Mike Has Mojo - The Future of Realtime Communications

Unified Communications Influence on Communication Behaviors

2010-11-23T10:22:00.000-08:00

I recently read a post on Unified Communications Etiquette Dos and Don’ts by Unified Communications analyst Blair Pleasant. I recommend giving it a read before continuing on. She captured some trends and observations around use of Instant Messaging, presence, and audio conferencing and offered tips on the evolving norms of respectful communication behavior. There is no doubt that our communication preferences and behaviors have changed significantly over the last decade.

When reading through her post it struck me that these etiquette issues, needs and expectations present opportunities for Unified Communications solutions to address. It’s one of the technologies that contributed to creating the issue in the first place.

Presence:

The major challenges I see with presence include:

1) Accuracy – presence state is often inaccurate. This can be due to the users not wanting to publish their presence, or just as likely, users not being able to manually manage their presence. Could this inaccuracy be behind the expected use of IM to check if some one is really there and available for a call?

For presence to be effective it needs to be more automatically detected. A smart linkage to calendar entries, use of location services when mobile, activity on a call, activity on the desktop, networks or services you are currently logged into, use of video to detect physical presence (and where) and even if you’re alone or not can all be very powerful in easing detection of our true state. Whether public or private, more accurate and rich presence information can be utilized by Unified Communications applications, particularly a personal agent, to help manage and route your communications.

2) Privacy – how much detail about our presence state do we really need to publish to be effective? Publishing accurate presence state can certainly assist people trying to reach you in choosing the best mode to use. Regardless, for privacy this has to remain a user option. The combination of rich presence information and the personal agent can be very powerful. The rich presence information can be known to the system independently of how much of it is being advertised. The personal agent reflects the users rule base of when, why, by whom and under what circumstances they can be reached and by what mode of communication. The contacting party need not concern themselves quite as much about the person really being available or not, or disturbing them since the agent can handle much of the control more accurately.

Presence/Agent Possibilities

Here are just a couple examples of where solutions need to go and how stronger presence and personal agents can factor in.

1) The impromptu meeting – I’m in my office doing some personal work on my desktop. I’m basically available. A person happens to walk into my office and we begin chatting for a while. I’m now in a meeting that wasn’t reflected in my calendar. The video camera in my desktop communication device or PC detects the additional presence. My presence is automatically set to “do not disturb” or similar as if I was in a scheduled meeting. Unless a contact attempt passes my rules, my phone(s) will not ring, the agent can intercept or route the call. The agent can also choose certain auto-reply methods/modes to acknowledge the contactor. There will be no alerts or pop-ups on my desktop PC or communication device unless the communication attempt passes the rules set in my personal agent. I will see the event in my communication notifications later.

I mentioned suppressing pop-ups. In addition to avoiding the distraction, it’s also about privacy. Today’s large screen desktop communication devices have the ability to pop-up a lot of information on who’s trying to reach me. This information could be very visible to someone in my office.

2) Personal events – If I’m out to a personal event, this can be detected or deduced a number of ways; location services, calendar entries, and time of day. For example, a business dinner is likely to be on my calendar, a family dinner may not be. Therefore, the likelihood that my presence at XYZ restaurant, at 7 pm, is a personal event is pretty high and my agent would handle contact attempts accordingly. Calls or alerts will be silently handled and routed. However, post processing on the content and source of a voice or email or IM may still pass my rules to alert me.

Conference Calls

Another etiquette issue Blair Pleasant pointed out was multi-tasking on conference calls. Most of us are guilty. I know I am. Some will multi-task while physically attending a meeting. If someone doesn’t feel rude multi-tasking there isn’t much an application can do to prevent it.

That said, providing cognitive presence has been shown to help in remote situations. Video conferencing and virtual meeting (not web conferencing) settings strengthen cognitive presence and the emotional tie to the meeting and participants. The virtual meeting setting may actually be more powerful in cognitive presence than video conferences for reasons discussed in my virtual meetings post.

What’s Next?

There is no substitute for respectful social behavior and the general tips and guidelines Blair provided. Unified Communication solutions have the opportunity to give us better tools and management capability. The solutions will continue to enhance capabilities that assist both senders and receivers in communicating with increased confidence that availability, contact preferences and privacy are respected. Let’s not lose sight of the user impacts the technology has.

I’d appreciate your comments and insights on how communication technology will change your communication preferences, needs and behaviors. As users of this technology, what would you like to see, or not?

Michael Killian

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The In-Box, Redefined

2010-10-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

With all the advances in mobility and social networking, and the communication/information overload that has come with it, the definition of the “in-box” has to change. We are overloaded more than ever with multiple modes, identities and applications to view and manage our communications. It’s the general subject of my blog series.

Once upon a time, the in-box meant your email in-box (usually just one or two). Separate from that we had our call log for our voice call activity. It was two applications but not all that difficult to deal with.

If I look at what I have today I can list the following, as well as the issues I have with it:

Multiple email accounts (business and personal, sometimes multiples of each) – Many smart phone mobile clients are doing a reasonable job supporting multiple email accounts in one view. However, it’s still a separate application and view from the rest of my communication activity and history.
Twitter. Note that twitter supports people reaching me with private “Direct Messages”. I also consider any tweet or retweet with my ID mentioned as something I want to see. Today I have to use a separate application like Twitter or TweetDeck to look for these communications.
Facebook also supports private communication and messages to me. You can optionally forward these to your email or as an SMS. The email option is OK but not optimal. Facebook also supports it’s own chat application. These too are messages I’d want to see and optionally retain in my in-box.
Phone or video calls – the traditional call log or history application. I don’t want to look at my calls in a separate application or as a separate form of communication any more.
Instant Messages. Today, this is also typically a separate application. You usually have to take separate steps to record or save them, if desired, to retain them once the IM session is closed.
Voice messages - today this is typically a separate application to view, listen and respond to these messages.

Considering the above, here’s what I want the in box of today to look like. It’s a total communications history view:

One application or dashboard. I don't want to have to go to multiple locations or applications to view and respond to my communications
Show me every and all communications (in and out) by time, modality (phone, IM, Twitter, email by account, voice messages etc), originator or destination
Originator/destination should be mapped into my contacts view if possible. More on this later
Allow sorting and filtering by day/time, source/modality, originator/destination
Initiate a reply via any available modality I choose. When I go to reply, if the originator is known in my contacts, show me the known modalities I have for that person along with current presence or contact preferences. Of course this implies that my view of a contacts application view that includes that kind of information.
Similarly, when I do look at a contact, it should allow me to open a view of my total communication history with that person.

Unified Communications is all about unifying multi-modal communications. Unifying this expanded view of the “in-box” has got to be part of it. It’s more than unified access to the communications from multiple devices. Unifying this view for both business and personal communications is yet another challenge.

What does your in-box look like these days? Please share your thoughts.

Michael Killian

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Unified Communications - It's Not Just For Business!

2010-10-06T09:01:00.000-07:00

Unified Communications is getting a lot of attention as a productivity enhancer in business communication and collaboration. The need and interest is growing with the advances in mobility, smart phones and web 2.0 communication oriented applications. There is a growing communication overload situation and opportunity to unify. There are several reputable vendors competing in this space aimed at enterprise customers. What about our personal communications? Why shouldn't solutions aim to "unify" our total communications landscape, business and personal?

What Is Unified Communications?

There are several definitions out there. Here's my brief definition of it and the key attributes that interest me.

It's a single integrated communication/collaboration application and interface to manage all available modes of communication, with whomever, in a consistent way, independent of the device being used. It includes, but isn't limited to the following:

Multi-modal support: Support the display and choice of all possible communication modes for a user to select from - voice, video, IM, email, social network feeds, social network direct/private messages, blog comments, or other Web 2.0 communication/collaboration services (e.g. Skype or internal enterprise social nets/forums).
Mode of Contact Preference: Allow the user to identify how they prefer to be contacted and make that preference visible to those looking to contact them. Show the user the same for people they are looking to contact. These preferences should be able to vary by time of day and other presence information.
Communication Dashboard: Provide a dashboard and total history of incoming and outgoing communications no matter which modality was used. Sub-dividing that history by contact is even more powerful.
Device Independence: Provide consistent access to the above independent of the device used to communicate - PC, smart phone, IP "phone" on the desk
Tools to help filter, sort, and manage my incoming and outgoing communication based on presence, source, content preferences - a personal agent. This has yet to evolve to where it needs to be even for business users.
Communication-enabled business processes (CEBP): Business applications are integrated with the unified communications platform. This element is strictly business oriented and business specific.

Why Unify All Communications?
Being connected virtually 24/7 for business and/or personal use is my main driver in the case to unify all a users communications. Is there really a difference in our personal communication needs and our business needs (other than CEBP)? My main reasons to converge include:

Blur between personal and work time. This blur creates the need to access and manage "all" my communication 24/7 no matter what device I'm using at any time of day.
Multiple identities - converge my business and personal email, IM, social network IDs, IMs and presence. It's inefficient to check and manage multiple communication channels in multiple applications. I'd like a dashboard that aggregates it all accessible through a dashboard application.
Separate "devices" for work and personal use - device overload. Specifically, I don't want to carry two mobile phones or other mobile communicator devices (e.g.tablets).
A personal agent can be a great asset in limiting the intersection of business and personal communication at inopportune times. It doesn't have to be limited to communications through the enterprise. For me, the main reason I'm interested in the personal agent is to assist with the personal/business management. A single view of presence, calendar entries/purpose and identifying the source of the communication are key. This can help us keep at least a fuzzy line between work and personal time.

Potential Roadblocks
Personal and business communication convergence doesn't come without issues and questions.

Work Use Only: Enterprises often have a policy of work use only for the laptops, smart phones, and network usage they supply their employees. In addition, they state the right to monitor and read it. These policies will need some revision if these employers expect employees to perform a level of work and/or to be reachable on "personal" time. In exchange there is likely to be some amount of personal business or communication needed during "work" time. Some support is needed for a converged calendar and ability to access personal email, social network IDs, and personal contacts.
End user fears of big brother: On the one hand many of us may benefit from total Unified Communications. On the other, the user needs some assurance on what is still private, only accessible by them even when received on their employers systems . Many resort to carrying two cell phones to avoid any possibility of their employer seeing personal call/text records. The same is true for accessing personal email accounts, personal contacts, and calendar entries. Many won't put their personal appointments or contacts into their employers MS Exchange or similar tools of choice.
A Single Mobile Phone: Mobile phone convergence to a single phone is a difficult one. If the user is very active and mobile on personal time and equally active on enterprise time, who picks up the tab for it?
Ultimately, where does the unification reside? I'd like to see this unification happen but where would it live? Which class of vendors would be the ones likely to bridge the business and personal space; the enterprise vendors, service providers, or web 2.0 vendors? A topic for another post.

I'd like to hear from you. I'm interested in your thoughts on Unified Communications in general, the need, or not, to apply it across all forms of individual communications, who you think can and should address it and more.

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Behind A New Unified Communications Experience

2010-09-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

Unified Communications and the future of communications in general are passions of mine and the core subject of my blog series. Much of what I've been discussing here has taken shape in some new products recently announced.

