Reaping Results: Data-Mining Goes Mainstream - New York Times

I'm surprised this didn't mainstream sooner 

By tracking e-mail traffic, instant messages and other digital communications — stripped of personally identifiable information — he and other researchers are beginning to study the flow of work and ideas through the social networks inside companies — minute by minute, bit by bit.

“We’re really on the cusp of being able to understand what goes on inside corporations in a much more scientific way than ever before,” he said. “It’s similar to the way that the microscope opened up biology in the 17th century, so that you could see blood cells. Now, we can start to see bits of information as they flow through the organism of the corporation.”

Source: Reaping Results: Data-Mining Goes Mainstream - New York Times