Conversationware

Something is wrong with Presence.

I harp on about this technology, and I keep looking around to see whether I can be proved wrong.

So, I was grateful to Mike Gotta (again) for pointing to this audio interview (48MB, 50 Min) with one of the founding fathers of Presence, Peter St-Andre with Lee Dryburgh, who happens to be organising a Unified Communications event in the spring, Ecomm2008

I do like being proved wrong, although friends and family may disagree, but my problem with Presence is still that it doesn’t seem scalable beyond immediate and close relationships.

Although very entertaining, and well worth the (your) time, I’m not sure the interview answered all my questions.

Ok, here’s the beef.

The more people I know, the more likely I am to be interrupted at someone elses convenience. 

On the basis that I don’t want to micro-manage my availability between constantly changing relationships with all the people I know, I just can’t make it work.

I initially equated Presence with ‘Busy Lamp Field’.

This was a quaint term used to describe the lights on a key telephone system handset, that lit when someone lifted their phone handset. As an early key system evangelist I thought this ‘Presence’ was going to be great.

Of course, the supposition turned out to be wrong. Despite people desperately wanting it to work (including me). Busy Lamp Fields are possibly why ‘phone’ people are very keen on this tech, but BLF and IM are not the same!

Whilst a ‘lit lamp’ told someone I was on the phone, and helped them know ‘not to try calling me’ (note, try) - when the lamp wasn’t lit, it DID NOT mean I was definitely at my desk and available to talk.

Whereas, the blinking IM message says that until you reply, you’re being ignorant. The refusal to communicate is in broad daylight.

Thus, there is an emotional blackmail being set, and to my mind that is exactly why people don’t buy into it.

It almost pains me to say it, but telephone presence is more useful to the recipient than desk based presence, in that there is no obligation to interact.

Another problem exists and it is this.

As a real time communication, there are also less facilities than asynchronous communication. This question of synchronous vs asynchronous came up in the podcast also, but indirectly.

So, the time to compose a considered and consultative response just isn’t there in real time conversation.

You can’t forward an IM for consideration by someone to contribute (with any certainty someone is going to be there right now!)

And, unlike other web based communication, the conversation isn’t discoverable (indexed) and won’t contribute to the knowledge base of the rest of the community. 

I find it interesting that the chap who first got me thinking on the Presence subject, Alec Saunders, has his company, Iotum, pioneering another communications medium - the multiparty conference call. 

Interesting because the conference call, whosoever has one, is booked in advance, and has a subject. It is a viable alternative to Presence . The permission factor is key for me. I’m not yet sure whether this has a significance on Alec’s thoughts on his New Presence…dot dot dot.

So, let’s have an invite…and acceptance….to talk about a subject….at a particular time, or joint circumstance.

If we have agreed to talk on a subject, and we’ve both concurrently indicated we’re in free mode, THEN let the availability be shown. It’s better than trying to reclassify everyone I know.

In my view, Presence missed a step, the equivalent of the ringing phone invitation.

I kept hearing about Twitter, but to be frank, things are busy enough without learning anything new. But, I suppose there is nothing new about having to learn something else in web software land.

So, here I am

https://twitter.com/mattlambert

I follow only one person so far (1 hour and counting), and that’s because they linked to this blog with a twitter post, so I knew where to find them.

Ok, I admit, being in a conversation on your own is no fun for me - so if you’re reading, why not sign up? It’s free, takes about 10 minutes to discover the long and short of it all.

The premise is that you can keep up to date with people’s stuff, but only as and when its convenient for you, not for them.

It’s like IM but shorter and not so interruptive. This is a very important point for us Brits who, even if you’re ‘friended’ via instant messaging, won’t presume to interrupt even if your presence status is ‘green’ unless you’re very best of buddies.

I can see it would be a better form of ‘presence’ - much more contextual.

Ultimately, the fact I work remotely (no word reversal jokes huh), made the decision, as Twitter can apparently resemble being in an office by letting you pick up on ambient information without having to join in.

It even interfaces through your gtalk client and ping you to remind you to add a sentence and to make things easier.

Perhaps you can tell me if you’ve already had a go, or if you can add to the ‘business case’? I may have to update my Communications Mindmap

The phrase “mobile presence” is a misnomer, but even so, there should be more done about applications sharing information as to whether someone is currently “on the phone” or not.

As difficult as it already is to share IPT desktop phone status information between organisations - very early days - it is even less common to be able to determine someone’s mobile phone status electronically.

It occurs to me that this situation is unlikely to improve.

The issue is this

• If people are shown to be already on the phone - people won’t call to find out. Thus, there is likely to be a corresponding drop in telephone calls, voicemail leaving and voicemail access, and therefore call revenue.
• Presence reduces call revenues

So, what hope for ubiquitous presence information?

There is a hope if the (software?) application that generates the call in the first place, then makes that information available for the duration of the call.

For instance

IPT software commonly redirects incoming calls to people not at their desk. Do those IPT software systems then show someone as ‘busy, mobile’ for the duration of the call? I’m betting not many of them do.

If the trunk to trunk remains connected, device busy status should be simple shouldn’t it?

And therefore, with the right application development, if all incoming calls are routed through a central location, then another important UC element could be delivered.

What’s left then, is to generate ‘outgoing’ calls from a mobile device through a linked application.

Alcatel’s My Teamwork solution facilitates that, but perhaps it should be a facility of some mobile operating system as well.

Google Android  and Grand Central anyone?

Then, there is the issue of being out of service or ’switched off’….it goes on, this search for the UC holy grail.

Exposing a combined desk and telephone presence is like giving out your front door keys.