The Avaya Flare™ experience and Avaya Desktop Video Device(ADVD) were announced on 9/15/2010 and changed the game and face of business communications. There are many sources for information on the Flare experience and the Avaya Desktop Video Device. I won't focus on the complete feature description or the demonstrations. A great starting point for that is to visit the guided tour demo if you haven't already.

The development of the Flare experience and the Avaya Desktop Video Device (ADVD) was quite an experience to be involved in; starting with the early concepts study, the definition of its capabilities and objectives, and through to its first phase of fruition. I'd like to share some perspective and background on that experience and some of the influences behind it. Much of this influence has been through many of you! Others writing and tweeting about Unified Communications and future communication trends.

Trends In Communications Today
To recap just a little bit. There were many conversations, studies and observations that influenced or validated what my, the development team, project sponsors and others concept of what the Flare™ experience and the ADVD needed to include and address. One of the ways I engaged in conversation and validation was through blogs on the future of Unified Communications here at my personal blog.

These blog posts, engaging others in the industry, and the interactions I've had with people were a major form of validation that I used in product definition discussions with the team. Unified Communications, gadgets, smart phones, collaboration, video, conferencing, and social networks in the enterprise were the main subjects and use cases on the Flare and ADVD landscape and the evolution of communication in general.

A few major themes surfaced from these conversations, and other forms of validation. These themes and trends have driven the need for a fundamental change in what Enterprise class communication and collaboration needs to be.

Changing communication preferences - Do we ever "talk" to one another anymore?
Admittedly that may be a bit extreme but there's no denying that "communication" is far more than voice these days. Our social communication behavior is shifting. Mobility, smart phones, social networks and being connected 24/7 have been major drivers in the communication modes we're using. There have been numerous studies and reports indicating that "texting" is popular and preferred especially in the younger age groups and moving up. Much of this has to do with being able to have non-dedicated or asynchronous communication unlike what voice or video conversation requires. Social networks are another form of asynchronous communication. Again, studies are showing that use of these nets continues to increase and that it's moving up in age demographically.

Social Networks For The Enterprise
If communication preferences are changing in personal communications, shouldn't we expect them to change in the Enterprise as well? There is a place for social network integration into enterprise communication. Productivity potential is key with proper support and policies.

Flare included social networking, allowing enterprise employees to communicate with customers, business partners, professional contacts as well as personal contacts and family. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, are not just for personal conversation. I validated that first hand when using them to monitor and engage in conversations on topics related to concepts we were considering for Flare and ADVD.

The Expanded Meaning of Contacts
Supporting the changing preferences in communication modes required that the definition of what a "contact" is had to change. The old view of name, phone numbers, and email addresses no longer meets enterprise or personal needs. A more complete people-centric view of who the contact is and how to reach them were key influences.

Flare expands the meaning of contact to include social networks, IM, and video choices along with presence information. The main objective was to make it easier for the user to see what options are available to reach a contact along with providing presence information to assist in choosing a communication mode most likely to reach them. The touch screen interface of the ADVD makes navigating through these choices a snap, getting you connected with ease!

Another key attribute around contacts was the ability to blend them all into a dashboard view regardless of source. It gives the user a searchable single total view of who they know, their last interactions with them, and a one touch visual view of communication modes and available to reach them. My personal and business worlds can be blended making it easy to find my golf buddies or my professional colleagues with expertise in user interface design.

Call History
Many of us are used to the traditional call log or history; calls made, received and missed. Since communication is far more than voice, Flare evolved the call log to be a communication and contact history. I can see my recent communication with that person, be it email, IM, or social network, providing me better context on why I communicate with that person. I think of it as my personal screen pop similar to what contact center agents see about a callers contact history as they answer the call.

HD Video

Video has been around for years and up until recently wasn't being adopted as a major communication mode. That's changing now for a few reasons starting with more use in the consumer space. Another is that businesses are becoming more global in nature. This demands a more engaging form of communication and collaboration than voice conferencing alone. Cognitive presence is a key factor in long distance communication effectiveness increasing the importance and adoption of video in the enterprise.

The Flare experience and ADVD bring point to point and video conferencing into the mainstream with easy one-touch call establishment, drag and drop conference formation, HD quality video right on the users main communication device. The ADVD form factor (screen size) was chosen to support high quality video and overall user interface experience.

There's a lot more I can discuss and I will in future posts. I'd appreciate hearing your comments on Flare and the Avaya Desktop Video Device. What do you like, and why? This is just the beginning. What else would you like to see to better support your communication and collaboration needs and use cases?

Michael Killian
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Virtual Conferencing And Collaboration – Where It Fits

2010-09-10T11:28:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back I had a chance to try out Avaya web.alive™ with a friend from Active Port and some Avaya colleagues. In short, it's a web-based application that provides a good "3D" virtual representation of people via avatars, the meeting place/room , and displayed materials.

Does virtual collaboration have a place in the collaboration communication landscape or is it just another interesting technology and communication mode to further complicate our communication choices?

The major choices for real time collaboration include audio conferencing (with or without web conferencing), video conferencing, physical presence in the conference room and now virtual conferencing. There are differences in the capabilities and experiences that give each a place in the collaboration toolkit. The benefits of physical presence, whenever that's possible, are generally accepted so my focus here will be on the multi-location /remote real time situations.

1) Audio/web conferencing
This technology and experience allows teams to collaborate via voice as well as view/edit materials in real time. White-boarding is typically included. Sidebar communication is provided via instant messaging or some form of chat.

In general this is fairly effective but there are potential drawbacks depending on your point of view. Among them are;
a) Attendees are less likely to be fully engaged and following like they would (should) in a physical setting. It's very easy to disengage and multi-task. The assumption here is that we still feel it's socially rude to be seen not paying full attention. It's debatable as to if this is a drawback or not. See more about the changing social communication behavior at social impacts.
b) lack of physical connection to one another and the conversation - the cognitive presence. Several studies have been done on cognitive presence. Here's one and another. In short, face-to-face has a benefit.
c) difficulty determining who is speaking
d) limited capability for sidebar "conversation" compared to physical presence and voice.
e) Some solutions are not that effective at showing who is in the conference not to mention getting attendees there on time. See meeting productivity and who joined please.

2) Video conferencing and collaboration
Over and above the audio/web experience, the video experience provides additional advantages including;
a) Visual presence which should increase attention and engagement by at least some amount. For those of us that feel social pressure not to multi-task, you're more likely to give close to full attention. If not, this won't have much impact
b) Added emotional connection in the communication and environment - the cognitive presence
c) Face to go with a name. Many attendees may have never physically met
d) Most solutions can be set up to show who/where is speaking

There are some areas of resistance to the use of video. Some of the key inhibitors I hear include, in no particular order;
a) Inhibits multi-tasking, which, depending on your point of view, is negative or a social expectation.
b) With the global nature of business, many attendees may be participating out of hours and not want to be seen outside their normal business environment.
c) Not wanting to be seen in general. I still hear this frequently. Despite that, this is changing. The increased popularity and use of Skype™ and other "free" and enterprise video tools, and the recent introduction of dual camera smart phones/tablets with video chat features are bound to increase the use and acceptance of video. More here.
d) The video solution is more demanding on bandwidth and client device power than the other communication modes. Some are still viewed as too complex to set up. That too is changing.

3) Virtual Collaboration
With physical presence, audio/web conferencing and video conferencing and collaboration, the bases are all covered, right? Maybe not. Virtual collaboration is somewhere in between and offers benefits. Rather than provide video of the individuals or the conference rooms, a virtual representation is provided. You don't "see" the actual participants or the environment that they're in. I encourage click here for a first hand look.

Where does an environment like this fit in the collaboration and communication landscape? Why would I use it?

The capabilities that I found the most interesting in Avaya web.alive™ include;
a) The representation of people as avatars and virtual meeting rooms provides a stronger cognitive presence in the collaboration than with audio alone. The feeling of presence and participation was enhanced despite it not being true video.
b) Not having to be "seen" to achieve a sense of presence better than audio. This is an asset in those off hour situations. Think of it as being pseudo-seen.
c) Less demanding on the communication device and bandwidth than the full video solution.
d) Lower capital expenditure than telepresence solutions
e) Supports discrete multi-tasking better than video yet improves engagement and focus compared to audio alone. I personally tend to multi-task. I found that using video or this virtual environment tends to significantly reduce the level of it. I found myself paying closer attention to, and being aware of the presence of the avatar of the person(s) I was conferencing with. It is surprisingly similar to true face to face behavior.
f) With virtual rooms, the meeting environment is no longer restricted to the individuals and conference rooms in the video call and caught in the range of the cameras. Multi-room events can be supported. I could move from room to room or from conversation to conversation.
g) Not restricted to pre-set meeting times. You can set up an "always on" virtual water cooler for those unplanned conversations that otherwise don't occur across locations or for remote workers. Another variation of this is the "always on" materials or multiple sets of materials posted in the room(s) for users to come in and browse and/or add to. A bit of the Google Wave claim for offline and asynchronous collaboration.
h) The 3D audio is quite effective in conjunction with the rest of the capability. It provides the sense of being closer to or further from conversations for the cocktail party effect. Imagine attending an event remotely and still being able to mingle during breaks as if you were there? It also provides the ability for a voice sidebar conversation. Walk up to who you want to speak to and then walk together into a distant place or another room for your conversation.

The differences and added capabilities possible with a virtual conferencing and collaboration environment give it a place in my bag of communication tricks. It's a viable communication mode choice for me. Audio/web and video certainly remain important choices. Different environments, situations and/or communication devices available to me at any given time give all three a place. Give it a try and let me know if and how it fits for you.

Michael Killian

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Dual Camera Smart Phones Will Drive More Video Calling Possibilities

2010-06-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

Video Call Technology More Available
The recent introduction of a few smart phones, including the iPhone R4, with both front and back cameras, will drive the use of video calling to more commonplace levels. I expect many more of these phones to be introduced with two cameras as the phone vendors and service providers fight to keep up with and out-do each other. These phones are supporting point to point video call or "chat". Given the new communication capability and social impacts that have already been brought on by mobility and social networks, I expect similar impact from this. In short, the technology availability via these smart phones and Skype on PCs is making video calling more and more common and expected. The days of "why would I want to do video calls?" are likely behind us both personally and in the enterprise. The simple answer is because I can!

What May Be Next With These Video-Enabled Devices?
The smart phone is both a personal as well as business communicator. In today's world, the distinction between personal vs. business communication and collaboration devices and applications is virtually non-existent. Do you carry two cell phones? Do you want to? See identity crisis, device overload and here for additional context on this.

An opportunity I see ahead is in how to offer interoperability and participation of these smart phones in business video conferences and collaboration sessions. Isn't it desirable that workers on the road with only their smart phone conveniently available be able to join in video conferences or do a point to point video session with a co-worker at the office? Applications will likely emerge to connect these smart phones into enterprise video conferencing systems.

Let's not forget about the emerging tablets. These devices are coming out at a rapid rate. Today they are primarily positioned as personal media and entertainment devices without much focus on communication capabilities. I don't expect that to remain the case for too long. These devices may not be as portable as a smart phone but do offer larger and more viewable screens for video calling and collaboration. When these devices are properly integrated into both personal and business/enterprise communications and collaboration systems a merged personal/business and single device video communication experience can be offered.

Do you think video is ready for prime time? Is the distinction between your personal and business communication needs disappearing?

