Thought Leaders in Internet of Things: Guillermo Diaz, CEO of Kloudspot (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: When I look at the current landscape and the foreseeable future, this is going to be an issue. I would like to know if there are non-vaccinated people around me if I am in a public setting. Vaccinated people are not at risk from non-vaccinated people. That might not be entirely true because the variants are not clear yet. This is a hairy issue. It’s a controversial issue. I am in favor of giving up some privacy to be much safer.

Guillermo Diaz: That is what we are seeing. Let me give a scenario in what we call the Kloud hybrid platform. Today, I am in my office. I went in and checked in. I could see the whole map of our building. I could see which desks are open. By the way, you can only see every other desk. That is the way we designed it. When I check out that desk, it will now apply that to me.

Once they checked that desk, I know that a bunch of questions will be asked. The first question would be, “Have you been around people who have had COVID? Have you had symptoms?” The second question would be, “Have you been vaccinated?” That is our policy for our building. I want to know that because I want to feel safe when I go there.

When I am there, it is dependent on the customer if they want to know that or not. It’s up to them if they are okay with people coming in as long it is within the 40% capacity. As I am moving around because of the social distancing and the ability to track, I could also see if somebody got sick. Four people around this day were around Guillermo. I could do contact tracing if the customer wants it.

These are all configurable things. It just depends on the policy of the customer. It also depends on you. As we are doing this, we also want to say, “Guillermo doesn’t feel safe. We still want him on our staff, so we will allow him to work at home.” It provides that level of safety and also the flexibility to make those kinds of decisions. 

Sramana Mitra: I have a slightly different question but it is contextual. What is your analysis of this employee productivity tracking and analysis category of companies? 

Guillermo Diaz: Are these intrusive kinds of tracking? Could you say more about that?

Sramana Mitra: There are sizeable companies out there who are monitoring various kinds of employee behavior to make policy decisions. This is done to address culture and productivity at a company-wide level.

Guillermo Diaz: There are three things that I think about. Earlier, I’d want to make sure that you were engaged, then I wanted to make sure that you were productive, and then I want to make sure that you were safe. That was the world pre-COVID. We cannot deny that. People would say yes to safety, but unless you are in a deep environment like in a construction zone, people would not allow you to intrude.

Now, many companies say, “I want to be able to track exactly who came in.” There are some APIs that we connect to that track keystrokes. Those are the things that contact centers do so that they know exactly who is doing what and how long they were on their desk. They go very deep. I personally don’t want to be in that kind of culture. What we are doing is we are providing a platform that says, “You can go as deep or as shallow as you want.”

If you are sitting home working and you are meeting on Zoom, you get Zoom fatigue. I know some days I feel like my head is going to explode because there is no white space. Before I used to go to my car and go to the office. Now, it’s just Zoom after Zoom. Many companies are saying that their productivity is through the roof.

I’ve seen the studies, but there is the flip side to it that says that our wellness has gone down. People feel that they mentally need a break. My productivity is high, but my wellness is low. To me, what I would love to see is a balance of that. We want to give you insight into not only how productive people are but also how healthy they are. Back to your question, that is a problem that needs to be solved.  

This segment is part 5 in the series : Thought Leaders in Internet of Things: Guillermo Diaz, CEO of Kloudspot
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