Pick a target community of workers and go for it.  You will be amazed at the results and sense of empowerment contributors feel, good luck!



-----

Next post:  from the field to the office

Questions?  feel free to leave replies or direct message

See all of the "last mile worker" posts here:  http://lastmileworker.com

-----

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

why transform?

Why do I want to change, who said anything was wrong with my stack of papers and sea of Excel files?   We solve problems, that is a key characteristic of any successful service organization, if it isn't broke why fix it?   Often, when discussing a transformation from paper or cobbled together systems to a cohesive digital approach, folks struggle with the gap between what they currently do and how digital tools can help.   You really need to look at where the pain points are in your organization and how these compare to your business objectives.   Consider writing down these points on the whiteboard in no particular order, spend a few days shuffling and consolidating into a prioritized list.   Once you have the "why" and the "what" identified, the old remaining step is "how".   Some of the most popular observations over the years have been; Slipping through the cracks :   you know, not the major muscle movements, instead those little i...

expert at everything...not a problem

Well... I would say sometimes there certainly is a perceived notion that one person is an expert at everything. For the worker "everything" may be defined as the specific area in which you were hired or are constantly scheduled. Our opinions are frequently influenced off of past experience, or information we've received from their coworkers. Unfortunately this only gives us partial insight to that workers expertise and often is limited to their most recent history. Narrowly focused accounting is made of the skills that this individual possess. Come on, can't we figure out a way to leverage all of the skills of a particular worker? One of the challenges has always been that relationship between the activities which need to be accomplished and the myriad skills of individuals within your workforce. In addition, even if you could inventory and get a pretty good handle on the skill sets, they are constantly changing (with any luck) and thus the ineffective process of ...

entusiastic about preventative maintenance

Why do I really care if my field technicians are enthusiastic or not? When you look at a person's work output, as directly related to workforce sciences, you come up with three primary ingredients required to achieve your desired results.   These ingredients are; attitudes, attributes, and capabilities and when mixed properly with enabling tools can yield unbelievable outputs. So what does any of this have to do with routine maintenance? If your maintenance routines actually become way too routine then pretty soon performance will be replaced with complacency. In order to keep any piece of equipment running as trouble-free as possible the maintenance performed, and the thoroughness of the inspection and tasks at hand, have a direct impact on the asset's life expectancy.   There are some strategies that help service organizations keep the enthusiasm at all-time highs. Switch techs from time to time :   One of the best ways to ensure maintenance is being performed...