Humanyze, founded as Sociometric Solutions in 2010 in Boston, Massachusetts, is a people analytics software provider. Humanyze was founded by

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

doctoral students Ben Waber, Daniel Olguin, Taemie Kim, Tuomas Jaanu, and MIT Professor

Alex Pentland Alex Paul "Sandy" Pentland (born 1951) is an American computer scientist, the Toshiba Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, and serial entrepreneur. Education Pentland received his bachelor's degree from the University of M ...

. Based on research from the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

, Humanyze's people analytics platform uses

Organizational Network Analysis Organizational network analysis (ONA) is a method for studying communication and socio-technical networks within a formal organization. This technique creates statistical and graphical models of the people, tasks, groups, knowledge and resources of ...

to measure corporate communication data to uncover patterns on how work gets done in companies.

Company History

The founders Waber, Olguin, Kim, and Jaanu, met while completing their Ph.D.s at the

in Professor “Sandy” Pentland’s Human Dynamics group. Sociometric Solutions Inc. was incorporated on October 26, 2010 as a research and consulting firm. In 2015, the company was rebranded as "Humanyze" and transitioned from a consulting firm to a software company. They raised $4M in Series A financing from Romulus Capital and launched their people analytics software, the Humanyze Platform, at the end of 2016. While at the MIT Media Lab, Humanyze’s founders developed a sociometric badge, a high-tech I.D. card. With the sociometric badge, they pioneered ways of collecting in-person collaboration data. This badge had sensors to measure the frequency and duration of face-to-face interactions. It did not record content, web activity, or personal activities. It did not have GPS. The Sociometric Badge has since been discontinued for commercial use as the Humanyze Platform evolved to work primarily with digital collaboration data and corporate-owned building entry card systems. In October 2021, the company officially received patents for their system and method for transforming communication metadata and sensor data into an objective measure of the communication distribution of an organization.

Products

Humanyze's people analytics platform measures corporate communication data to uncover patterns on how work gets done. Human resources, operations, and corporate real estate professionals use the platform to analyze workplace data in real-time to make informed decisions around organizational health, workplace strategy, and business process optimization. It is a web-based dashboard. A variety of data sources can be plugged into the Humanyze Platform including Microsoft Office Exchange, Google Suite, Skype, Microsoft Teams, HR information system outputs, and building access card logs.

Data Privacy

No personal data is provided to Humanyze, including employee profiles (names and email addresses). All data is encrypted, aggregated, and anonymized. No communication content is recorded. There is no personally identifiable information (PII) or private confidential information (PCI). Humanyze is GDPR and EU Privacy Shield compliant.

News

The company has been covered in the media by various news and technology sources including ''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...

'', ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', ''

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 48 H ...

'', ''

Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'',

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

, and the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. Humanyze's clients have included

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...

, the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

, and BCG. The company's research has supported the importance of face-to-face interactions and communication, and building larger networks among peers. Since the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, Humanyze’s research has also been cited in publications such as

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...

New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

, HBR,

The Boston Business Journal The ''Boston Business Journal'' is a weekly, business-oriented newspaper published in Boston, Massachusetts. It is published by the American City Business Journals. The newspaper was founded by Robert Bergenheim and launched its first issue on M ...

, and Work Design Magazine in debates about the impact of

remote work Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, ware ...

on productivity and effectiveness.

Research

When Humanyze’s founders were researching their Ph.D.’s at the MIT Media Lab, they tested whether measuring all communication content from emails, texts, and in-person conversations would provide more insight. They measured over 100 MB of data per person per day.

ource The Ource () is a long river in northeastern France, a right tributary of the river Seine. Its source is in the Haute-Marne Departments of France, department, 2 km south of Poinson-lès-Grancey. It flows generally northwest. It joins the Sei ...

With all of this data, they found that it was difficult to extract communication patterns. So, they tested measuring the frequency and duration of communication instead: timestamps of communication, length of conversations, and which teams talked to which teams. They found that the degree of accuracy was negligible; measuring content was extraneous and unnecessary. Humanyze's founders have published 50+ research articles. One finding from the firm's research was that simple physical changes, such as having larger tables in a cafeteria, facilitated more interaction and collaboration among colleagues than smaller tables. Another finding emphasized the importance of group breaks and office spaces which facilitate such breaks as having an important effect on employee morale and efficacy.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Humanyze Software companies of the United States Technology companies based in the Boston area 2010 establishments in Massachusetts Software companies established in 2010 American companies established in 2010