As we reach the end of the year, many have been waiting for the annual Spotify Wrapped, a feature allowing users to see a summary of what they’ve listened to throughout the year. In this year’s edition, Spotify created a much more interactive and personal rendition, adding; crosswords, a listening personality profile based on listening habits and how much you listened to that one song on the 24th July no one needs to know about.
Many other apps and learning platforms have jumped on the wave of making data look fun. Even Duolingo has given its users a yearly wrapped on their progress, so you can finally show off your Spanish (Estoy muy intelligente!).
There was a flurry of activity on social media as people posted the good, the bad and the ugly of what they listened to over this past year. Some were proud (and smug!) of the eclectic collection of their music, including indie and little-known bands; some were embarrassed by the dominance of a surprise genre (I didn’t realised I listened to that much French RnB!). Some celebrated and rejoiced in having a clean music record, full of UK hits, RnB classics, and Afrobeat bangers (guilty!).
In this day and age, nothing escapes the hilarious and satiric world of memes, and very quickly these popped up, raising the hot topic of personal data.
The flood of posts also prompted some witty but insightful responses:
Our personal data, how it’s tracked and what it says about us is a hot topic at the moment – especially at a time when political powers are concerned with the control of Big Tech.
For us at NKD, data informs all the decisions we make about… well, everything really. From discovery findings to participant feedback, from verbatim opinions to hard numbers, we evolve our thinking, our solutions, and our designs from the data we collect.
Data plays a huge role in our Hackathon events – we use personal data to get participants to empathise with their colleagues to help define what’s going on in the business. Throughout the Hackathon event, we use data to measure how engaging and exciting different ideas and prototype solutions are – and after the end of the event, we use data to test and measure the success of the prototypes and to help build stronger, more engaging solutions.
The future?
We could use employees’ personal learning data to help direct them to in-the-moment coaching and learning opportunities – bite-size nuggets of knowledge that give just-in-time advice and personalised learning from a suite of eLearning modules.
We could also use this data to tailor learning to people’s personal learning styles and lifestyles – for auditory learners, or those with long driving commutes to work – podcasts; for visual learners, or those who catch public transport to work, animations and short films; for those who love reading, articles. The possibilities exist in what the data can tell us, and that could mean anything and everything is possible!
So, if Spotify can get people excited by sharing and celebrating their personal data, what if we could do this for employee engagement?
Now excuse me, while I go listen to one of my favourite albums: Celine Dion Sings Songs from The Musicals!