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Why Cogito?
We connected with Jorge Calzada, Director of Data Science, to discuss why he chose a career opportunity with Cogito. Jorge joined the company in February of 2020 and works remotely from his home in Massachusetts. For this blog, Jorge shares why he felt he was destined to join Cogito, his favorite aspects of the AI Coaching product and where he sees the company’s future growth opportunities.
Tell us a bit about what you do for Cogito.
I lead the Data Science team which is primarily responsible for leveraging existing platform data and identifying unique ways to create value for current and future clients. If clients have specific questions they need help answering, we’ll assist and leverage our behavioral signals data to extract information and share in a client-ready capacity.
What do you think of the product?
The product is phenomenal—and I was a huge fan well before joining Cogito. What stands out about Cogito’s AI Coach is its real-time capabilities, which is a key differentiator from the competitors in the market today. The ability to provide coaching feedback in the moment is vital, with research showing just how effective it can be to drive behavioral change.
Increasingly, organizations are realizing the power of measuring real-time CX, and that’s really exciting to me as a Data Scientist. Many organizations have been working to achieve this for a while, but Cogito’s capabilities are second to none.
What is your favorite aspect of the product?
I feel incredibly privileged to lead the Data Science Team, and my favorite aspect of Cogito’s product is the insights it garners. In my role specifically, I have the ability to dive deep into the behavioral signals and human nuances the deployed product generates. I believe there are unlimited possibilities for what we can do and the value that we can create for both employees and their customers by leveraging the signal data.
What stands out to you about Cogito in comparison to others in the industry?
Hands down, the real-time aspect. Nobody in the space can do what Cogito can with AI and the real-time streaming signals. It’s really unique.
What was the biggest driving factor in your decision to join Cogito/take your role?
I feel like I was predestined to join Cogito. When I was a graduate student at MIT in 2005, I was taking classes at the MIT Media Lab—which is where Cogito actually came to be. While there, I heard about this amazing project where Media Lab researchers were not looking at conversational language, rather at voice to predict outcomes. Whether it was a first date or a business negotiation, these researchers discovered that the way you said things were far more powerful than the actual words that were being used.
I later met Josh Feast, Cogito’s CEO and co-founder, at an MIT Alumni event where we shortly connected the dots from Sandy Pentland’s 2005 Media Lab research and evolution to Cogito.
Sometimes I look back at how it all unfolded from grad school to today and feel like all aspects of my journey prepared me to be here today. From working in a call center to put myself through college to working on CX Analytics prior to joining Cogito—everything has been pointing me towards Cogito.
What stands out to you about the people/culture at Cogito?
What stands out to me about Cogito’s culture are the operating principles—always be growing, seek diverse perspectives, earn customers for life and be emotionally intelligent. Those resonated with me when applying here and every day since I’ve see how those values are brought to life. Being emotionally intelligent has a net effect that makes Cogito a wonderful place to work. Working around other emotionally intelligent people is just the best working environment that I can imagine.
In our remote world, what is one way you like to connect with other Cogicians?
I joined Cogito at the end of February 2020 and less than three weeks later the Global Pandemic was declared. I was in the office only 9 or 10 times (and it is a beautiful office by the way) by the time we went fully remote. As many experienced, it meant adapting quickly and I was pleased by how seamless Cogito made it feel.
Within the Behavioral Science department, we are very active in making sure that we are connected at all times. We have a weekly happy hour together to create a no-work talk space and take the time to really connect with each other. My team and I are counting down the days until we’re all fully vaccinated so that we can meet in person—especially all the new hiresI have yet to meet face-to-face.
How do you embrace the Cogito culture? (i.e. internally: coffee/donuts, CRGs, team happy hours, client facing: showing emotional intelligence, etc.)
I love our operating principles and I try to live them every day like my fellow Cogicians do. In embracing Cogito’s culture, I’ve actually hosted my own team coffee chat to detail my expertise and impact data can have on CX. I was also able to give several enablement chats around a new product offering that we recently created, in addition to sharing ways to measure quality in the call center—knowledge sharing is so critical to our culture and company growth!
How do you envision the company growing in the next few years?
Cogito’s future is filled with promise—we have incredible technology and incredible customers. When I look into the future, I see company growth and larger customer organizations. Today, we’re experiencing such growth and thinking through how to scale which is writing the course of our future.
What are you most looking forward to in your future at Cogito?
I look forward to seeing how we grow as a company—both internally and externally. For company growth, I challenge our teams to continue to maintain this amazing culture we have and never lose sight of what makes us so unique.
Anything else you’d like to share?
I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be here—if you could come up with a perfect workplace, Cogito would be it for me.
Interested in joining the team? View our open roles here!