What's The Future of Communications?

2010-04-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a week since the 140Conf in NYC and the short panel discussion Apr. 21st on the Future of Communications with Bryan Katz of Avaya, Tal Givoly of Amdocs, Jeff Pulver and me. Fifteen minutes is barely enough time to scratch the surface on what's happening in the world of communications due to the emerging technologies - especially social networks and demographic changes in communication preferences.

I finally got some time to expand on the "what if's" and "wouldn't it be nice" capabilities that I believe are or will be the capabilities we want and will actually have in the "future of communications". I am not going to try to discuss all the possibilities of the future of communications here in one shot. I will touch on finding people, presence and controlling your communications. These were some of the ideas we touched on so briefly last week.

Finding People
At the session we started out with the question of who really owns or controls how we find and contact people; The Directory. Social networks are clearly changing the game here. As Jeff asked me (either during the panel or possibly in a side conversation), is Facebook becoming the new white pages and are service providers losing control over this?

Think about it. Where are you most likely to go to find someone you know, knew, or recently met? Where are you likely to go to look for a business or individuals with the service, skills, or products you are interested in? With all the individuals and businesses showing up in the social-sphere it's less and less likely we will rely on the traditional communications providers directories. It's going to be through the Social Networks and via the major search engines. You know who they are. Once you find the person or business you wanted, what you want to save about them is also changing.

Presence
Presence means three major things to me.
1) Location - where I am or where someone or something I seek is, including what time it is there. This information will impact how/when I want to be reached and how/when I reach out to others. This is demographic of course but there is no denying that applications like Foursquare are allowing people to more freely share where they are despite the fears people in my demographics have about it. Who would have thought even 2-3 years ago that people would want to so freely share exactly where they are?
2) Communication modes available - show me what IM, social networks, Skype etc that a person is currently available on. Show me what methods by which that person prefers to be reached at the moment - voice, text, instant message etc.
3) State - in short, show if am I busy and in what way (personal dinner with the family, a meeting, quiet work time, am I alone or not, etc.. Whenever possible detect my state automatically. It can come from my calendar, location service, or a camera to know if I am there and alone or not.

This more complete view of "state" impacts what I want to see (or hear), how, and when. Similarly, factoring in the state of who I am looking for will impact which mode of communication I select to reach that person at that time.

Communication Control
I don't know about you but I want better ways of controlling the inflow of communication that comes at me. The "communication overload". We need help to avoid distractions. We often need to (or should) defer and delay incoming communications until a more appropriate time.

We need help in alerting us to what information or communications we really want and need to look at first. It's far too easy to miss or to take too long to see information such as tweets on a subject I am following. It's also easy to miss the urgency of attempts to reach me via social network messages, voice mails, emails, missed phone or IM's - personal or professional.

What The Future May Hold
1) Finding People and "Contacts" - since we are looking for people in different ways the concept of what a "contact" is has to change with it. I want to save the multiple IDs I have for them - personal, professional, social networks etc. I want to save additional information about why I know them or the business they are in. I want to be able to search my own contacts repository by far more than just name. Doesn't this become your own consolidated Directory?

I don't want separate lists for personal and "work" or for each "network" I use. I don't want separate lists on each device I communicate with. A single list is driven by what I refer to as the blurring of our personal and professional lives and communications. We will have the option to converge it all if we want to. Who else besides ourselves that can "see" this list, or where it is stored, will be of prime concern to the personal and professional user.
2) Choosing A Communication Method - When I want to reach a person that I know, and is already in my "contacts" list, I want to see much more about their "presence". Show me which networks they are logged into at the time, their presence "state", how THEY prefer to be reached and more.
3) Location Services - Knowing where someone is will also be more prevalent - as long as it's by user choice. Knowing where a person is gives us alternate ways to reach someone - like calling the hotel or business you know your contact is at because their cell phone is off or not being answered. How about re-routing a workers call to the desk, phone etc they are nearest at the time?
4) A Personal Communication Agent - a rich view of presence, especially "state", will feed into a user rules-based personal agent. An agent that will select if or how to let a call, IM, text, through initially as well as decide after the fact if an "alert" should be popped on my device. Information contained in emails, voice mails, tweets, IMs etc will be post-processed by source and keywords. The personal agent and my presence state determine if and when to alert me to key information I want to see.

Unified Communications For Personal And Enterprise Use
All the above is a just a piece of what Unified Communications needs to be. It's more to me than common "access" to email, vmail, calling and mixing modes. The personal agent aspect needs to get stronger and stronger. A good personal agent needs to be fueled by richer and more automated presence.

Unified Communications isn't just for the Enterprise. Personal communications (home or mobile) and choices are just as complex as professional. Are we really able to separate professional and personal anymore? Service providers offering communications to the home and/or mobile user need to address Unified Communications services just as much as Enterprise vendors do. Any Unified Communications system will have to at least optionally allow the convergence of the personal and enterprise lives of it's users. Of course Enterprises have to come to grips with that and the needs of their employees and support it. For example, social network use "at work" is still a debated subject.

Putting It All In Real Terms - what can the above allow me to do? A few examples of what is emerging and what will be.
1) I want to get a hold of Jeff Pulver either for personal or professional reasons. I look him up in my contacts from my desk device at work, or my smartphone. I see through location services or from his last few Facebook or Twitter updates, that he's in Tel Aviv and it's late there. I also see I have email, Twitter, Facebook and Skype modes to reach him by. I choose a less real time Facebook message method to reach him.

2) I'm out to dinner with a client. From my calendar entry, my presence state is automatically set where it is known that I'm not alone as well as busy. To me it's still rude to take a call or text in the physical presence of others you should be paying full attention to. As a normal rule my "personal agent" will automatically and silently ignore calls (including silencing any rings) and Social Network based (or any) texts. I prefer no distractions in this setting.

During the dinner my golf buddy calls. The call is silently routed to voice mail. End of story. Then my boss calls, is prompted on the urgency of the call and he says yes. The call goes to voice mail, and due to the source being boss, and urgent tag, I receive a pop up alert at my phone. Last, my wife calls because a relative just went into the hospital with a critical illness. Initially the call is silently sent to the agent and based on her answering urgent, the call goes through. Alternatively, if my cell phone were off, through location services my wife can see where I am, since I allow her to, and dial the restaurant I am in.

Some of the capability above exists today. The rest is coming - or at least it should be! You may say you don't want or need such advanced presence, location services or a personal communication agent. Just remember the last time you said 'who'd ever want to do that?'.

140Conf NYC Observations and Future Of Communications

2010-04-28T06:34:00.000-07:00

On April 21, a colleague of mine, Bryan Katz (@njkatz) and I attended 140Conf in NYC. He and I also sat on a discussion panel with Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver) and @givoly addressing the Future of Communications and impacts emerging social networks, location services, directory functions are likely to have on the future. Attached below is a copy of Bryan Katz's blog regarding the event.

Avaya was a sponsor of last week's 140 Characters Conference in Manhattan. Mike Killian and I were on stage for the 'future of communications' panel.

This #140conf is an eclectic gathering of twitter users. Its focus is more around building relationships and not so much about the technologies of social networking. Jeff Pulver says it “was more about the evolution of our collective soul and the underlying effects on both our relationships with each other and the effects of this on businesses, institutions and organizations”. The live gathering felt a little like a large family reunion with hundreds of Twitter users meeting face-to-face to share their experiences. With well over a decade of running conferences, Jeff Pulver has mastered showmanship. And this conference didn’t disappoint. It opened with Miss America, complete with crown, coming center stage to introduce Jeff to kick it off. While she didn’t speak about twitter, Jeff had many mainstream leaders in press and media who did as well as celebrities: MC Hammer and Ivonca Trump.

(All sessions for the conference can be found here: http://nyc2010.140conf.com/schedule . Click on “watch this” to see the individual sessions.)

The conference format provided little opportunity for deep technology insight. Each speaker had on the order of 10 minutes, and each panel had about 15 minutes. This gives one the chance to make assertions, but not really back them up with substance. It allows one to share broad ideas and helps users to decide who to meet or follow.

How popular is twitter, really: According to TechCrunch, there are about 75M twitter accounts. It grew tremendously last year. At its peak (July, 2009), 2-3 accounts were being created each second. 25% of the accounts have no followers, 40% have never sent a tweet, and only 17% tweeted any time in December. They estimate that there are about 15M active twitter users. Compare that with Facebook that has inarguably several hundred million active users and Skype which has almost twice that. When the celebrity John Mayer announced that he was no longer going to use twitter, it was observed that he has 500,000 followers. Putting that in context, it’s somewhere between 1-3% of all twitter users!

Main conclusions:

The value of twitter: A key value of Twitter is about listening to others, not only about marketing. Sure, foursquare and coupon applications show benefits for business marketing. And many of us have followed up on comments made on twitter to clarify facts, fix customer issues, or even gather leads as a start of a sales process (click here for a great blog summarizing Avaya efforts - thanks to Paul Dunay.) But the greatest impact observed here was when twitter was used to create a connection – to develop a rapport across the internet – to lend a personality to your business. Whether educators, artists, or business leaders, the message was consistent. This provided a powerful new way to connect in a more real way with others. Oddly enough, the most direct impression I had was of Ivanka Trump. While admittedly not a technologist, she went through how she cautiously started using twitter and how her use grew as she learned it was a valuable tool to have a broad-based conversation on her projects - exploring “crowd” opinions.

o An example is applying twitter almost as we use email broadcasts or blogs internally - an open conversation tool among others with similar interests. While it’s too soon to tell, at a minimum I’ve already met up with one of our channel partners and am discussing future methods of collaboration with them and, through them, with potential customers. In short, it's another way to find and create linkages to people and topics.

o In the schedule, speakers were given with their tags so people could follow them and comment to them directly. This further fosters conference collaboration in a new way.

· The possibilities real time interactive internet: The conference thematically portrayed an interactive and collaborative internet showing example-after-example of how static web pages are not as useful as interactions that adapt the resources dynamically. While augmented reality is a clear example, the adaption of news sites is another example with search tools and feed sites now incorporating live twitter feeds.

· An augmented real time event - fully engaged while staring at devices: Everyone was tweeting constantly. But at normal conferences when people seem to be more distracted by email, they were conversing via text directly. The use of a common hashtag (#140conf) brought people insight into what others were saying and hearing live, turning the 1-way stage into a broad-reaching collaboration session. (Periodically, Jeff would announce where the $140conf hash tag was in the rankings of twitter search.)

Use of Twitter for customer communications, a picture of what’s possible:

Eric Stegemen @EricStegemann of tribus group Real Estate described an application that he’s having built from his firm that uses real time data to link with his firm. He looks at tweets about real estate in a given area, rates the content, and (for a subscription fee) provides a lead to local brokers with guidance. If the user tweets asking about “Real Estate Prices in NJ”, for example, it’s not a very serious customer. But if they ask about “homes for $200-250k in Leonardo”, this more specific request is a hot lead that a local broker can help handle. He has this handled via a customer management system, but it’s not yet tied to telephony.

A few other notes.

· Democratization of news and speeding up information flow: There were panels and speakers from the news media. They discussed the implication of faster information flow. Twitter feeds news faster than any other media. News web sites took 40 minutes before providing an article about the Haiti earthquake, for example. This used to be considered lightning fast, but now information is shared instantly via twitter. We were asked to imagine if twitter was in widespread use during the 9/11 disasters.

