As we enter 2010 we are facing a change in what enterprise and personal communications means. The biggest and most visible change we are seeing now is the Social Media explosion and it's effects on how people interact as customers, businesses and individuals. It's changing the way 'people' communicate, period. This short YouTube video on Social Media use is pretty revealing. We need to adapt communication capabilities to this change from both the personal and enterprise perspective. I discuss the enterprise side of this at my other blog.
What do I mean by people-centric? It's a broader view of what a contact is and how I'm presented with ways to communicate with them. From a professional and personal level don't you often ask questions like; Who inside my company can help me with subject X? Who do I know outside the company that can help with subject Y or performs service A? I need to contact a supplier dealing in Z, I need to call John about our fishing trip, etc. You get the idea. The challenge developing given this explosion of communication modes is how/where to find them, and once I do, how do I select/use a communication mode(s) that they are present on to reach them?
My broader view of a contact would have to include the usual name, number(s), company, and maybe personal email. A picture and web address are also pretty common. I want to add everything I can about their social network id's, IM id's (e.g. Skype), perhaps a field on expertise or general reason why I know them. The last point is key to me; why do I know them! - that's the "people-centric" view.
I mentioned earlier that I'd want to see what mode(s) of communication the person is currently present or available on. Show me if they are present on a real-time media or not and then allow me to see where. A contact record should include all of that information for searching and selecting a person to reach. The same contact info should pop up in front of me when that person tries to reach me by any mode. If this information were available I could do a more complete search of my contacts for people by name, affiliation, profession, club etc., and then pick/launch the right communication mode with a touch to reach/respond to them. Ease my communication overload just a bit.
How about you? I'd like to hear about challenges and solutions you have in mind to embrace the social media revolution and it's impact on your communication style and needs.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Observations on Google Chrome Browser
Updated Oct 20.
Last week I installed Google Chrome on my office laptop to get a look at how it performs vs. some of the other browsers I've used. This is a Lenovo Thinkpad machine, running Windows XP, 2.53 GHz processor, 3 GB of RAM. So far, I've been pretty impressed with it vs. IE 7. I don't have Firefox installed on this machine but do on my home machine. I expect Chrome to be similar to, if not a bit better, than Firefox but will check it on this same machine shortly.
Installation:
The only issue I had during install was an issue with my firewall. Once I disabled that, the download and installation went smoothly. I have to look further at the firewall issue later as well as try it on another machine. {When I installed on a second machine had no firewall issue. Conclude it was a firewall config issue on first machine] All my IE favorites and settings were automatically carried over. That included my Corp. proxy settings, security certificates, etc. It also included saved passwords which may sound good but it's really not.
Security:
From what I can tell you can keep Chrome pretty safe but you need to take steps to do so. I advise that you turn off the option to save/remember passwords and form data from the settings/options/personal_stuff menu. If you don't do this your passwords are easily viewed by anyone that has access to your computer. This includes passwords saved from your "old" browser. Look under settings/options/personal_stuff and you'll see a "show saved passwords" tab. Not good so don't save any.
Performance:
In direct comparison to IE 7 on this machine Chrome is noticeably faster in start-up, and running Java script, and page loading in general. It has never crashed or hung no matter what content, inside or outside my firewall, I have accessed. I've seen people tweet about crashes but I have never experienced any.
There is one exception to smoothly accessing all the content I did with IE 7. An internal web site I need for financial reporting requires the use of an older Microsoft JVM. With IE 7 I was able to configure use of this old JVM. Later I found some other web site apps that I visit/use that do not work properly. These same sites have issues with newer than IE6 as well. Looks like I need to keep IE around to access these legacy apps until they are upgraded.
Minor annoyance:
One function which I uesed frequently and miss in Chrome is the "email a link" option. IE and FF both support that and Chrome doesn't. It's a minor annoyance as you can of course copy and paste the link into your email client but it does appear to be an obvious ommission. I did get a tip on how to do this but it's still not as smooth as IE and FF.
