Kareem Yusuf: The importance of emotional tone in the digital age

Summary

The speaker narrates their journey bridging the gap between structural designers and steel fabricators, highlighting the importance of tone in communication. They discuss how tone reflects intent and emotion, and its impact on team dynamics and customer engagement. The talk explores the evolution of tone in digital interactions, from text messaging to emoticons, and the role of technology in understanding customer behavior for personalized experiences. It concludes with the future of engagement being defined by personalization, driven by cognitive computing systems that learn and adapt.

Takeaways

• 🛠️ The story illustrates the gap between structural designers and steel fabricators, highlighting the importance of understanding different perspectives in a project.
• 🎓 The PhD researcher's experience at a steel fabrication plant helped bridge the gap by translating the fabricators' language and concerns into a format that designers could understand.
• 💻 The development of a decision support system based on heuristics and rules of thumb provided feedback to designers, showing how technology can be used to improve communication and collaboration.
• 🗣️ Tone is crucial in communication as it reflects intent, emotions, and reactions, and can significantly impact how messages are received.
• 🌐 In a diverse and digital world, setting the right tone is challenging but essential for effective communication, both internally within teams and externally with clients.
• 📱 The evolution of text messaging, from plain text to emoticons, shows how technology has been used to convey tone in digital communication.
• 📊 Analytics and user interaction data are used to understand customer behavior and preferences, which helps in setting the right tone for customer engagement.
• 📍 Location analytics, both indoor and outdoor, is emerging as a key area of innovation, providing deeper insights into customer journeys.
• 🤖 The future of engagement is personalization, where organizations strive to deliver the right level of intimacy and personalized experiences to their target audience.
• 🔮 Combining physiological and interaction data could provide a deeper understanding of customers, allowing for more contextually appropriate and timely engagement.
• 🔒 As technology advances, there are real issues that need to be addressed regarding data capture, privacy protection, and ensuring clear opt-in choices for users.

Q & A

What is the main challenge the steel fabricator faces with the design provided by the structural designer?

The main challenge is that the design does not take into consideration the challenges of fabrication, making it difficult for the steel fabricator to create the joint.

Why did the PhD researcher leave the University of Leeds?

The PhD researcher left the University of Leeds to bridge the gap in understanding between structural designers and steel fabricators by learning the fabricators' language and translating it into terms that resonate with designers.

What did the researcher do to help bridge the gap between designers and fabricators?

The researcher captured the heuristics and rules of thumb that informed the fabricators' perspective on designs, codified them into computer models, and created a decision support system to provide feedback to designers.

Why is tone important in communication?

Tone reflects our intent, frame of mind, emotion, or reaction to any given situation. It speaks directly to what we experience and can inspire, guide, disrupt, or hurt.

How can tone have unintended consequences in a workplace?

Tone can have unintended consequences if it is misinterpreted, such as when a team member works on a task that was not intended to be assigned because the tone of a side comment was interpreted as direction.

What role does technology play in setting the right tone in digital interactions?

Technology, such as emoticons and graphics, allows for the imbuing of tone in digital interactions, helping to convey emotion and intent more effectively.

How does the use of analytics help in understanding customer behavior?

Analytics helps by capturing user interactions from various channels, providing insights into behaviors such as what pages were viewed, what was of most interest, and any adverse experiences.

What is the significance of location analytics in understanding customer journeys?

Location analytics, both indoor and outdoor, enriches understanding by providing data on dwell time and physical path analysis, which helps discern actual customer journeys.

How might physiological and interaction data help in setting the right tone for customer engagement?

Physiological and interaction data might provide context about the individual's state, allowing for more personalized and contextually appropriate engagement, such as a car service app providing a healthy snack based on the user's blood sugar level.

What are the challenges faced when advancing technology for data capture?

Challenges include data capture privacy protection and ensuring clear and appropriate opt-in choices for users.

How does personalization play a role in the future of engagement?

Personalization is key to the future of engagement, with organizations focusing on striking the right level of intimacy with their target audience and delivering the right personalized experience.