· Pure raw capitalism: For those people who can place investments, this kind of instant information form a basis for quickly capitalizing on news.

· EDUCATION:

Jeff had an education theme for this conference with several speakers and panels on new approaches for education. This was exemplified by a standing ovation for Chris Lehman, a Principal of the Science Leadership academy in Philadelphia. He spoke passionately about “School 2.0” and received a standing ovation. It’s worth 10 minutes to listen: http://bit.ly/daRyBs If not, here are a few paraphrased quotes:

· On curriculum: “What we can do and what we are asked to do in education are radically different. For teachers, it doesn’t matter if it can’t show up on a test.” “We aren’t teaching creativity since we can’t figure out how to measure it”.

· On technology: “At dismissal, every kid grabs their devices when the door closes. They use these devices in ways that we can’t imagine and sometimes in ways we don’t like. But we provide no way to guide them because we don’t participate in these conversations.” He compared these new technologies to something a pencil … “we don’t have a pencil lab, why do we have a computer lab? These technologies are like oxygen and should be part of our teaching methods, not outside of them.”

Another standing ovation was given to the St.James 8^th grade class. They created a short skit and song, and their creativity was rewarded with an eruption of applause. The point of this was similar to Chris Lehman’s. The teacher (George Haines @oline73 of Saints Philip and James School) integrated twitter to help them learn. In this case they used twitter as a way to see how it felt to be one of the characters in Animal farm as each kid adopted a personality and acted the part objectively via this anonymous communications mechanism. Here’s their skit: http://bit.ly/d9Tihy

· The future of communications panel: http://bit.ly/9iKIr3 Our panel was late in the second day, and it was a bit afield from the rest of the conference. But communications technology is a passion of Jeff’s, and he was leading this panel discussion. Jeff Pulver wanted to explore how communications contact information will diverge access away from telephone service providers. We spoke about the seamless integration of communications channels and the need for an aggregation service – probably not provided by these vendors.

o From reading tweets, the messages people seemed to get from our brief session was that social networking has a chance to replace directories, but that there won’t be a single directory. Phone companies right now are connectors for people, but they may not play this role in the future. Jeff has asked if we would help him develop a future communications conference.

o Listeners also heard that social networking is recognized as a popular and important communication modality, and, will/should be embraced as an integrated part of the communication system. Michael Killian’s comments were tweeted by audience members: “presence in communication leverages the where-are-you and what-are-you-plugged-into on aspects of presence in helping learn how available are you”

Will "The Avatar" Bring HD/3D Video Calling to the Enterprise?

2010-03-14T09:15:00.000-07:00

Modern, real-time "video calling" technology has existed for more than 40 years. The ATT "Picturephone" was initially demonstrated at the 1964 World's Fair and is considered the first serious attempt to commercialize video calling. But after pushing "Picturephone" into the market for almost 10 years ATT finally gave up on video-telephony in the early 70s. At its peak there were only 500 Picturephone users and the company finally concluded that its early videophone was a "concept looking for a market". ATT discontinued Picturephone service completely by the late 1970s.

Though the "Picturephone" was the first attempt at mass commercialization of video-calling, the concept itself was envisioned much, much earlier by someone you probably have never heard of; George du Maurier. In 1878, barely two years after the telephone was first patented in the United States, Maurier did this early concept drawing of a combined videophone/wide-screen television he called a "telephonoscope". This drawing appeared as a cartoon in "Punch's Almanac" December 1878. This drawing and text of an 'electric camera-obscura' is often cited as one of the earliest predictions of television and the videophone both in wide screen formats and on flat screens. If you click on the image above and go to the wiki page for the image you'll see the caption of the cartoon has the following text... "

-
"Every evening, before going to bed, Pater- and Materfamilias set up an electric camera-obscura over their bedroom mantel-piece, and gladden their eyes with the sight of their children at the Antipodes, and converse gaily with them through the wire." 

Paterfamilias (in Wilton Place): 'Beatrice, come closer, I want to whisper.'

Beatrice (from Ceylon): 'Yes, Papa dear.'

Paterfamilias: 'Who is that charming young lady playing on Charlie's side?'

Beatrice: 'She's just come over from England, Papa. I'll introduce you to her as soon as the game's over?'

It seems that as soon as Edison publicized the audio telephone futurists of the time immediately began to see and speculate on the potential for video telephony. In April 1891, Alexander Graham Bell himself did actually record conceptual notes for an "electircal radiphone" that would provide"....the possibility of seeing by electricity". Bell went on to later predict that: "...the day would come when the man at the telephone would be able to see the distant person to whom he was speaking."

So if the idea of video telephony was envisioned 132 years ago as something that was an inevitable outcome of Edison's telephone, why is it still not in common use? What’s held the use of video back? Since the 1960s our science fiction entertainment has been predicting broad adoption of real-time video communication on TV and in movies with Star Trek, Star Wars and other works. Why have we not pursued and accepted this concept?

One problem has been cost. In the past the cost of top of the line video was, and still is, high. But as the costs have come down and quality improved we still are not seeing mainstream adoption. Why is adoption of this technology so much slower than other technologies? People have shown in the last 10 years a new willingness to more rapidly accept new technologies like cellphones, mobile internet, Twitter, Facebook ,etc. But video telephony is still not in common use even among younger people who tend to be early adopters. Why is this true if the cost is now reduced to near zero or zero by the availability of solutions like Skype Video. If real-time video is now inexpensive or free shouldn't it be finally poised to break into the mainstream?

Also, a new case can be made that video should is now more necessary and relevant in the context of the 21st century business environment where virtual, offshore and distributed work teams are now the norm. Distributed teams don't get a lot of opportunity for high-fidelity and high-productivity face to face conversations. Regular use of video calling has the potential to offset some of that lost value of regular, face-to-face communication.

Is the problem "Complexity"? That has been part of it for sure. In the past it seemed that you needed to be a rocket scientist to schedule and set up a multi-site video conference. This complexity, coupled with a perceived “low value” of the experience compared to an audio call, likely did keep many away. But now even these complexity problems are falling away. Multi-point video use on Skype, Apple's iChat and other video solutions, with most laptops now having built in cameras, is a push button away.

I think the problem may now be reduced to being as simple as the level of quality of the video experience.

The quality of most video solutions in the past, and still today, is usually not all that good. Motion on video calls tends to produce choppy jumps in what people see on their screens, and depending on the system, the video clarity was/is also questionable. Now compare that quality with the quality everyone is now getting used to on large TV screens with 1080p resolution on TV broadcast, Imax 3D experiences like the recently popular "Avatar" movie and HD quality DVD movies either via Blue-Ray or on-demand from cable companies. The "Augmented Reality(AR)" video technology used in that movie may be exactly the kind of quantum leap in quality needed for video calling to truly go mainstream.

(Rights owned by 20th Century Fox.)

With the cost reductions in bandwidth continuing at this pace it will soon be financially feasible for every HD TV screen, every HD desktop screen and emerging communication devices to be configured for very high quality, even AR, video. In Enterprise and business-to-business situations the experience produced has the potential to deliver an attractive substitute for the productive face-to-face teaming interactions in the workplace. These quality interactions have been lost as enterprises have "gone global" and distributed their workforces and partners.

These two critical elements; the globally distributed workforce and the affordability of delivering HD/AR-quality video mean the time is now for video to begin moving into the mainstream. And it only took 130+ years for the planets to align. What do you think?

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Will Android Reach The Enterprise?

2010-02-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

If you're watching Google Android devices, news and general buzz, you're aware it's making some serious noise in the smart phone market. There are more and more pre-announce rumors, that usually turn into fact, it feels like every day. There are several Netbook and Tablet devices announcements and pre-announce rumors showing up at a faster rate. I'm not going to name these devices or vendors here. A quick few searches and you'll find them. I find the larger screen devices particularly interesting. As an aside, I'm interested in comments on how that impacts 3rd party Android application developers.

To date, I view these Android devices as "personal" or consumer oriented. They are not devices that are tightly integrated with enterprise communications or unified communications solutions. They are usually owned personally rather than purchased by the users employer.

Yes, one can, and many do, argue that a smart phone is part of the enterprise communication landscape. I agree they are given today's world of mobility and accessing nearly anything from anywhere. There are vendors, Avaya included, doing a very nice job at smart phone access to core communication system services via a client application on the smart phone and interfaces into the core servers. This enables these 3rd party (from the communication systems perspective) devices to be enabled into the enterprise.

Will Android-based devices be adopted in the Enterprise in a broader sense? Will Android find it's way into devices and applications that are a tightly integrated member of the communications solutions used by businesses?

Factors to Consider From The Enterprise "Buyer" Perspective
Google Android is open source and for some that could raise cautions

Quality: Some may view open source as having at least some additional quality risk. An older example is Linux. Early on I think the same concerns existed with it. That concern doesn't exist today. Enterprise adoption of Android products may depend on how rapidly Android devices establish a solid quality reputation.
Predictability: According to some of my smart phone developer contacts in the know, to date, this open source has been difficult to pin down and track Enhancements, fixes and release dates are not very predictable or committed. Will enterprise customers be able to adapt to less certainty about when new features or software updates will be available?
Rapid Evolution: The code base is also a quickly moving target. That's a double-edged sword. Not having to wait long periods of time for new features and APIs is a good thing. On the other hand, it may make it difficult to keep sliding new updates underneath applications that rapidly. Another factor may be if, and to what extent, this evolution impacts applications that were written for older releases. The level of backward compatibility, or not, could be a negative either in effort or in delaying upgrades. Many enterprises have significant internal roll-out and testing intervals before fully deploying new or updated products to their end users. Frequent updates may not be easily supported in this environment. I believe enterprises will be refining how the adopt and deploy. Technology is moving more rapidly and they are likely looking at how to update and deploy more quickly.
Other choices: I don't intend to get into this debate here but there are other platform choices that Android will have to compete with. ChromeOS and Windows Mobile are a couple quick examples. The iPhone platform is tied strictly to that device so it's not a factor unless Apple changes that policy.

My Expectations

Smart phones continue to be highly adopted. If Android penetrates this market the way many predict it will, it's completeness, confidence and quality will rise along with it.
Application availability on Android will continue to rise at a rapid rate. It may never catch up to iPhone but I don't believe that will matter much. I expect many of the most popular applications will support Android to mirror the increasing deployment of Android phones. In short, largely due to smart phone adoption, Android shouldn't be a negative factor in considering a device for the enterprise.
The smart phone experience is rapidly changing end user expectations. End users, both for personal use or on their communication devices at work, are demanding and expecting much more than "phone" capability on their communication devices. Enterprise devices based on Android can benefit from the application availability and app store ecosystem.

I won't predict to what level Android-based devices will move into the enterprise but I believe they will over the next year or two. What do you think? Comments welcome both from the product development and buyer perspective.

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Bridging Business to Business and Personal Communications Gaps With Social Networks

2010-02-17T15:02:00.000-08:00

Today it's rare that any company works projects totally internally. It's also rare that you are only communicating/collaborating for "work" from 9 to 5 and for personal otherwise. Our professional and personal lives have blurred. Unified Communication and Collaboration "tools" need to effectively bridge multiple enterprises together, as well as allow personal/professional connections outside your enterprise to be effective and useful. "Free" social networking services can have a role in the enterprise and in bridging multi-company and appropriate personal/professional communications.