Rumor:
I've seen some complaint about compatibility between Chrome and other Google products (Wave I think). I can't verify that since I don't have a Wave invite. If you read this and have direct feedback on this I'd approeciate it.
On a side note, I'd really like a Google Wave invite. I have strong interest in better collaboration and converged communications and want to see for myself how much Google has attacked this problem, or not.
Comments? Please leave your Chrome experiences, suggestions. Thanks
Last week I installed Google Chrome on my office laptop to get a look at how it performs vs. some of the other browsers I've used. This is a Lenovo Thinkpad machine, running Windows XP, 2.53 GHz processor, 3 GB of RAM. So far, I've been pretty impressed with it vs. IE 7. I don't have Firefox installed on this machine but do on my home machine. I expect Chrome to be similar to, if not a bit better, than Firefox but will check it on this same machine shortly.
Installation:
The only issue I had during install was an issue with my firewall. Once I disabled that, the download and installation went smoothly. I have to look further at the firewall issue later as well as try it on another machine. {When I installed on a second machine had no firewall issue. Conclude it was a firewall config issue on first machine] All my IE favorites and settings were automatically carried over. That included my Corp. proxy settings, security certificates, etc. It also included saved passwords which may sound good but it's really not.
Security:
From what I can tell you can keep Chrome pretty safe but you need to take steps to do so. I advise that you turn off the option to save/remember passwords and form data from the settings/options/personal_stuff menu. If you don't do this your passwords are easily viewed by anyone that has access to your computer. This includes passwords saved from your "old" browser. Look under settings/options/personal_stuff and you'll see a "show saved passwords" tab. Not good so don't save any.
Performance:
In direct comparison to IE 7 on this machine Chrome is noticeably faster in start-up, and running Java script, and page loading in general. It has never crashed or hung no matter what content, inside or outside my firewall, I have accessed. I've seen people tweet about crashes but I have never experienced any.
There is one exception to smoothly accessing all the content I did with IE 7. An internal web site I need for financial reporting requires the use of an older Microsoft JVM. With IE 7 I was able to configure use of this old JVM. Later I found some other web site apps that I visit/use that do not work properly. These same sites have issues with newer than IE6 as well. Looks like I need to keep IE around to access these legacy apps until they are upgraded.
Minor annoyance:
One function which I uesed frequently and miss in Chrome is the "email a link" option. IE and FF both support that and Chrome doesn't. It's a minor annoyance as you can of course copy and paste the link into your email client but it does appear to be an obvious ommission. I did get a tip on how to do this but it's still not as smooth as IE and FF.
Rumor:
I've seen some complaint about compatibility between Chrome and other Google products (Wave I think). I can't verify that since I don't have a Wave invite. If you read this and have direct feedback on this I'd approeciate it.
On a side note, I'd really like a Google Wave invite. I have strong interest in better collaboration and converged communications and want to see for myself how much Google has attacked this problem, or not.
Comments? Please leave your Chrome experiences, suggestions. Thanks
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Communication and Collaboration To Improve The Meeting "Experience"
I typically join 2 - 5 conference calls per day. Most are completely within my firm. Many are across firms and development partners worldwide. The overall meeting experience is typically frustrating, especially in the start-up. I just went through one this morning which triggered this blog though it's been on my mind for a while. Deployment of and enhancements to Unified Communications and Collaboration applications can help meeting start-up and efficiency. Running effective meetings is a broader subject that I'm not targeting here.
First, let's put this into a financial example. For a mid-large business having 50 meetings per day, with 10 attendees, making an average of 150K annually ($75 /hr), and a net of 15 minutes productivity lost in each meeting, they'd have over $2M of lost productivity cost annually. For many enterprises this may be a conservative estimate. Over and above the "cost", you're often left with a generally poor meeting experience for the attendees.
