Lesley Westerfer

Lesley, that is crazy you bring up energy with the IoT. Just last week I was reading a BBC article about a study in Tucson using streetlights and satellite imagery (https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54721921). They found that dimming the streetlights did little to change the amount of light pollution. I think if they combined this study with a city wide IoT, like you talked about, they could measure in real time what changes are having the most impact.

Smart House was my favorite DCOM!

I think this is a really interesting post. A lot of our clients at my job are electric utilities (like PECO in the Philadelphia area) and one of the ways they are attempting to fight climate change is by promoting their Smart Meters (https://www.forbes.com/uk/advisor/energy/what-are-energy-smart-meters-and-should-you-have-them-fitted/). Essentially, these meters are supposed to do what your Samsung SmartThings device does – reduce the amount of energy at home. According to our clients, this leads to both 1) a lower utility bill and 2) overall less of an effect on the environment. However, from my understanding, it’s tough to know what kind of cumulative effect these Smart Meters actually have on energy efficiency. I really liked your idea to use these kinds of devices in public spaces too. I think this would give us a better understanding of how much IoT could help protect our planet.

This sounds like a great solution. I’m a proponent of allowing employees to permanently work from home and think the benefits far outweigh the cons when it’s implemented correctly (This Sam Harris interview w/ Matt Mullenweg convinced me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJSf2Clx6qY), BUT it rarely is. My only concern is that this platform could come across as “Big Brother”-ish, so employers would need to assure employees that it is purely being used for their mental health benefit,.. feeling like your productivity and web activity are constantly being monitored could lead to more stress/burnout.

Great article Lesley. I can totally relate to this as I am working 100% from home which creates an environment where there is little separation between work time and home life. I am always thinking about work now that my team of 9 has dropped to a team of 3 and we are picking up the slack (nearly impossible to do). And when my laptop is only a few steps away, it’s too easy to just log back in and check a few more emails at 9 pm at night. I have thought of things like locking the door to my office, but the challenge with that is my husband is self-employed and his work hours are all over the place, and we share the office.
The software recommendation is an interesting thought. And the corporation I work for would totally be a customer. We have various programs offered to us through our benefits that include Meditation class everyday M, W, F at noon and group exercise class every T, Th, of course, these are on zoom but still a nice offering to have at our fingertips. More companies should be contributing to their employees in this manner.

I can add this feature to my MBT Band! Working from home is great for flexibility, but for me, I like routine, I like going to the gym then going to work so on and so forth. With COVID forcing all of us inside, I have really sttuggled, and def have felt the burnout. I recently got a kindle and am trying to break up laptop time wiht some reading, but as Joel pointed out my laptop is always within reach so it can be a challenge. Thanks for sharing the articles, I found them useful resources.

Wow this hit home. I work for a health system and my team just found out that we’ll be working remotely full-time post-COVID. I’ve always been an advocate for working from home, but lately the burn out has been real. I’m lucky that my team and organization are very conscious of our mental health and lately have been working to rearrange our schedules to incorporate better breaks throughout the day. If it’s starting your work day earlier, taking a long 1-2 hour break in your day to get outside, and work a later day. However… it’s been a struggle to totally unplug from work at the end of the day. Answering one email turns into answering 10 emails and you eventually get sucked right back into the wormhole of work and end up working a 12 hour day.

I’d love to see this tool implemented in a way that helps with completely unplugging when you’re clocked out. Don’t let me answer an email that isn’t high priority! Don’t notify me when a coworker shares something in Microsoft Teams that doesn’t need my immediate attention. Burn out is real and not having the ability to physically leave the office and leave work behind, is making burn out worse by the day.

This is great thinking, Lesley, and you’ve clearly laid out the need and pain points! Fatigue and burnout – as you’ve said – are definitely “too common” right now… I’m even feeling fatigue about the overuse of the word fatigue. And mental health, while becoming less and less stigmatized, still exists in a world of overwork and high consumption.

There have been times in my career where I have been so wired, so determined to push harder and do more, where even the slightest detraction – especially in the form of a company-wide mandated activity – was a HUGE burden and annoyance.

So, I wonder, who’s the ideal audience? Is it those who may actually need it the most? Or, actually, those who would be most likely to implement this into their routines/schedule? Or somewhere in the middle? Would the innovation look different for these different audiences?

I love the idea of marrying both project management and a mindfulness program; I also wonder, what about new functionalities that would exist natively in the tools that keep us “overworked” and “overconnected”?
For instance, if the company promoted “mailbox freezes” or “shutdowns” for 10-15 minutes a few times a day? And the user/employee had the ability to set the times of day their inbox would crap out, and the accountability was both to him/her/themselves AND they had to submit those times to the company.

Thoughts? And, ugh. Burnout. Fatigue.

I could really use something like this. When I am at work I have a tendency to just lower my head and blow through the day. Before I know it the day is done, sometimes without even getting lunch. Having something to remind me to take a break, even if it is just 10 minutes of playing a phone game, would be very helpful.