Data Mining is continuously being considered, applied and adopted in new areas. The Numerati by Stephen Baker has a very interesting chapter called, "The Worker."

At IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center, a team of data miners, statisticians and anthropologists is building mathematical models of their colleagues (50,000 of IBM's tech consultants) to improve productivity and automate management. The idea is to pile up inventories of all of their skills and then to calculate mathematically (the job fit, for example), how best to deploy them.

Quoting the author, "IBM, for example, will also be able to place workers and their skills into the same type of analytic software that they use for financial projections. This way, they will project skills that will be needed (or in surplus) in coming years. This eventually could result in something like futures markets for skills and workers."

The data sources used for the modeling include resumes, project records, online calendars, cell phone & handheld computer usage, call records and emails, etc.

The article also mentions an interesting example of how an IBM manager can select and assign a team of five to set up a call center in Manila.

Source: Datalligence blog, The Numerati - August 2008