Feedback Loops

The premise of a feedback loop is simple: Provide people with information about their actions in real time (or something close to it), then give them a chance to change those actions, pushing them toward better behaviors.

A feedback loop involves four distinct stages.

First comes the data: A behavior must be measured, captured, and stored. This is the evidence stage.

Second, the information must be relayed to the individual, not in the raw-data form in which it was captured but in a context that makes it emotionally resonant. This is the relevance stage. But even compelling information is useless if we don’t know what to make of it, so we need a …

Third stage: consequence. The information must illuminate one or more paths ahead.

And finally, the fourth stage: action. Then that action is measured, and the feedback loop can run once more, every action stimulating new behaviors that inch us closer to our goals.

The ideal feedback loop gives us an emotional connection to a rational goal. And today, their promise couldn’t be greater. The intransigence of human behavior has emerged as the root of most of the world’s biggest challenges. Witness the rise in obesity, the persistence of smoking, the soaring number of people who have one or more chronic diseases. [...] Feedback loops can improve how companies motivate and empower their employees, allowing workers to monitor their own productivity and set their own schedules. They could lead to lower consumption of precious resources and more productive use of what we do consume. They could allow people to set and achieve better-defined, more ambitious goals and curb destructive behaviors, replacing them with positive actions. Used in organizations or communities, they can help groups work together to take on more daunting challenges. In short, the feedback loop is an age-old strategy revitalized by state-of-the-art technology. As such, it is perhaps the most promising tool for behavioral change to have come along in decades.

Source: www.wired.com/magazine/2011/06/ff_feedbackloop

Posted: July 4th, 2011
Filed under: Communication, Employees, Innovation Tags: analysis, behavior, data, wired mag | No Comments »

---