ElementsDaily

Cornell University ergonomics professor Dr. Alan Hedge found a 74% increase in typing mistakes and a 46% reduction in typing output when office temperatures fell from 77 degrees F to 68 degrees F.

“The results of our study also suggest raising the temperature to a more comfortable thermal zone saves employers about $2 per worker, per hour,” says Hedge.

In the study, which was conducted at Insurance Office of America’s headquarters in Orlando, Fla., each of nine workstations was equipped with a miniature personal environment-sensor for sampling air temperature every 15 minutes. The researchers recorded the amount of time that employees keyboarded and the amount of time they spent making error corrections. Hedge used a new research approach employing software that can synchronize a specific indoor environmental variable, in this case temperature, with productivity.

“At 77 degrees Fahrenheit, the workers were keyboarding 100 percent of the time with a 10 percent error rate, but at 68 degrees, their keying rate went down to 54 percent of the time with a 25 percent error rate,” Hedge says. “Temperature is certainly a key variable that can impact performance.”

Find out more about Dr. Alan Hedge and this study at http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Oct04/temp.productivity.ssl.html

After publishing my article, Driving Leads Through Mobile Technology, I was asked the same question multiple times, “What industries are most successful in using mobile technology for marketing purposes?” Here is a survey from 1020 Placement and Harris Interactive that reveals which industries consumers want to hear from most via text messaging.

The survey of 2,029 adults, ages 18 and older, measured cell phone owner preference levels and receptivity for opt-in mobile marketing messages from brick-and-mortar businesses.

The results found that 42% of 18 to 34 year old cell phone owners and 33% of 35 to 44 year olds are at least somewhat interested in receiving alerts about sales on their cell phones from their favorite establishments. Men are more interested than women; 51% of men ages 18 to 34, and 34% of women of the same age range who own cell phones, are at least somewhat interested in receiving opt-in shopping alerts on their cell phones.

Food, entertainment and consumer products top the list of categories
Only 1% cell phone owners currently receive alerts about sales at their favorite establishments on their phones, yet 26% would be at