With the aggressive pace of technological change and the onslaught of news regarding data breaches, cyber-attacks, and technological threats to privacy and security, it is easy to assume these are fundamentally new threats. The pace of technological change is slower than it feels, and many seemingly new categories of threats have been with us longer than we remember. Nervous System is a monthly series that approaches issues of data privacy and cybersecurity from the context of history—to look to the past for clues about how to interpret the present and prepare for the future.

 

Historically, call center managers struggled to identify for the best time to initiate a new dialing attempt while an agent was still occupied such that the next successful connection came as close as possible to when that agent became free. Finding that sweet spot was beyond human ability, due to the array of different factors involved, and the way those factors may fluctuate over time.