Outlines

00:00

🔧 Bridging the Gap Between Design and Fabrication

The speaker begins by illustrating a scenario involving a steel trust joint, which is aesthetically pleasing to a structural designer but challenging for a steel fabricator to produce. The speaker, a PhD researcher, left academia to understand the fabricators' perspective and bridge the communication gap with designers. They learned the heuristics and rules of thumb that guided the fabricators and translated these into computer models. These models were used to create a decision support system that provided feedback to designers on how fabricators would react to their designs. The story emphasizes the importance of tone in communication, which is crucial in leadership and across cultures in a global organization. The speaker shares personal experiences where tone had unintended consequences, highlighting the need for careful communication in a digital world.

05:02

📱 The Evolution of Digital Tone

The speaker discusses how organizations must constantly consider the tone of their internal and external communications. As a technologist, they focus on leveraging technology to understand customer interactions and set the appropriate tone. Current technology allows capturing user interactions and gaining insights through analytics. Location analytics, both indoor and outdoor, is an emerging area of innovation. The speaker suggests that combining physiological and interaction data might provide more context for setting the right tone in customer interactions. They acknowledge the challenges of data capture, privacy protection, and user consent but argue that deeper understanding leads to more valuable customer engagement. The future of engagement is seen as personalization, with machine learning used to infer intent and present personalized offers or content.

10:03

🌐 The Future of Engagement: Personalization and Tone

The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of tone in technological evolution, particularly in identifying the right time for engagement. They suggest that cognitive computing systems, which learn from experience, can help capture tonal connections and improve over time. The speaker highlights the need for technological innovations to consider tone in all digital interactions. They stress that tone is a fundamental aspect of being human and will drive technological advancements for years to come. The speaker ends by thanking the audience.

Keywords

💡Steel Trust Joint

A steel trust joint refers to a specific type of structural connection used in construction, often seen in large infrastructures like airports or stadiums. In the video, it symbolizes the beauty and complexity of structural design. The fabricator's lack of enthusiasm for this joint highlights the gap between design and fabrication realities, which the PhD researcher aims to bridge.

💡Fabrication Challenges

Fabrication challenges refer to the practical difficulties encountered when creating a design in the real world. The video emphasizes that designers often overlook these challenges, leading to inefficiencies and dissatisfaction among fabricators. The researcher's work is centered on understanding and addressing these challenges to improve the design process.

💡Heuristics

Heuristics are simple, practical methods or rules of thumb used to solve problems or make decisions. In the context of the video, the researcher captures the heuristics of steel fabricators to understand their perspective on designs, which are then incorporated into a decision support system to aid designers.

💡Decision Support System

A decision support system is a computerized system that helps users make decisions by providing information and feedback. In the video, the researcher develops such a system to bridge the communication gap between designers and fabricators, offering real-time feedback on how fabricators might react to a design.

💡Tone

Tone, in the video, refers to the attitude or mood conveyed through communication. It is crucial in engaging with different stakeholders, such as steel fabricators and structural designers. The video stresses that setting the right tone is essential for effective communication and can significantly impact how messages are received and interpreted.

💡Cultural Diversity

Cultural diversity is the presence of a variety of cultural or ethnic perspectives within a group or organization. The video discusses how different regions and teams can develop their own cultures, and how tone can vary in its effectiveness across these cultures, emphasizing the need for awareness and adaptation in communication.

💡Digital Interactions

Digital interactions refer to communication that occurs through digital means, such as text messaging or online platforms. The video explores how tone is conveyed in digital interactions, which initially lacked emotional context but evolved with the introduction of emoticons and other digital cues.

💡Emoticon

An emoticon is a digital representation of a facial expression used to express emotion in text. The video highlights the emoticon as a game-changer in digital communication, allowing users to imbue messages with tone and emotion, thus improving the传达 of intent and sentiment.

💡Physiological Data

Physiological data refers to information about an individual's bodily functions or states, such as heart rate or blood sugar levels. The video suggests that combining physiological data with interaction data could provide deeper context for setting the right tone in digital engagements, leading to more personalized and responsive services.

