What is Your Company's "Cognitive Surplus?"

Sometimes, somebody says something and you just have to say... "that is really cool."

That happened when I read a post on the blog The Big Picture, authored by Barry L. Ritholtz.  His post made me think about one of the biggest opportunities that companies have to be successful.  But he does it in a way that really makes you think.  The post can be found here - but the gist of it is this...

There is a "cognitive surplus" in the world that has been ignored and underutilized for quite a while - and the new social and participative technologies are starting to unleash it.  He makes the point on his post that Wikipedia represents about 100 million hours of "volunteer" time.  He further says that television watching in the US amounts to about 200 billion hours of time.  That's billion with a "B."  Therefore, we have the cognitive surplus in the US alone to create 2,000 Wikipedias.  He mentions that just on a weekend the US spends 100 million hours just watching the ads on TV. 

Some quick, unscientific math here - with roughly 150 million working adults in the country with a population of roughly 300 million, that means that about half the 200 billion hours of TV watching comes from working folks.  With that in mind, lets call the number 100 billion hours (I'm sure they watch less than the average child but this is about a concept, not a PhD), therefore each working adult spends 666 hours (scary number, eh?) watching TV each year - or about 10% of their waking time (365 days x 24 hours - 8 hours per day for sleeping.)  I'm sure it's less than 10%, but I've also read that the average American spends 4 hours per day in front of the tube (which is 1440 hours), so I'm probably being generous here.

Now, put that in the context of your organization.  How much cognitive surplus is there in your company?  How much time is spent on things either company sponsored or not, that are sapping the thinking power of your employees - or your channel and consumers for that matter?  I have to believe that companies could do a similar surplus calculation.

Think of it this way.  If 10% is a good number for a cognitive surplus, it would represent 10 employees you didn't really need in a 100 person company - or roughly $500,000 assuming an entry level employee at a cost of $50,000 per head.  Not a bad number.

Now bounce that against the cost of energizing those same hundred folks with new participative technologies such as Wikis, blogs, social networks and reward programs to get them to engage with these new fangled tools.  Does it justify the cost?  I have to believe the answer is yes.

Of course, none of this will work unless your company puts in place the appropriate award and recognition strategies to encourage and highlight participation in these tools.  You have to change the culture.  Check out some statistics on collaboration within companies on my home blog - the future is all about teams and leveraging the total intelligence of a company.

Without some reason to shift their surplus from one area to another, they won't make the shift.  But the numbers seem to show that it might just be worth your effort to find a way.

Editor's Note - Paul Hebert is the brain behind Incentive Intelligence and a recognized authority on incentives and performance motivation.  In an unexpected twist to the concept of a cognitive surplus, my brain just exploded as I read Paul's post.    Back to watching "Card Sharks" for me...

Comments

[Jessica Lee]

a quick note... some of this echoes the sentiments in book i read a while back - the other 90%. (http://www.amazon.com/Other-90%25-Untapped-Potential-Leadership/dp/0812932870)

in cooper's book, he claims that most of us use only 10% of our intelligence and much of what we're capable of is left untapped. in the workplace, i think this ties back to keeping folks engaged and letting them work on projects that they really enjoy and believe in (google's approach)... which hopefully takes people beyond using just that 10% and opens up the possibility of unleashing the other 90% that is dormant.

interesting thoughts, paul. thanks for the post.

[marenhogan]

I've been hearing a lot about Zappo's and how they have like tons of employees on Twitter. To commentators, this means that this is a super engaged and productive company bent on building long-term relationships (not just cause of the Twitter thing but also because they have invested in other client friendly activities, free shipping etc). But to other companies, they would rather risk the possibility that their employees are not reaching their full potential than risk their talent learning something valuable and taking it somewhere else. Sad but true. Wonder which companies will win? :)

By the way, good stuff. But chilling and watching That 70s Show reruns takes waaaay less cognitive power than writing um, anything of substance. Jessica, if 90% of my brain is dormant, then why am I so tired?

[Paul Hebert]

There's also the issue of where that surplus is directed - and many companies like to control that direction.

If I spend ALL my surplus learning things outside my area of focus on the job then maybe I'm in the wrong job. However, I also think having some of your surplus going hither and yon is a great way to drive innovation.

Double-edged sword methinks. It all depends on which side you want to be cut with.

[Jennifer McClure]

From your take on this Paul, I never would have guessed that you have a degree is Statistics...

Very interesting post! Even more interesting is how when you read Barry's blog, it made you think about how companies can use all that extra time to leverage total intelligence within the organization, while all it makes me realize is that I'm behind on my TV watching. I need to get busy if I'm going to achieve my 666 hours for the year cause I don't want to be Below Average! Spoken like a true American I'm sure.

[KD]

Paul -

Great post. I saw the same thing Jessica did - it seems like a call for companies to find ways to get employees engaged so they can cash in on concept of "mindshare" - the engaged employee will gladly give more of their time if they enjoy and are motivated by what's going on at work....

Like the Twitter deal at Zappos that Maren brought up too...

KD

[Michelle Malay Carter]

Paul,

Interesting post. It lines up with the blog posts I've been writing this week about over-hiring people.

I am a management consultant specializing in talent assessment and our findings (from over 5,000 data points)is that 1 in 5 employees is under-utilized at work.

Regards,

Michelle Malay Carter

[Kate]

I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Kate

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