Presence and Messaging
If project collaborators are in multiple companies there should be one or more mutually accessible forms of presence and instant messaging to offer the same choices as intra-company systems. We have many social networks (Skype, LinkedIn, Google Wave and now Buzz, Facebook and other networks) that contain a form of presence or logged in status as well as a "chat". I've written before about recognizing and supporting these multiple communication modalities and broadening the definition of what a "contact" is.

When it comes to business to business, use of these networks allows much more than the voice conference call method of reaching project members. They are also way to connect into personal communications when necessary.

Examples
You're on a multi-company conference call. It happens to be a voice oriented call so there is no active web conference or associated collaboration tool running. Your business partner in another company is up next on the agenda for issues and status. There's a reminder you want to give them about an issue to be sure they describe. You pull up their contact information on your "phone" and see they are online on Skype, or another presence and IM-capable service. You can see where they are present, click one, and privately message them with the reminder.

While on the same call, you realize you're running quite late for a family dinner date. You pull up your contacts list on your desk "phone" to find your spouse online on Facebook. Through a click you start a Facebook chat message and inform them you're running late and to change your reservation. No stepping away to make a separate call home. No putting the conference call on hold to make the second call. No going to the cell phone to do a text. You've initiated it right from your "phone" with virtually no disruption to your ongoing meeting.

Why the quote marks around phone? I use the term loosely these days. Today's office communication devices are and need to be more than just a phone with voice oriented contacts and voice call log histories. More on todays devices here.

Integrate it
Unified Communication systems can make the connection to and use of the many emerging communication networks and modalities more effective. In my examples above, I'm talking about seeing presence indicators and access to these networks directly from my main business communication device and applications. I want a seamless experience as opposed to having to open separate network interfaces and applications to see the presence, or use the "IM" or do a "post" to it. I call it my communication dashboard or home screen.

What Makes Social Networks Fit?
They're "free" to the user for one. Second, they are available for anyone to create business, personal or combined accounts. Many businesses, professionals, and individuals have a presence on one or more of these networks and it's still growing tremendously. They can be a highly available common ground. I don't believe at all that these modes of communication are a short term fad.

What Hinders Social Networks As Enterprise Communication?
Agreed there are security, productivity, privacy and other concerns with these networks. These concerns are holding back some businesses and individuals from fully supporting using them. The players that handle it best, and avoid mistakes like Google Buzz, as one recent example, will be left standing.

Another issue I see is the rapid change and continued emergence of more and more players. These social networks are also moving into their own email support. As if I need or want more email accounts! Some are considering enterprise versions meaning they see the enterprise integration opportunity.

I don't recommend trying to keep pace and support all emerging networks. It's not practical. Make an assessment of which networks are the most used, secure, open to integration, and growing. Easier said than done right now. Regardless, these networks demand attention in todays communication universe.

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The Communication Revolution and Device Overload

2010-01-29T07:47:00.000-08:00

Apple recently announced it's long rumored iPad tablet device. With all the buzz the announcement is creating, it reminded me of another modern communications issue I have; too many devices!

The explosion in device technologies and types is a major part of the communication revolution and the challenges it presents to us. The communication revolution is driven by new communication modes being adopted today; social networks, texting, IM, video, blogs, RSS feeds and more. It's also driven by the emerging new devices and technologies, especially smart phones, and the ever advancing capabilities they are giving us. We have smart phones, business desk phones, laptop/desktop PCs, netbooks, notebooks, eReaders, tablets, music players and more to choose from.

Device consolidation is likely and would be welcome. What should that look like? Device overload is nearly as impacting to me as communication and information overload and the social impacts of the communication revolution that I've written about before.

The devices I have today and how I use them
1) Laptop/desktop
This is the device where I do the bulk of my direct work output - especially content creation and editing. This applies at the office, home office, or if I'm traveling on business. It also applies to my personal computing use.

It's the device with a large enough reading screen, real keyboard, and most importantly the full financial, presentation, and document apps typical information workers use. It's the device that fully connects me into my business applications and data. It's the best device I currently have for collaboration or "web conferencing" as well as video viewer (e.g. YouTube). Finally, it is what I use today for video calls, both internal business and Skype, but I find the quality lacking.

1B) Notebook and Netbooks
I don't currently have one of these today but they are worth mentioning. These devices have similarity to laptops in the end functions and applications they provide. They tend to be less expensive, lower performing, have longer battery life and be more compact and mobile than the laptop. The mobility is the likely driver for these devices in this ongoing communication revolution. These devices are far more reliant on network connections, especially WiFi and Cellular, and the cloud computing model.

2) Smart phones
This device, perhaps more than any other technology, is the single largest driver of the social change in communication preferences and behavior. This device is essential to me for being "partially" connected to the office and/or personal communications all in one.    It gives me the ability to communicate, read email, text messages, and access many other forms of data primarily in "read" mode due to its small screen size. It also gives me some access and use of my business Unified Communication applications that help make the smart phone a good mobile extension of my business communications. Of course you can also remain connected to your social networks, blog feeds etc. if you so desire. Many do. I don't due to the overall distraction it generally creates. One of my tips for controlling information overload - disconnect!.

I describe smart phones as "partially" connected since I don't have the full capability to create/edit content all that well. It's not a replacement for my business communications, or PC/laptop. In exchange for mobility and compactness, they don't offer me the screen size, comfortable keyboard, or complete applications to actually "work" on. The smart phone is the device I need when I am in mobile and/or personal time/communications mode.   I am "monitoring" communications and data but not expecting to create or edit material.

Smart phones have also brought a "fun" aspect to communications. Games, sports and event monitoring and alerts, location services and so much more.

An issue with smart or cell phones; do you want or have to carry two? One personal and another that your employer provides? Doesn't help the device problem at all. No obvious solution here if you have too much business traffic for your personal number, or too much personal traffic on your business phone. I for one am not happy with carrying two and the cost implications on my personal plan if I don't carry two. I'd love to map two numbers and two usage plans to one device; one paid by me, the other by my employer. Just a thought.

The rapid emergence of smart phones may be the biggest change driver in today's communication revolution. Unified Communication applications need to keep pace to help us manage communication overload. My thoughts on how can be found here.

3) The Business "Phone"
My VoIP-based business communication device, or "work" phone, is what gives me fully integrated voice/communication access into my business communication system. It connects me to intra-company dialing and company directories for example. It is the highest voice quality (especially speakerphone) choice I have. PC softphones and smart phones don't match the voice and video engineering attention that goes into a business-class communication device.

My business communication device is what is most integrated for access to my Unified Communications access/applications. In general they are providing bigger and better screens to display and interact with these applications. Video/media phones are becoming more popular as well allowing the "work" phone to become more and more like a communication and media device and offer smart phone type applications that aren't strictly "mobile" related.

Despite how primary a device this currently is for me, I'd like this device and it's applications to do much more given the communication revolution. More on that later.

4) Tablet PC
I don't currently own one but again feel the need to mention them especially in light of the Apple iPad announcement. Exactly how these devices are positioned remains to be seen. To date they appear to be moving toward content access; the eReader; a fluid and fun web experience, and then some. They appear to be aimed at the individual and/or consumer. Perhaps they will move into the laptop functionality arena as well.
They aren't devices to support business class communication (voice/video) or real time collaboration with others.

Apple, as just one example, will likely have some success with iPad given their name and play off the iPhone. I'm not about to go out and buy any tablet yet. It's not filling any unique communication/application hole for me, or consolidating my devices. They also require yet another wireless service plan and cost.

5) eReaders, music players
Are these devices too specialized to last going forward? Perhaps. I have an Amazon Kindle eReader. It makes me more comfortable at reading lengthy material; books, some news subscriptions. They are small like a book but thinner. All good for more natural reading position and holding it like a book. I'm OK with this special separate device since I don't really carry it around all the time. I read it at home and if I'm traveling. Reading off a smart phone, PC, or laptop just doesn't replace it for me. Many/most of the emerging tablet PC are too large to match the comfort of an eReader - so far anyway.

Stand alone music oriented devices are out in my mind. The trend is that smart phones have replaced and absorbed that functionality.

Device consolidation I'd like to see
I'd like to consolidate down to two main devices. What they are and my rationale follow.

Among the major factors I consider are touch screen size, quality, and contrast; battery life; mobility; content provider access; access to and quality of interface to Unified Communications and business collaboration functions.

1) Business Communicator/Collaborator
I broadly define this as a tablet-like computing platform that includes business class voice and video communication, collaboration features and quality.  It would be my primary device and interface into my Unified Communications applications: calendar, contacts, presence, voice, video, email, personal agent, social network communications etc. Refer to this link for more on what I believe Unified Communications can do for us in today's communications world of communication overload. That gives more context on why/what I think this device could do.

Why tablet-like?
a) I want a big enough (~ 10+ inches) reading/viewing screen with high contrast, brightness, HD video. It can't be too large so it doesn't lose its mobility.
b) I like touch screen manipulation that the iPhone has made so popular.
c) It can add handwriting/ink applications for real-time collaboration applications
d) thin, lightweight - makes it reasonably mobile
e) give me portrait and landscape mode use

Other expectations - Business Orientation Is Key!
a) The device should dock when I am in my office or home office. I want to be able to use the more natural keyboard and larger HD quality monitor or other USB devices as well as the wired network.
b) It's got to be mobile and portable enough to work in my office docked, or undock and bring to a conference room, or to bring home or on business and VPN into my business infrastructure
c) Fun and easy to use access and interface into my Unified Communications applications. Make good use of the larger screen
d) Full access into my Corporate resources through cellular networks would be a huge plus for me.
e) Designed for voice/video communication as a primary rather than secondary function. Today's PC/laptop/tablets are not.
f) Integrated camera primarily for video calling capability
g) I want many of the smart phone type applications
f) Larger screen should be used to give me more of a communication and collaboration dashboard, more context and history around who I am currently communicating with etc.

What about eReaders?
Depending on the overall size/weight of this device, it may be feasible for it to also serve as my eReader. That would be nice but not essential. I don't mind picking up a separate eReader at home or on business travel. I'd like to see standard interfaces develop for eReaders and content providers. Let me mix and match whatever device I want (perhaps my ideal business communicator for example) and purchase material from any content provider I want. Stop the Amazon to Kindle, Apple to it's own content etc direct mapping. It's one cause of the device proliferation. Just a thought.

Is this device now my business PC?
Maybe. At the very least this device would need a strong interface to my business desk PC or laptop through the network. I'd want this device to be best at communications and collaborationi first rather than try to be and compete with the PC.

2) Smart Phone
The second primary device would be my truly compact portable communicator - the smart phone. This is a device that I will always have with me, sometimes along with my Tablet-like communicator, sometimes not. It fits in my pocket, can connect me "partially" to personal as professional communications whenever I want. It's good enough to monitor any/all key communications - voice, social net, emails. My view is that "if" there is something I need to do more than just "view" or read, I'll revert to my full communicator device above.

I need a good interface application into my business Unified Communications applications from this device. I'd want to get access to a subset of calendar, contacts, presence, communication history information that is better matched to the smaller smart phone screen.