What's behind this? In almost every conference call I observe the following productivity loss:
1. Lateness. Participants are usually never all on and ready to start. I certainly don't expect 100% timeliness at every meeting but my experience on average is woeful. If it were easier to join into a collaboration session, would lateness be less likely?. I've written before about integration of calendar information for the purpose of automatic and more meaningful presence integration. It can also be useful here. A calendar alert for the meeting pops up on my device and provides a one touch click to join a call. No fumbling around looking for the number or glancing between your calendar and call application/device. This should apply to any device you're on, not just PC collaboration clients. This will require a more standardized approach to calendar item entry but it's certainly achievable.
2. Roll Call. The next step is the usual, 'who's on the call?' roll call. Most unified communications solutions provide a visual view of participants. This certainly can help but often isn't available on all participants devices. One reason may be that it's present more for "PC" clients than it is desk or mobile "voice" clients. The Unified Communications toolbox can evolve to gather participant information, map it to contacts information, and use that to display a more complete participant list/info to the attendees on more device types. Business to business communications compounds this issue. It requires interoperability of collaboration systems and/or an easily accessible "client" application usable on communications devices with a display.
3. Roll Call # 2. Is the information to be discussed available to all; the 'Do you all have the file?' or, 'is the web conference up yet?' delays. How many times have you heard this? Too much time is spent checking email for the file, emailing it to those that don't have it, or waiting for all to be on the collaboration session. When needed, I'd like to click a button, pop up an email client pre-populating email addresses of all call attendees from the participant list, attach the file and out it goes. For the collaboration session, it too should be in the calendar invite and launched automatically at the same time you click the entry to join. Points 1 - 3 could easily total a 15 min or more of meeting productivity loss.
4. Actual Collaboration. Once the meeting is underway, there are pause points that impact productivity. In many solutions the collaboration is only partial. Most collaboration products have the concept of a host with that host controlling the presentation or editing. True collaboration needs to allow multi-party simultaneous edit or mark-up. Don't waste time promoting to presenter or switching between desktops of meeting participants. An ink application (one of my personal favorites) makes communication more specific, clear and real time especially if it's not restricted to one user at a time. Faster, uninterrupted participation is my end goal and need. I particularly like ink to "show" what I want changed or edited or to make a point rather than try to verbally describe it until the editor gets it right.
Delays and pauses like the examples above not only frustrate me at times, but they also have a real cost. What are your experiences, needs, and recommendations for improved collaboration and meetings? I look forward to your comments.
First, let's put this into a financial example. For a mid-large business having 50 meetings per day, with 10 attendees, making an average of 150K annually ($75 /hr), and a net of 15 minutes productivity lost in each meeting, they'd have over $2M of lost productivity cost annually. For many enterprises this may be a conservative estimate. Over and above the "cost", you're often left with a generally poor meeting experience for the attendees.
What's behind this? In almost every conference call I observe the following productivity loss:
1. Lateness. Participants are usually never all on and ready to start. I certainly don't expect 100% timeliness at every meeting but my experience on average is woeful. If it were easier to join into a collaboration session, would lateness be less likely?. I've written before about integration of calendar information for the purpose of automatic and more meaningful presence integration. It can also be useful here. A calendar alert for the meeting pops up on my device and provides a one touch click to join a call. No fumbling around looking for the number or glancing between your calendar and call application/device. This should apply to any device you're on, not just PC collaboration clients. This will require a more standardized approach to calendar item entry but it's certainly achievable.
2. Roll Call. The next step is the usual, 'who's on the call?' roll call. Most unified communications solutions provide a visual view of participants. This certainly can help but often isn't available on all participants devices. One reason may be that it's present more for "PC" clients than it is desk or mobile "voice" clients. The Unified Communications toolbox can evolve to gather participant information, map it to contacts information, and use that to display a more complete participant list/info to the attendees on more device types. Business to business communications compounds this issue. It requires interoperability of collaboration systems and/or an easily accessible "client" application usable on communications devices with a display.
