Buffer, a startup adept at Quantified Self

[ad_1]

Today, here’s a rather special article that may be the start of a long series. On a daily basis, many people use smart health connected objects linked to Quantified Self and today we are interested in a startup that uses smart health connected bracelets to improve well-being and help the personal development of its employees, Buffer.

Introducing Buffer

Buffer is a Californian startup which, for about 5 years, has been developing online tool that allows you to publish, plan and manage your presence on social networks. Created by Joel Gascoigne, Leo Widrich and Tom Moor, Buffer is now a team of around 30 people. But Buffer is also 10 values ​​that symbolize the company and that they try to respect on a daily basis.

Buffer values

Special feature of Buffer: the distributed team. Its employees do not work in Buffer's offices, but around the world in the location they want. This choice was made at the start of the startup for several reasons. Employees are more productive, more free, learn a lot. Time zones allow employees to always have a co-worker who works while they sleep. So you can have one employee in South Africa and another in London. To bridge the distance, they organize retreats every 6 months where all the employees meet and work together for about a week.

Buffer team

It was therefore necessary to adapt to this type of organization and set up advantages different from those for example from Google such as free food and table tennis tables, while staying in line with the values ​​of the startup. For those who understand English well, here is a ehealth of the founders Leo Widrich and Joel Gascoigne on choosing these types of benefits.

(Embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEQXxp3nqlw (/ embed)

The benefits of which therefore different and are focused on personal development. Here's what a new Buffer employee is entitled to:

  • A salary between 65,000 and 95,000 dollars per year + shares in the company.

  • MacBook Air and any other useful tool to be productive

  • A Kindle Paperwhite reader with unlimited free books

  • A Jawbone UP / UP24

  • Kindle Paperwhite and Jawbone UP / UP24 also family members

  • 1000 dollars a year to take a vacation.

  • Full health insurance for employees and partially for their families.

The company is also completely transparent, because it reveals many important information such as the salaries of its employees.

All employees have a smart health connected bracelet

Buffer members therefore all receive a Jawbone UP24, which Jean-Guillaume has tested and which I also own, when they are hired.

The choice of smart health connected bracelets was natural, because they correspond to their values ​​as they explained to me in our discussions. It's part of their personal development program that they practice. This program consists of reflecting, each week, on the resolutions that we will apply during the coming week. It can be very different depending on the period as I was told. In the case of the employee interviewed, her routine consists mainly of a run session 3 times a week and spend more time with family during the holidays. The choice of the UP platform is mainly linked to the fact that creating a team is simple.

Each employee therefore tries to achieve good resolutions. The main resolutions are reading, sleep and sports.

All data recorded by the Jawbone UP is shared with the whole team and are an opportunity for discussion, advice, encouragement. According to the testimony we have gathered, it is very motivating on a daily basis to be encouraged by colleagues in the implementation of its resolutions. Not wearing it for some time because of repair, Mary Jantsch finds that she is much more active and goes to bed earlier when she uses the bracelet, which helps her find motivation.

The fact that they can encourage each other reduces the distance and brings people together. For example, if an employee tries to sleep more than 8 hours a night, they will look at their data and see what advice they can give them.

Jawbone UP Buffer Screenshot

The program has, for some time, been extended to family members. Finally, we asked Buffer if they found the data collected to be useful for improving, changing, or starting a new resolution. We were told it was, because the app analyzes them and provides useful advice. This notably allowed an employee to know that when she does sports everyday she slept badly.

For a startup that creates a corporate culture, they advised us to think about the values ​​of the company first and see if they are appropriate, as it may depend on the company. Buffer therefore found a very good way to use Quantified Self for the well-being of its employees while putting these personal development values ​​into practice. Hopefully other companies are taking the plunge.

You are a company that uses smart health connected objects to improve the productivity of its employees, for example, do not hesitate to contact us using the contact form on the site or to tweet me at @mrcalexandre. Thank you very much to the Buffer team for allowing me to do this interview and for answering my questions. I would especially like to thank Asa Nystroms and Mary Jantsch for their help in producing this article.

Do not hesitate to give your opinion in the comments if you liked this article or not and if you want to read other articles of the same kind.

[ad_2]

 Review