Let me say again, especially related to my smart phone, that I need and expect more control of my communications and information flow through stronger Unified Communications capabilities.

My smart phone is also my mobile music player. There should be no need to carry a separate one.

In summary
I want to migrate to two main communication oriented devices that I would carry with me at various times; the very compact smart phone and a larger yet mobile business communication and collaboration device that can access and cooperate with my main business computing platform. What are your ideas and views around this? Are multiple communication and media devices an overload issue for you?

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The Communication Revolution - What Unified Communications Can Do - Part 1

2010-01-08T09:14:00.000-08:00

This is the next of series of posts related to the communication revolution going on today and the deep impacts it's having on our communication needs and behaviors. This communication revolution impacts both professional enterprise and individual communications. The previous posts discussed information overload, changes in our social interaction behaviors and the place for social networking in the enterprise.

Communication devices and applications need to adapt to help us manage and leverage this communication revolution. This post focuses on how Unified Communications can and needs to do to help us manage information overload. I often refer to it as communication overload. Unified Communications is not just about the Enterprise.

What is communication overload?
To recap briefly, communication overload is flood of emails, vmails, calls, IMs, disparate networks and modes of communication and information coming at us daily. The overload is the inability or inefficiency in seeing what's most important in a timely way. I prefer "communication" rather than "information" overload as a more accurate way to describe the situation. How do we see and get to what's most important first? How can we avoid missing information we could have used? How do we manage all the modes we can be contacted with and likewise contact others?

What are some things Unified Communications and Devices Can Do?
1) Alerts: Fundamentally, no matter what the source, we need to do more than just filter the incoming communications and information. Alert and draw me to information and communications that my rules say interest me the most.
Imagine:

A screen pop alert on my device to tell me that there is a voice mail or email message that is from someone, and/or about something I have prioritized. The pop should show who it's from and the reason (keywords found via voice to text scan) for the alert. Rather than the message sitting there dormant in a priority order list, I know there is something there that I need to hear. In short, I want to be proactively made aware of important communications waiting for me. Showing a prioritized list when I get around to looking isn't good enough today.

2) Day at a glance dashboard.

An overall communication dashboard that includes a glance of my meetings, and summary of "communications" or feeds I have - especially the ones that are alerted from my filters.
Over and above vocie and email filters, provide a filtered and summarized view of social network and blog feeds by source and/or keyword. In the case of Twitter for example, mark and archive the ones that passed the filter. Otherwise they will soon stream by unread unless specifically containing my twitter name.

3) Avoiding interruptions - from voice calls, IM as well as the pop-up alerts mentioned above. These interruptions have both social behavior and disruption of thought impacts. Presence can be enhanced and used along with filtering rules.

Use Presence to automatically indicate if you are in any of the following modes:

Do Not Disturb - not in a meeting but don't want to be disturbed by any ringing voice call, IM, screen pop alerts etc. UNLESS it's from a source or concerns keywords I allow to pass. For example, detecting a voice mail from home with keyword emergency in it. I'd want that screen pop alert to come through always. This could be equated to the busy state in some calendars. You are not in a meeting, not free either, and are holding this time for work or thought time.
Not Alone - using video or RFID technology one could potentially automatically detect presence in the office but that you are not alone. Setting presence manually just doesn't cut it. This can be used as an automatic, impromptu temporary setting similar to do not disturb above. It helps with the social impacts of communications interrupting face to face conversations. This can also be used to suppress screen-pop alerts. It's also useful for privacy reasons. For example, it may not be appropriate for a 3rd party to know you've got a voice mail from the M&A manager of Company XYZ.
Meeting - pulled from your calendar assuming we can clearly identify meeting as opposed to busy as a state. This is a different kind of busy state. This presence state is likely to feed into a rule to automatically send voice calls to voice mail, as well as suppress other normal communication or data feed alerts to your communication and/or data device. In short, improve focus on the meeting at hand. Reduce the temptation to look at your laptop, smartphone or to answer a call. Unless it passes your filters, you won't even know you're getting a call until the meeting is over and the meeting state of presence changes.
Out of office - a state to change the routing of your communication away from your desk devices to your mobile devices. There are already call forwarding and other communication clients that link your smartphone into your enterprise system. I'm referring to extending this routing to the other alerting communications/filters described above.
Personal - with the blur between work and personal we face today, a state like this may be useful. It can be as simple as time of day driven (e.g. turn to persoanl between 630pm and 7am) or more complex. This state can be treated differently than the others for allowing or supressing certain kinds of contact attempts or information feeds. For example, I may suppress just about any information, voice, email alerts, social network feeds that are work related. However, I may allow calls, tweets or Facebook notifications from personal friends.
Combine the states - last, why not combine the states for use in the rules engine? For example, "personal", with "do not disturb" added can be very useful when you are out to dinner with family or friends. Suppress that urge to pay attention to texting and/or social network feeds rather than our friends in front of us!

4) More Communication Context In Real Time

When I am being contacted by someone, or am about to contact someone, give me more history and context around that person.

History of last few contacts (voice, email, social net)
Related documents, emails that may be important to the "conversation"
Pop the above information up like a dashboard as the contact comes in so I don't have to hunt for history, recent emails etc. The dashboard should include all the usual contact information, picture, expertise or other context around how or why I know them.

What are your communication pain points? Please comment on usefulness of these as well as let me know about your own!
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Related Posts
The Communications Revolution Part 1 - Information Overload
The Communications Revolution Part 2 - Social Behavior Impacts
The Communications Revolution Part 3 - Social Networking In The Enterprise

Contact Michael Killian at
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The Communication Revolution - Part 2, Impacts on Social Communication Behavior

2009-12-14T08:04:00.000-08:00

http://images.theweek.com/dir_30/the_week_15003_27.jpg

This post is part 2 of a series of posts on the Communication Revolution and Deep Impact it has on us. Part 1 of the series discussed how the Communication Revolution has brought on information overload and communication management issues. This post focuses on the impact that new technology and communication modes have had on our social communication behavior and preferences. Ultimately the series will end with recommendations and examples of what Unified Communication solutions can do to help us better cope with the less positive side effects of this revolution.

The Communication Revolution has given us mobile phones, social networks, texting, IM, voice, email etc. anywhere on a 24/7/365 basis if we want it. There's been a shift from face to face and voice modes of communication to the "electronic" modes. This link gives a few examples and observations on why paying attention to when/where/with whom to use different communication modes is important. This survey sheds some light on communication modes preferred today.

How has the Communication Revolution impacted our social communication behavior?

Interruptions and Distractions

The communication modes available to us today enable more interruptions and distractions. There are social impacts of serving these interruptions in the presence of others.

For example, there you are, meeting with a colleague in your office. As you're talking an IM alert pops up on your PC screen. You glance over, open it for a couple seconds, and then return to your conversation.
A phone call comes in, your phone rings, you glance at the caller ID and decide to leave it be.
You see and glance at an email that has arrived in your in-box because you see it's from your boss. You open it and quickly to scan it's contents before resuming your conversation. Not bad, right? In these examples I've been polite but, despite that, have still interrupted the in-person interaction.

Many are less polite:

excusing themselves but picking up the call, or replying to the IM that popped up anyway
replying to a text, email, tweet on your mobile while at the dinner table, (or even driving!)

In short, we are multi-tasking far more and giving less than full attention to communicating with those in our presence. I'm pretty sure this was considered rude at one point. Today I'm not so sure. This may or may not be a new "norm" in communication etiquette. Either way the impact on how we communicate is obvious.

The personal touch - not!

Whatever the reason, some amount of personal communication has been replaced by impersonal electronic communication. The evidence points to us getting more rude.

Do you email or IM a colleague that sits a few doors down from you?
Do you text friends back and forth trying to make plans?
Do you email friends and family to "talk" about what's going on rather than call them up?
Do you do any/all of the above in the presence of others? Do you catch yourself saying "let me just answer this text", "just checking my FaceBook" or email"?
Do you have to say "I'm sorry, can you repeat that, I was multi-tasking" often?
Go on, admit it. I know I'm as or more guilty than most!

What happened to the phone call? A few possible causes for people prefering the impersonal modes of communication include:

Control the amount of time spent in the conversation. You can "end it" more easily when not face to face or on the phone
It can be asynchronous and therefore more interruptable for multi-tasking.
Carry on more than one "conversation" at a time - can't do that on the phone

The "blur" between your personal and professional communications and time

Many professionals don't turn off at 6 pm. Smartphones, mobile access, laptops and remote access to your company network have changed this dramatically. We can be "connected" to work 24/7/365.
The interruption and distraction points above are not just an issue at work. They impact your "personal" time and interactions.
In fact, advances in Unified Communications have enabled some of this.

Seemless connection of your work extension to your mobile phone
Work email on your mobile phone
Voice mail conversion to text and then emailed to you

When you add work and professional communications coming at you at all times of the day it you have the information overload situation described in my earlier post.

The Identity Crisis

Many of us have different "identities" to monitor and check separately - email, social networks

I've got a work email, two personal emails, and three social networks. As mentioned earlier I also have community interests with their own private communication mechanisms or email lists.

Some of us are in a profession where we serve multiple clients. Communication and data context shifting between clients or "your identity" at the moment is another challenge brought on by the Communication Revolution. Finding communication, data etc on a client-by-client or community of interest basis needs to be more efficient

The Communication Revolution and the communication capability it's given to us has impacted our communication preferences and social behavior - for better and worse. Later in the series we'll discuss enhancements in Unified Communications and devices to help us better manage these changes. What are your thoughts and needs?

The Communication Revolution Part 1 - Information Overload
The Communication Revolution Part 3 - Social Networking In The Enterprise
Link to - What Unified Communications Can Do - Part 1

The Communication Revolution Part 1 - Information Overload

2009-12-09T07:55:00.000-08:00

With the Communication Revolution going on today many of us suffer information overload or management issues from time to time. Information overload and/or inefficient management of communication carries a cost. This post is part 1 of a series described here. If you haven't read that it may help to go do so to set the stage and context for the follow-on posts. This series of posts is regarding the communication revolution and where new Unified Communication solutions that are needed as a result.

What is information overload? This link gives good background on the problem.
Using myself as an example, let's take a look at my communications inflow to get an idea of what information overload can be.

Email - I get ~100-150 work emails and ~20 personal emails per day. This may be light compared to some of you out there

Voice calls and voice mail - I receive ~ 20 calls per day on average. Of those, roughly 50-75% wind up in voice mail on my desk or mobile. In addition, 50% or more are actually received on my mobile phone rather than at my desk or home

Instant Messages - I receive ~20 Instant Message (IM) "sessions" per day which amount to dozens or nearing 100 IM notes

Social Networking - I am active on some of the social networks as they are a good channel for enterprise workers. Click here for some of the reasons why. I follow many Twitter streams around UC, information overload, new technology and product announcements, innovation and more. These streams are in the hundreds per day. That doesn't even count the stream for specific people I follow.

Communities of Interest - Personally I am interested in certain music and fishing on-line communities. At the moment these communities have their own guest board and messaging scheme. Yet another place for me to check for information and messages! I'm trying to convince them to move to Facebook or Twitter to at least remove this separate network.
If I look back just five years ago, the IM mode and real-time social network feeds virtually didn't exist. Online communities and web sites existed but have continued explosive growth. Can you think of any business or club that doesn't have a web site, mailing list, guest book?

