{"id":700,"date":"2014-05-07T12:31:17","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T20:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaneckles.com\/blog\/?p=700"},"modified":"2014-05-14T08:50:34","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T16:50:34","slug":"docsend_in_snow_crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deaneckles.com\/blog\/700_docsend_in_snow_crash\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s better for older workers to go a little fast: DocSend in Snow Crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friends at DocSend<\/a> have just done their public launch (article<\/a>, TechCrunch Disrupt presentation<\/a>). DocSend provides easy ways to get analytics for documents (e.g., proposals, pitch decks, reports, memos) you send out, answering questions like: Who actually viewed the document? Which pages did they view? How much time did they spend on each page? The most common use cases for DocSend’s current customers involve sales, marketing, and startup fundraising — mainly sending documents to people outside an organization.<\/p>\n

From when Russ, Dave, and Tony started floating these ideas, I’ve pointed out the similarity with a often forgotten scene1<\/a><\/sup> in Snow Crash<\/em><\/a>, in which a character \u2014 Y.T.’s mom \u2014 is tracked by her employer (the Federal Government actually) as she reads a memo on a cost-saving program. Here’s an except from Chapter 37:<\/p>\n

Y.T.’s mom pulls up the new memo, checks the time, and starts reading it. The estimated reading time is 15.62 minutes. Later, when Marietta [her boss] does her end-of-day statistical roundup, sitting in her private office at 9:00 P.M., she will see the name of each employee and next to it, the amount of time spent reading this memo, and her reaction, based on the time spent, will go something like this:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Less than 10 min.: Time for an employee conference and possible attitude counseling.
\n\u2022 10-14 min.: Keep an eye on this employee; may be developing slipshod attitude.
\n\u2022 14-15.61 min.: Employee is an efficient worker, may sometimes miss important details.
\n\u2022 Exactly 15.62 min.: Smartass. Needs attitude counseling.
\n\u2022 15.63-16 min.: Asswipe. Not to be trusted.
\n\u2022 16-18 min.: Employee is a methodical worker, may sometimes get hung up on minor details.
\n\u2022 More than 18 min.: Check the security videotape, see just what this employee was up to (e.g., possible unauthorized restroom break).<\/p>\n

Y.T.’s mom decides to spend between fourteen and fifteen minutes reading the memo. It’s better for younger workers to spend too long, to show that they’re careful, not cocky. It’s better for older workers to go a little fast, to show good management potential. She’s pushing forty. She scans through the memo, hitting the Page Down button at reasonably regular intervals, occasionally paging back up to pretend to reread some earlier section. The computer is going to notice all this. It approves of rereading. It’s a small thing, but over a decade or so this stuff really shows up on your work-habits summary.<\/p>\n

This is pretty much what DocSend provides. And, despite the emphasis on sales etc., some of their customers are using this for internal HR training \u2014 which shifts the power asymmetry in how this technology is used from salespeople selling to companies (which can choose not to buy, etc.) to employers tracking their employees.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

To conclude, it’s worth noting that, at least for a time, product managers at Facebook \u2014 Russ’ job before starting DocSend \u2014 were required to read Snow Crash as part of their internal training. Though I don’t think the folks running PM bootcamp actually tracked whether their subordinates looked at each page.<\/p>\n

  1. I know it’s often forgotten because I’ve tried referring to the scene with many people who have read Snow Crash\u2014 or at least claim to have read it… [\u21a9<\/a>]<\/li>
  2. Of course, there are some products that do this kind of thing. What distinguishes DocSend is how easy it makes it to add such personalized tracking to simple documents and that this is the primary focus of the product, unlike larger sales tool sets like ClearSlide. [\u21a9<\/a>]<\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My friends at DocSend have just done their public launch (article, TechCrunch Disrupt presentation). DocSend provides easy ways to get analytics for documents (e.g., proposals, pitch decks, reports, memos) you send out, answering questions like: Who actually viewed the document? Which pages did they view? How much time did they spend on each page? The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deaneckles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deaneckles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deaneckles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deaneckles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deaneckles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.deaneckles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":707,"href":"https:\/\/www.deaneckles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions\/707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deaneckles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deaneckles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deaneckles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}