💡Personalization

Personalization is the customization of an experience or service to an individual's preferences or needs. The video argues that personalization, driven by a deep understanding of customer behavior and context, is the future of engagement. It involves using technology to deliver relevant and timely content or offers, enhancing customer experience.

💡Cognitive Computing

Cognitive computing refers to the simulation of human thought processes in a computerized model. In the video, cognitive computing is presented as a way to analyze complex data, infer relationships, and improve over time, similar to human learning. It is seen as a key technology for understanding tone and context in digital interactions.

Highlights

The story of a steel trust joint illustrates the beauty and challenges in structural design.

The steel fabricator's perspective is crucial for practical design implementation.

The PhD researcher's journey to bridge the gap between design and fabrication.

Learning the steel fabricators' language and translating it for structural designers.

Capturing heuristics and rules of thumb in computer models to aid design feedback.

The importance of tone in communication, reflecting intent and emotion.

The unintended consequences of tone in a large, diverse software development organization.

How a simple text message can be imbued with tone through punctuation and acronyms.

The emoticon as a game changer in digital communication for setting tone.

Organizations must consider tone in internal and external communications.

Technological innovations in graphics devices and networks have enhanced tone setting in messages.

The current state-of-the-art in capturing user interactions for understanding customer behavior.

The emerging importance of location analytics in understanding customer journeys.

The challenge of understanding the true emotional state of an individual during interaction.

The potential of combining physiological and interaction data for better tone setting.

The ethical considerations of data capture, privacy protection, and user consent.

The future of engagement lies in personalization and striking the right level of intimacy.

Machine learning's role in inferring intent and presenting personalized offers or content.

The necessity of personalization being relevant and occurring in context.

The importance of timing in personalization and the concept of 'in the right time'.

Cognitive computing systems' potential in identifying the right time for tone setting.

The enduring question of tone in technological innovations and its impact on human interaction.