So what's the problem?

I don't claim that this list is complete but I include the following descriptions or "symptoms" of information overload:

Inability to see/read the information you are receiving given the amount you receive on your device. With so much coming at me, as described above, the probability of me seeing or knowing what contains true information I want to see, or requires response or action, is very low. If you don't see or read it, it's not information!

Social networks - On some topics the Twitter streams are so active there's high probability of missing and not having time to review the keyword stream or lists history for "relevant" information. The information directed to me by name is the only information I'm guaranteed to see. Who knows what valuable information I missed completely or didn't see at all.
Emails - reading emails takes time. Many can be scanned by source/title and discarded in a couple seconds. Others, if relevant, 15-60 sec to read and to absorb it's information. Sometimes longer. Those requiring action or response can take many minutes. Depending on how you process your in-box, you may have delay in seeing or acting on something more important.
Voice mail is often the least likely to attract my attention. Visual voice mail allows me to scan the whole in-box much like an email box which is a help. Again, depending on when I get around to it, and usually having to listen to them for content regardless, important information or responses to requests can be delayed.

Feeling of anxiety and helplessness that you are "missing" useful information or not responding to the right communications in a timely manner.

With so much information available to us studies have discussed the negative effects of so much information. Inefficiency, fatigue, anxiery are among the topics mentioned. Click here for one example post covering it. In addition some are showing that we feel pressured to take advantage of this "information". Pressure to multi-task our communication channels thereby impacting focus. Feelings of guilt if you don't look at all the RSS, blogs, search results that you receive. Do you feel you have to look at your emails, feeds, social networks, all the time for fear of "missing" something, or, just because "it's there"? Do you feel like you need to constantly monitor your incoming communication and reply as immediately as possible? You may suffer information overload syndrome - especially check out the video it contains.

Interruption of thought process - phone calls or other communications can be an interruption that has a cost of getting "back in the groove" afterwards.

There you are, deep in thought on a technical article you are reviewing or a detailed response to an email. Out of the corner of your eye you notice a new email from a blog you follow, or an IM from a colleague. You open it, begin a session or to read the blog. Before you know it 10 minutes have gone by. You finish the session and head out for a cup of coffee. You return to your desk, sit down, and say to yourself "now what was I doing?". I read one study where this was quantified but unfortunately didn't save the link. If I recall correctly, studies showed it took as long as 2-5 min to fully return to a deep thought groove if interrupted. I'll add it if I find it.

I've written before on tips and suggestions to reduce information overload - link. Later on in this series of posts I'll get to specific ideas and directions in Unified Communication and communication device enhancements to help divert the "deep impact" asteroid.

Link to Part 2 - Social Behavior Impacts
Link to Part 3 - Social Networking For The Enterprise
Link to - What Unified Communications Can Do - Part 1

The Communnications Revolution - "Deep Impact" About To Strike

2009-12-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

There's no doubt we're in a communications revolution. It's like a "deep impact" asteroid ready to strike unless we take steps to divert it!

Social networking, real time news and blog feeds, and the continued advances and adoption of mobile smart phones have been some of the major drivers of this change over the last 5 years. These advances have given us communication & information access anywhere, all the time, and in real time. A good thing, right? Yes, mostly. This revolution has also created new challenges and behavior changes for individuals and enterprises. More than ever we wrestle with how to efficiently access, utilize and control of all this new communication/information without potentially stressful and negative side-effects.

What are some of these impacts?

Individuals are overwhelmed with the amount of information and communication modes available to them and coming at them 24/7 if you let it. Information Overload. From a business perspective, employee productivity, information security, and legal liability concerns arise.
Businesses need to address the fact that employees and customers are "talking" in many new ways. Changes need to be made in how they "listen" and reach the customer base. Changes need to be made in how all forms of communication are presented to and managed for employee productivity and collaboration. Customer service & contact centers need to deal with social network communication
Social changes: We are choosing different communication modes and preferences. 24/7 real-time availability of information is altering social communication behavior. The boundary between "personal" and professional identity and time is blurring.

Unified Communications applications and communication devices need to evolve and help us address the challenges put forth by today's communication/information technology. Help us divert the "deep impact" as enterprises and as individuals.

There a few key aspects of this communication revolution that I'll discuss over my next few posts. In the end I'll map Unified Communication application and device enhancement ideas and example use cases of where/how they may help!

Information overload and management - personal and business impacts. What are they?
Social behavior changes regarding communication style and the blur between personal and professional needs
Examples of Enterprise benefits to finding ways to embrace new communication modes and behaviors
Changes in Unified Communications and devices that can help divert the communication revolution asteroid

Stay tuned and I'll add the links as I create the follow-on posts. Looking forward to an ongoing dialog on diverting the asteroid!

Link to Part 1 - information overload impacts
Link to Part 2 - Social Behavior Impacts
Link to Part 3 - Social Networking In The Enterprise
Link to - What Unified Communications Can Do - Part 1

The Communications Revolution Part 3 - Social Networking In The Enterprise

2009-11-20T08:09:00.000-08:00

We're in the middle of a Communications Revolution. The social networking media explosion continues and shows no signs of slowing down. If you don't believe it check out this video and it's not even that recent. The stats just keep rising.

I attended the #140conf in LA in late October as well as sat on a panel about the future of communications. A subject touched upon in a few sessions was enterprise concerns over allowing wider social networking use by their employees. Are these concerns founded? Are there solutions to ease these concerns?

There are some enterprise uses that appear to be generally accepted and businesses are wrestling with how to do and measure it successfully. These include;
1) Customer Service - watch for & serve/resolve customer complaints showing up in social network streams much more proactively and real time. The linkage to the enterprise contact center can and should be strong to make the social media stream just like any other stream (voice, email, web) input into the contact center and to the service agents
2) Brand monitoring & promotion - providing product information, enhancement ideas, and proactively getting reactions to your products, suggestions, feedback, comparisons to your competition
3) Marketing/Promotion - clearly social media is another channel to reach the eyes of the potential consumer. More and more businesses are looking at social media for this purpose.

If you search there are plenty of blog posts with success examples, social media ROI discussions, the cost of not listening, and providing tips for sucess. One recent example I saw is Avaya. There are several more. Monitor Twitter using Tweedeck searching for "social media" and you'll soon see the many studies and examples I refer to. Using social networks strictly for marketing, promotion, and customer service implies use by a limited number of the enterprise employees - contact center/service, marketing, possibly some sales order taking being the most likely.

What about broader employee use of social networks?
Enterprises are struggling with the if and how of allowing and supporting social network use widely within their employee population. There is certainly some risk and learning around using these new technologies. Is your enterprise having this debate?

The most common arguments against enterprise use of social networks are listed below. I don't imply any priority order to these concerns.

1) Productivity - does it benefit the Enterprise or not?
Con: Employees will waste time on social networks and lose productivity for my business. It's true that you could describe social networking as the biggest water cooler room in the world. However, I contend that if an employee tends to be unproductive, they'll do so with or without social networking access. I agree there could be an increased temptation to use the networks improperly but I have some suggestions for that in a later post.
Argument For: Knowledge Worker Information Gathering - Employees can use the power of social networking productively. For example, they can search for information and what's being said about potential products, suppliers, technology trends, or consultants your business is considering using. They can use the network to reach out for advice or suggestions from friends, past colleagues in their area of expertise, or new experts they find on the networks. In today's world of multi-modal communication it's pretty likely that networks like LinkedIn, Skype, Twitter, Facebook etc. are where they are and the most real-time accessible means to reach them. In addition, isn't this just another form of "Googling It"? Is Google search discouraged in your enterprise too?

2) Security of Company Information
Con: Employees will purposely or accidentally divulge company Intellectual Property (IP), product plans or internal issues on the social networks. Of course, when they do, the audience will be far wider.
Con: Company liability for claims and comments made by employees about other companies or products, reviews, perceived or real "endorsements". Again, the reach is far and wide when it does happen.
Con: Airing dirty laundry. Concern over negative comments about products, the organization, management in such a widely viewed public forum.
Argument For: Most companies have a code of conduct or something similar. Enforce it upon the discovery of such behavior on the social networks just like it you'd enforce it in other situations where such behavior is detected. Denying employees access or discouraging use at work is not the answer. The employees are going to be on the social networks in any case. You can't control that. If they are not allowed access from work, they'll access later from home and have the same opportunity to "misbehave". Doesn't it come down to ground rules and enforcement of what won't be tolerated? Trust, but monitor your employees to do so. The emergence of social networking communication really doesn't change this. I agree the exposure to the misbehavior is much higher but that exposure is there with or without enterprise support of social media use.

In summary:

1) The social networks and real-time communication are here to stay and will continue to evolve
2) With or without the support of the enterprise, your employees are using them
3) The enterprise can gain by embracing rather than discouraging use. Discouraging use doesn't substantially reduce the risks
4) Most important - Create guidelines, publicize and train your employees on them. Be clear on monitoring and consequences of improper behavior. This last point appears to be the most essential. The use of the networks is inevitable so the best defense is clear guidelines and training.

What's the view of your enterprise? Additional comments and suggestions welcome!

Related Posts:
Communication Revolution Part 1 - Information Overload
Communication Revolution Part 2 - Social Behavior Impacts
Link to - What Unified Communications Can Do - Part 1

Suggestions and New Solutions For Information Overload

2009-11-13T07:22:00.000-08:00

With the increased volume of communication modes, mobility power of smart phones, and information feeds available today, in real time, I often feel like I'm in information overload. Don't get me wrong, the "always on" availability and ability to receive, search, find etc. is a great thing. Like everything else, there can be some downside or social adjustment to it. I want to more effectively find and see what I really need to see as well as better control who, how and when it gets to me.

Common sources of information overload include;
- voice calls to desk or mobile
- voice messages
- email, often from professional and personal accounts
- RSS feeds from blogs
- streams from social networks to your smart phone and/or computer
- other private social networks or communities of interest you separately monitor

Information overload has several effects.
- interruption of thought, meetings, or personal time with family & friends. There have been studies discussing the thought recovery time after a phone call or other interruption. The other factor here for me is social etiquette.
- so much information that's it's difficult to know what to truly pay attention to in a timely manner. It takes too much time sorting through it all to find what I value.
- Some level of stress or pressure to "look" all the time just because "it's there"

Here's how I put some control on my information overload problem with today's tools and environments.

1. The most fundamental suggestion I can make is to DISCONNECT. Walk away from that computer(we'll discuss your smart phone later). This may be the hardest for all of us. Not much else is going to work unless you let yourself have some down time from email, Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, RSS and blog reading etc. I know this isn't a new or novel suggestion as many other blogs have suggested this, but it bears repeating. There is a definite addictive aspect to the "always on" wherever I go nature of today's communications. I am one of those addicts trying to stay in "real time" rehab!

2. Use your email tools. If you have high email traffic, filter and sort your emails into in-box folders by categories of senders. For example, create project team lists and a related in-box folder to dump project specific emails into. Perhaps another folder for common "personal" emails from friends or clubs you belong to. Yet another for emails from your management chain. I find the sorting to be a help in itself. One other filter that can help is to distinguish between mail that you are on the "To" list vs only on the "CC". I realize you likely have multiple email accounts but the principles can still apply.
Note: Collaboration tools are aimed at reducing the use of email. I won't focus on this for now. Clearly if you can reduce your email traffic then managing it isn't as much an issue.

