The Communication Revolution - Part 2, Impacts on Social Communication Behavior

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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"

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?

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

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?

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.