Transcripts

let's begin with a story about a steel

trust joint a steel fabricator and a PhD

researcher here's our steel trust joint

the kind you'd see walking through the

airport or taking in a game at the

stadium to the structural designer this

joint is a thing of beauty it's a work

of

art now let's meet the steel fabricator

who has to fabricate this

joint he's not looking that impressed

with this

joint because once again he has received

a design that does not take into

consideration the challenges of

fabrication

enter our not so dashian PhD

researcher

me 18 years ago all Blair eyed

intent and bridging this Gap in

understanding I left the hollowed

confines of the University of Leeds and

went to a steel fabrication plant in

Bolton England where I got to learn the

steel fabricators

language understand their point of view

and translate into terms that would

resonate with the structural

designer I captured the heuristics the

rules of thumb that informed their

perspective on any given design and I

codified these in computer

models I used these models to create a

decision support system that provided

feedback to the designers as they

drafted their designs on how Fabricators

would react and

why why do I tell you this story because

I know somebody's

wondering because it embodies this

question of

tone what tone did I need to adopt in

order to successfully engage with the

steel fabrication

what tone did my decision support system

need to strike in order to be well

received by the structural designer and

ironically how come I spending all this

time innovating with technology to make

it do what we as humans do so naturally

which is to set

tone indeed why does tone even

matter tone reflects our intent our

frame of mind emotion or reaction to any

given situation tone speaks directly to

what we experience tone is instinctive

but setting the right tone takes

work as a leader of a large

geographically and culturally diverse

software development organization I can

attest to the fact that across regions

teams develop their own

culture and we must all be aware that as

we use our tone depending upon where we

are that tone can equally inspire fire

and guide or disrupt and

hurt and tone can so easily have

unintended

consequences I have found that you will

not recognize the power of your tone

until one evening you walk in the

corridors and find a member of your team

hard at work on a task you never

intended to give why because the tone of

your side comment was interpreted as

Direction and yeah I've been guilty of

making that happen too but how does tone

translate in a world full of digital

interactions well to explore that let's

take the text message when text

messaging started we could all send

ourselves simple questions like this in

this case a simple question that implies

a need to know but plain and devoid of

emotion so with the state ofthe art at

the time we tried to imbue tone by

leveraging wellestablished low Tech

punctuation clearly we can now see

there's some excitement

here but still seeking to imbue this

medium with even more tone we all soon

fell in love with the acronym resulting

in

this feel free to substitute your own

favorite three-letter acronym there

as technologist we knew we could do

better and so with Innovations in

graphics devices and networks we got the

game changer the

emoticon the emoticon changed

everything now we could really set tone

further qualifying our

messages indeed we could do away with

words all

together that one to my wife was in the

audience by the way

or we could eliminate the alphabet all

together that one from a friend of mine

who's a retired tank Army

Commander it means onwards against all

obstacles in your

way organizations have to consider how

to set tone constantly both internally

with their employees and externally with

their clients customers and consumers as

as a technologist I focus on how I

leverage technology to enable my clients

to understand who they're engaging with

and set the right tone as they

engage current state-ofthe-art allows us

to capture user interactions from

various channels like mobile apps or

websites and leveraging analytics gain

insights into key behavioral data so

that we're able to answer questions such

as how many people looked at a page what

what seemed to be of most interest what

did they do next did they have any

adverse

experiences location analytics both

indoor and outdoor is emerging as a key

area of innovation leveraging advances

in smartphones and indoor sensors we're

now able to further enrich our

understanding of customer

Behavior gleaning insights from data

such as dwell time how long was an

individual stood in front of a store

display

or physical path analysis what path was

taken between departments or

locations we together all this data to

discern actual customer Journeys will

underpin further Innovation because

important to remember that for the

individual these distinct touch points

with an organization are often part of a

continuous experience as they research

discover acquire and then use a

particular product or

service but for all these

advances we still know so little about

the true state of the individual at the

time of interaction because the data

provides little to no emotional

context how might we gain context so

that we're better able to set the right

tone looking ahead I think the

combination of physiological and

interaction data might provide an answer

imagine using a mobile app to call a car

service as I'm sure some of us did today

but this particular app can read your

physiological data as you touch the

phone the app

learns that your blood sugar is running

low and the driver turns up with a

healthy

snack once again feel free to substitute

your own preference in that section

now I would be remiss if I did not

acknowledge that there are real issues

for us to work through as we advance

technology with regards data capture

privacy protection and ensuring clear

and appropriate opt-in choices for users

but the point is with a deeper

understanding we are able to engage much

more valuably with our customers and

deliver a better and more personalized

service in fact I believe the future of

Engagement can be defined with just one

word

personalization and for organizations

differentiation will Center on striking

the right level of intimacy with their

target

audience and delivering the right

personalized

experience today we already use machine

learning to infer intent and present

something approaching a personalized

offer or content for example if an

individ ual shows significant interest

by visiting the same product page say

five times in an hour we can on the next

visit present content that provides more

insights into that product's use or

perhaps a discount offer that tips the

scales in in favor of a purchase

decision we can also customize

experiences leveraging analytics to

recognize past behavior and modify the

ongoing experience of

accordingly however in our drive for

increasing levels of

personalization we must remember that

personalization needs not only to be

relevant but also to occur in context

often thought of as in real time but

when I say in real time I'm not

suggesting some particular time frame

like say 20 milliseconds but that rather

things need to occur in the moment that

matters

indeed I prefer the phrase in the right

time it is simply not a good idea to

congratulate me on my airline seat

upgrade on a flight that's just been

cancelled and that's happened to some of

us I'm

sure so technological Evolution must

capture these tonal connections

attributes and rules that allow us to

identify the right time the very nature

of this problem space pushes the

boundaries of traditional approaches but

lends itself quite well to cognitive

Computing systems systems that are able

to tease out and infer caal

relationships and that get better over

time as they learn by experience which

interestingly enough is the same way

that we as humans

do in an Ever evolving Digital World a

wash with increasingly complex digital

interactions

this question of tone permeates

everything that we as technologists do

and will shape technological innovations

for decades to come

why because at its core it drives us it

pushes us to attempt to codify to render

en code one of the deepest most

Elemental aspects of Being Human tone

thank

you oh