3. Roll Call # 2. Is the information to be discussed available to all; the 'Do you all have the file?' or, 'is the web conference up yet?' delays. How many times have you heard this? Too much time is spent checking email for the file, emailing it to those that don't have it, or waiting for all to be on the collaboration session. When needed, I'd like to click a button, pop up an email client pre-populating email addresses of all call attendees from the participant list, attach the file and out it goes. For the collaboration session, it too should be in the calendar invite and launched automatically at the same time you click the entry to join. Points 1 - 3 could easily total a 15 min or more of meeting productivity loss.
4. Actual Collaboration. Once the meeting is underway, there are pause points that impact productivity. In many solutions the collaboration is only partial. Most collaboration products have the concept of a host with that host controlling the presentation or editing. True collaboration needs to allow multi-party simultaneous edit or mark-up. Don't waste time promoting to presenter or switching between desktops of meeting participants. An ink application (one of my personal favorites) makes communication more specific, clear and real time especially if it's not restricted to one user at a time. Faster, uninterrupted participation is my end goal and need. I particularly like ink to "show" what I want changed or edited or to make a point rather than try to verbally describe it until the editor gets it right.
Delays and pauses like the examples above not only frustrate me at times, but they also have a real cost. What are your experiences, needs, and recommendations for improved collaboration and meetings? I look forward to your comments.
Friday, October 2, 2009
21st Century Communications Impact Putting a Damper on Your MoJo?
How many times have you been out to dinner or other social function talking with people only to have them abruptly stop the conversation to answer their mobile or to respond to some form of text or email? How many times have you been in a meeting and experienced the entire meeting being momentarily disrupted by a phone call, even if you or the other person didn’t actually answer it? Just the other night I got and deserved a lashing when I picked up my mobile to check email while waiting for dinner to arrive. The more communication modes and social networks we have available to us, the more rude and anti-social we are becoming. It really puts a damper on my MoJo!
Today we have the choice of voice, video, text, instant message, social networks, gaming networks, Skype, Google Voice, voice enabled Twitter and Facebook etc. These choices and the advances in mobile communication devices are responsible for this communication paradigm shift. The ability to take all this communication with you has changed us as much, or more, than the communication applications themselves. The way we treat or interact with one another socially has forever changed. Is that by choice or due to the current state of communication tools?
Once upon a time, face to face or by phone were our primary modes of communication. The person(s) communicating would more naturally be paying full attention to those in their presence or on the phone. Today, many prefer to text or email a person rather than call them. Why is that? I've talked to friends, family (e.g. my kids), thought about my own habits, and monitored social network communications about it. It could be the desire to “control” the time spent in or dedicating attention to the conversation. You don’t have to gracefully hang up or walk away from the person to terminate or interrupt the conversation. The communication is less dedicated, allowing for gaps or pauses in the interaction.
Texting, email, and social network communications appear to be taking priority over communicating with those in our presence. A common cited reason for it is the “need” to communicate with and respond to anyone trying to contact you “instantly”. Whatever happened to the “I’ll get back to you later” mentality? Is the “need” to multi-task the real driver behind this behavior change?
Many have discussed information overload, and social network addiction. The well known quote by Clay Shirkey, “it’s not information overload, it’s filter failure”, applies but may not be enough. The communication and information is so readily available to us, wherever we are, that we just can’t tear ourselves away from watching and responding. No amount of data or communication filtering can change this behavior if it fundamentally doesn’t want to be changed. With all the tweeting and blogging I see about information overload, stress and anxiety, there are signs that we want it to change.
Communication systems need to evolve further to offer filtering and other forms of control. I’ve written before about consolidation of our identities, a unified communications dashboard and “agent” that can do this filtering. A couple of capabilities of a communication system that could help me be less rude and take control over interruptions include;
1. Advanced and automatic presence detection. Why not use the videocam most PC’s have, or emerging video phones, for detecting if I am in my office alone or not? If I'm not, don’t ring my phone at all! Don’t route calls, text or other alerts to me unless the source and content meet my filter criteria (e.g. from home containing urgent as a keyword). I need something automatic to set my presence. I don’t want to have to remember to “set” my presence. It could be motion detection, RFID or similar technology. Automatic “presence” detection when you are carrying only your mobile is another issue to solve.