3. If you don't read it, drop it. Pick a few of the most historically useful to you blogs, news feeds etc to keep. Drop the rest. It may feel like you're "missing something". You may feel some stress if you don't try to read everything available to you. It's just not possible. If you don't/can't read it, then it's not information for you so drop it.

4. Don't send RSS or social network updates to your smart phone. At the very least severely limit it. You can't walk away from your computer and get any relief if all you do is vector it to your smart phone. The smart phone is my dominant source of interruption, distraction, and the addiction to "look". It's what steals my down time and annoys family and friends in the social etiquette sense.

5. Use social network organizing tools. Tools like TweetDeck can help you sort as well as pick sources and/or content keywords you are most interested in seeing. They can also handle multiple social network accounts. The recent addition of lists to Twitter is another capability that helps. You can set them up differently on your computer vs. your smart phone to get less on your smart phone.

6. Consider not using email on your smart phone. Of course this is not really an option for many given the mobile nature of many jobs today. As a compromise I don't route my personal email accounts to my smart phone.

I'm very interested in your methods, wishes and suggestions around how you manage your communication overload. Comments and dialog welcome!

Communication Overload And the Identity Crisis

2009-11-06T08:49:00.000-08:00

With all the data and forms of communication coming at me on a daily basis it continues to make me think about solutions for managing it. I've blogged before on the overall communication overload pain. Many will say just "filter" it. I agree with that but it's still not all that easy to do. When it comes to Twitter for example, the recent addition of lists should help (once you finish the labor to set up and sort who you follow into those lists - which I have not!). I contend that the lists you want to watch varies for your personal vs. professional time so more improvement is needed.

One source of the pain appears to be that many of us have multiple identities or contexts in our lives; dad, soccer mom, work, family etc. The line between personal and professional is fuzzy at best and isn't as time-of-day defined as it once was. Work doesn't just shut off at 6 pm for example. Many of us need to see some amount of "professional" communications even "after" work.

Here's a thought that I've discussed with personal and professional peers like @Roger_Tee. How about the ability to control and filter your data feeds and incoming communications (yes, including voice) based on setting what "identity" you want to be at the moment?

For me personally that would mean a one click to switch to "personal" mode when I get home. Personal mode would have effects like;
- allow only calls that are from my "personal" contacts list. Due to the work/home blur that list would still include just a few key work contacts.
- allow only the set of tweets, IMs, other social media pings from friends or from my personal interest areas (like the Mets, Jets, Music or concert announcements, or NJ fishing). I'd turn off technology feeds or communications from my more casual professional connections
- Show me email only from my personal account(s).

If I were a coach on my personal time perhaps I'd have an identity for that too.

In short, for personal mode I'd try to disconnect as much as possible from my "professional" side. Turn off some of the inflow for a while. Two major factors for success here are you have to WANT to disconnect (the always connected addiction issue many of us have) and it has to be EASY to turn on such filtering.

"Professional" mode would be the opposite; turn off personal interest tweets and feeds, most personal voice calls etc. It's important to reduce interruptions, whether at work or at play. I don't have the link handy but there are many studies showing up about the cost of an interruption (email, voice calls etc) to your mental context and producitivy.

Perhaps some would benefit from multiple professional contexts as suggested by @Roger_Tee. Given he's providing consulting services to multiple clients, it may be useful to him to switch his context to the client he wants to focus on at that time. His email, tweets or other possible data feeds relevant to that client would then be in focus for him. He may or may not go as far as to change what phone or other forms of contact he wants to receive on a client by client basis. I have just started to try Google Wave. It may provide some of this context or filtering. I can see a wave per client for example. It isn't clear to me yet that Wave encompasses the full dashboard of incoming communication and information sorting.

I'm interested in the information and communication overload issue and how it impacts and changes our lives and some of our social behavior. Does any of this resonate with you? What ideas or wishes would you add? Please share with comments on this post.

#140Conf Observations & Relevance to Unified Communications

2009-11-03T09:17:00.000-08:00

I'm in the telecommunications industry doing product engineering and development. I attended the 140 Characters, Exploring The State of Now conference in LA last week. It was my first "non-techie" type of conference and for that reason alone it was a very different experience.

You may ask, why would someone like me attend a conference like this? I attended for two reasons; my interest in social media as a new and highly popular mode of communication, and my passion for integrating social media with business communications systems that are in use in businesses today. The second reason comes from my history in VoIP telecommunications and that I'm currently employed by Avaya; a key player in the communications industry. I was invited to be a member of the Tuesday panel that discussed Google Wave and the Future of Communications. Social media is part of that future! Here is a video of the panel seesioin I was part of.

The conference itself was set up in the Kodak theater. It was very well organized by @JeffPulver, @jeffhayzlett and many more staff. Kudos to all involved in running the event. I particularly enjoyed the timekeeper use of the Oscar "music" to keep each session on time.

My main take-away from all the sessions and people I met is that social media is used across all forms of business and all walks and interests in life. I really enjoyed the diversity of the people I met and hearing about what they do compared to technology focused conferences. Social media truly is "the state of now" for news, opinions, reviews, forming and sharing in communities of interest - you name it. I'll repeat what I said on the panel; no it is not a fad and a key challenge is to figure out how to effectively integrate and manage it along with all other forms of communication. There were a few vendors, Avaya included, there discussing products and tools starting to aim at that very challenge.

There were many PR and marketing type firms discussing how businesses need to pay attention to and use social media to promote and monitor their brand, and respond to their customers. The examples were great. Given the state of now, any business that doesn't believe they need to pay attention to the social media revolution is in for a very rude awakening. That includes giving and encouraging their associates to access and use social media! Many other discussions centered around how social media creates and fosters communities of interest of all kinds; celebrities, sports, media shows, moms, illness, homelessness, specific expertise, and all kinds of business branding and customer service examples. Many panelists described how social media is complimenting rather than replacing the other forms of media (radio, TV, news services etc).

There was one very "entertaining" session I feel the need to call out because it struck close to what I write about. The speaker demonstrated, with crowd participation, a radical real time concept: a PHONE call. It's as real time as you can get and yet we seem to be drifting further and further from high touch communications. Food for thought, have we done so almost to the point of rudeness?.

I look at social media, and communications in general, from both the individual and business needs perspective. I call it people-centric communication. Look here for some thoughts on what that could be. How do you feel about social media and it's impact on your communication style and needs? I definitely got some insights into this from my attendance at this conference and the people I connected with.

In summary, this conference focused on people and communities and how social media really fosters connecting. It is supposed to be "social" after all. It's about connecting, helping people and making a difference; not just a new force in running business and "making money". The social media players and tools will change but the "state of now" real time is here to stay. If you are unsure about or considering social media personally or professionally, or if you just want to keep up with it's evolution, I'd check out future 140 conferences by following #140conf.

A 'People-Centric' View of Communications Today

2009-10-17T08:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Observations on Google Chrome Browser

2009-10-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

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

Communication and Collaboration To Improve The Meeting "Experience"

2009-10-08T13:41:00.000-07:00

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.

21st Century Communications Impact Putting a Damper on Your MoJo?

2009-10-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

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.

Impact of The Beatles

2009-09-28T07:37:00.000-07:00

We're going through yet another resurgence of The Beatles with the ongoing promotion of the re-released albums and the new game. Of course there’s greatly increased air time of their music as well. This resurgence happens about once a decade. As far as I’m concerned, it’s well deserved and appreciated.

When I was young growing up through the 60’s I listened to and enjoyed their music simply for the music. The other day I tuned in to a long set of their music being played on the radio. The station played hits ranging from the early 60’s through their last recorded album, Abbey Road. Listening to the full range of their music again reminded me to appreciate something else about the Beatles and what they represented. Right before our “ears”, The Beatles transformed from their early happy-go-lucky “beat” music of Love Me Do, I Want To Hold Her Hand etc. to the far more political and outspoken social critique of Taxman, Helter Skelter, Revolution etc. Their musical tone and messages mirrored the very turbulent decade of the 60’s as it evolved. Having grown up through the 60’s, I strongly relate to that transformation; more now than then.

Is new technology and media partially responsible for "old" being successfully seen as "new" again? I can't help but think that the new technology and media available today that brings us products like the Beatles Rockband video game enables cross-generation communication and appreciation. Perhaps the younger generation hasn't rejected our "old" music because it was introduced to them through new media?

In any event, I hope the once a decade resurgence of their music and memories goes on for quite a long time. To me, they represented the social change and issues of the 60’s, not just the legendary music they produced.

Is Communication Overload Killing Your Mojo?

2009-09-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

The choices for real-time communication on the internet have grown and changed dramatically in just the past 5 years.

We can choose between the traditional phone call, video calls, instant message, email, text message, social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, Skype calls,and more.

Recently Facebook and Twitter have been reported to add “voice chat” meaning that even “phone call” modes are expanding. There are many studies and statistics around mode preferences by demographics so I won’t get into that here.

To further complicate the situation, many of us have multiple “personalities”. We have business and personal emails, voice mail boxes, multiple phone numbers, multiple social network ID’s etc. Our personal and professional lives are blended together far more than before. We have multiple ways of reaching out to people and they have the same choices in trying to reach us.

For me personally, this new communication mode reality creates “communication overload”. What is communication overload? At the very least, it’s the need to consciously prioritize and monitor the many avenues that someone, business or personal, may try to reach me. It’s also about consciously making the choice of which mode you want to use to reach out to people. What do they prefer? Where are they present at the moment? With all the other information available to us, managing your communications can certainly be another headache.

Solutions I’d like to see. In short, “unified communications” is expanding and needs to expand further. I think of it as a communications dashboard to aggregate the data of multiple apps into one view. What could this dashboard be?

It should now certainly add in knowledge of social networks that my contacts use. Show me their presence, or not, on these networks, Skype etc when I look to reach or reply to them and one touch to launch it. It should give me a dashboard view of all incoming attempts to reach me no matter what the media was. I think of it as a communications log as opposed to a call log.

I also want an alert window to specifically show me messages my filter criteria say I should go look at first. I’d like the ability to flag or receive an alert on for communication attempts based on who, time of day, my presence, and a keyword filter on what they are trying to contact me about. I also want keyword filters (ala "Tweetdeck") applied to voice mails, phone calls and emails. The thought here is to be alerted to check certain contact attempts rather than not knowing what’s there until I remember to check each and every one of the communication channels I'm part of.

Most importantly, the filtering has to grow to aggregate all my incoming communications and control what, when, how they get through to me based on my criteria. There are efforts heading in this direction (Google Voice for voice and Tweetdeck and 100 others for Twitter) but this consolidation/aggregation is moving too slow for me. The number of options for communication seems to be outstripping the pace at which aggregation solutions are converging these options into a single point of control. The number one cause of death in 2010, or at least #1 cause of mental breakdown, may well be "information/communication overload".

Do you suffer “communication overload”? Is it killing your Mojo? Is Dr. Evil behind all this!! How much more of this can you take?

I’d like to hear from you about what you think has to happen to manage this flood of communication overload.