Photo credit: Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
by David M. Sykes, Vice Chair, The Quiet Coalition
My first reaction to this article by Frank Fitzpatrick in Forbes advising companies to hire “Chief Sound Officers” was that the author’s tongue was firmly planted in his cheek. But no, he’s making some very valid points that corporate leaders could learn from: sound matters to business in lots of ways that deserve consideration.
As Fitzpatrick says, “You may not be in the sound business, but sound is in your business.” He notes that ambient noise level in retail spaces and workplaces has important effects on customer behavior and satisfaction, and on employee satisfaction and productivity.
I’m most taken by his discussion of hearables technologies coming to market now like the Apple iWatch with built-in sound meter. But there’s much more than that coming out of R&D labs to connect biometric data to wearable technologies on the assumption that informed consumers are more likely to be healthier too.
As Dr. Daniel Fink says: if it sounds loud, it is TOO loud. But if you’re used to ignoring noise, having a warning system on your wrist, a wearable device like an iWatch with a built-in sound meter, could be very helpful, and if enough people use it, that would be good for public health.