2. Integration with calendar to detect when I'm in a meeting or other form of in-person engagement. A “do not disturb” flag in our calendars that's more refined than the simple "busy". This is another form of automated presence detection for use in controlling the communication. It can be used to automatically suspend calls, alerts, texts, tweets etc to my device, especially mobiles, unless they meet my criteria. To implement this requires more standardization of how calendar entries are represented so presence and other relevant data about the engagement or call can be extracted. More on this in another blog to come.
Do you feel the impact and change brought on by 21st century communications? Do you feel more rude, interrupted and less focused? It sure puts a damper on my MoJo. I’d like to hear your thoughts on it and ideas on how to address it.
Today we have the choice of voice, video, text, instant message, social networks, gaming networks, Skype, Google Voice, voice enabled Twitter and Facebook etc. These choices and the advances in mobile communication devices are responsible for this communication paradigm shift. The ability to take all this communication with you has changed us as much, or more, than the communication applications themselves. The way we treat or interact with one another socially has forever changed. Is that by choice or due to the current state of communication tools?
Once upon a time, face to face or by phone were our primary modes of communication. The person(s) communicating would more naturally be paying full attention to those in their presence or on the phone. Today, many prefer to text or email a person rather than call them. Why is that? I've talked to friends, family (e.g. my kids), thought about my own habits, and monitored social network communications about it. It could be the desire to “control” the time spent in or dedicating attention to the conversation. You don’t have to gracefully hang up or walk away from the person to terminate or interrupt the conversation. The communication is less dedicated, allowing for gaps or pauses in the interaction.
Texting, email, and social network communications appear to be taking priority over communicating with those in our presence. A common cited reason for it is the “need” to communicate with and respond to anyone trying to contact you “instantly”. Whatever happened to the “I’ll get back to you later” mentality? Is the “need” to multi-task the real driver behind this behavior change?
Many have discussed information overload, and social network addiction. The well known quote by Clay Shirkey, “it’s not information overload, it’s filter failure”, applies but may not be enough. The communication and information is so readily available to us, wherever we are, that we just can’t tear ourselves away from watching and responding. No amount of data or communication filtering can change this behavior if it fundamentally doesn’t want to be changed. With all the tweeting and blogging I see about information overload, stress and anxiety, there are signs that we want it to change.
Communication systems need to evolve further to offer filtering and other forms of control. I’ve written before about consolidation of our identities, a unified communications dashboard and “agent” that can do this filtering. A couple of capabilities of a communication system that could help me be less rude and take control over interruptions include;
1. Advanced and automatic presence detection. Why not use the videocam most PC’s have, or emerging video phones, for detecting if I am in my office alone or not? If I'm not, don’t ring my phone at all! Don’t route calls, text or other alerts to me unless the source and content meet my filter criteria (e.g. from home containing urgent as a keyword). I need something automatic to set my presence. I don’t want to have to remember to “set” my presence. It could be motion detection, RFID or similar technology. Automatic “presence” detection when you are carrying only your mobile is another issue to solve.
2. Integration with calendar to detect when I'm in a meeting or other form of in-person engagement. A “do not disturb” flag in our calendars that's more refined than the simple "busy". This is another form of automated presence detection for use in controlling the communication. It can be used to automatically suspend calls, alerts, texts, tweets etc to my device, especially mobiles, unless they meet my criteria. To implement this requires more standardization of how calendar entries are represented so presence and other relevant data about the engagement or call can be extracted. More on this in another blog to come.
Do you feel the impact and change brought on by 21st century communications? Do you feel more rude, interrupted and less focused? It sure puts a damper on my MoJo. I’d like to hear your thoughts on it and ideas on how to address it.
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