Microsoft is developing a software package called BusyBody which will measure the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìcost of interruption?¢‚Ǩ¬ù at any given point in a user?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s interaction with computer.

This follows studies like the one conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London which found that doing more than one thing at a time on your computer (answering emails or IMs while writing that crucial report), will lower your IQ (temporarily!) by 10 points. In some circles this is known as the impact of “data smog” on your productivity.

According to an article in Discover, tests at Microsoft show that BusyBody can predict interruption costs accurately about four out of every five times. (Is it cruel to suggest that Windows users have an unfair advantage in measuring interruption costs? I think it is).

The article describes how the software will work in more detail. It concludes on a note of counter-intuitive optimism:

You might scoff at a program that interrupts your work flow to ask whether you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d like to be interrupted, but the end result is precisely the kind of nuanced learning that humans do all the time.

Think of the personal assistant who can hear in the boss?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s tone of voice that he doesn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t want to be interrupted. Why shouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t your computer be able to detect patterns in the way you work with information? We shouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t have to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to battling data smog. Machines should help out too. After all, they?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re the ones that got us into this mess in the first place.

Tags: BusyBody, microsoft, Productivity

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This entry was posted on Saturday, 5th November, 2005 at 8:12 am and is filed under Email in general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.