So, are your parents and best friends welcome around at ANY time?

The likelihood is that even if they have keys, the visit would still be agreed in advance. Either that, or perhaps you’d have a standing arrangement for a certain day of the week.

Work is a bit like that standing arrangement, a pact between colleagues to be available

But does your availability pact extend to everyone in your business, to any more people than you’re sharing projects with at that time, your immediate teams?

Does your being available ’depend’?

Because answering ’depends’ could mean you need to ‘manage’ your presence, and imagine setting presence when putting the kettle on.

So, even if someone is shown to be at their desk and not on the phone, they might not answer your phonecall…..it depends on

• What they’re doing,
• Who YOU are
• What you want to talk about.

Arranging conversations in advance 

My current experience is that even with presence tools, because they don’t automatically answer the above questions, we’re more often arranging conversations in advance.

there is an invitation…..then permission…for you to talk to them at a time, about something.

Most people email an invitation - but this is unrelated to real time communications and there has to be a better way than that. 

Even a ringing phone is an invitation, but ok, it’s basic, and the trouble with a voice invitation is that by the time you’ve asked, you’re already speaking to them. As an aside, having one dimensional presence tools does lend more weight to voicemail, which is probably the best invite to speak - if you use voicemail properly that is.

Presence on it’s own won’t replace voicemail

But back to the main point. Isn’t sending invitations much simpler than managing presence? I think it could be.

Would you turn up to your customer’s office without arranging it in advance?

And so, therefore, is presence the wrong tool for anything other than close relationships, which already have an element of assumed permission?

–

Some other people’s posts on presence

Collaboration Loop (again) article on presence interoperability

Melanie argues that this is the holy grail for UC, but as you can guess from the title of this post, I’m not ‘holy’ convinced (groan)

Yes, the customer is king, and I would definitely love to see callcentre skillsets aggregated and shown online so that I could click to talk at my own convenience, but other work relationships are more complicated than that.

Alec of Iotum was the first to make me think about availability instead of just presence.

My understanding is that availability is ’presence’ with an overlay, which means that the questions - “Am I at my desk, am I on the phone”…should be supplemented with;

“do I want to talk to you” (right now) 

- Availability does need that vital permission component -

But that’s my own interpretation and words

Dan York argues that presence is critical, but doesn’t necessarily relate it to a telephone call, as he sees voice calls declining in importance.

I very much agree that voice is less useful than it used to be - but for some additional reasons, it deserves a future post.

Presence will be critical, but only once this permission requirement is worked out, and it needs something new, a better way to initiate and manage a conversation. It should definitely be conditional.

At the moment, presence is a bit like opening a christmas package to find some bits and a pot of glue.

And, there are pieces missing. Even when you’ve been using presence for a while, something just doesn’t feel right.

Here’s the thing -

I don’t care who you are (sorry mother), there are times when I don’t want to talk to you, at that moment.

Conversely, it might vary, depending on why you need to talk to me….I’m becoming a master of the obvious.

IF THEN EQUALS

So - presence ’status’ should be conditional upon what you want to talk to me about

Send an invitation to converse (I know that’s what a ringing phone is), but send it with the subject - and if you get an affirmative response, ‘WE’ can then go about deciding on the best method and time to do it.

By WE, of course I mean clever software that AUTOMATICALLY detects when we both can and would do it.

The only additional fluff could be with the level of urgency, or importance - I’m not sure which, but probably the latter -  to be attached by both the invitee and respondee to the subject, and that should be 1,2,3 or maybe 4.

The final requirement is that when we do get to speak, all of the items we’ve hitherto agreed to speak about are listed on a screen, which means we can make notes and either tick them off or agree to invite someone else into the subject.

The lower the combined importance numbers, the higher in the list the subject goes.

You know what, it makes much more sense than ‘ringing’ someone without knowing beforehand whether its a good subject, or time.

I do have deja vu at this point. So maybe this is something I’ve already seen - but if so, then it needs more publicity so that I can remember it better…..so link back here.

I’m minded of the following.

Albert Einstein quote - If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y plus Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut

The way I look at it, the term ‘Mobile Presence’ seems to be a contradiciton in terms. 

I originally read this linked article and found myself thinking the issue was very complicated. And now, having mulled it over in terms of whether this technology was something I would actually ‘use’ or not, I’m skeptical.

Leaving aside the ability to see if someone is on the phone or not….till another time at any rate…

My first thought was;

Because I always have my mobile with me does that mean I’m now always present?

Trouble is - I don’t want to instant message via a mobile phone if I can help it - as I’m usually busy being mobile and away from my desk.

Looking back, ‘Presence’ was coined by the Instant Messaging PC client, and therefore, to say I am ‘present’ actually means that I am at my PC desktop and contactable. Not being present means I have wandered off and am not going to respond.

In my book, this concept can’t be extended to a mobile phone, so ‘mobile presence’ is a misnomer. OK, enough with the re-iteration already already.

The meaning of Presence, has started to morph into ‘availability and willingness to interact’, and to that end a lot of discussion is being put into handling contacts, grouping them, and puttings rules against VIP versus double glazing people. And the bottom line is, I’m not sure about this.

So, in the instance I am away from my desk, I would pitch my voicemail against ‘presence’ technology as being most useful. Give me a call, and I’ll decide on the spot whether I’ll answer you or not, and, unlike a rules engine, I won’t ever get it wrong.

So, if I really can’t talk to you now, then leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as it is convenient. Of course, leaving a voicemail should in itself move the conversation onwards, so this isn’t a waste of either your or mine time.

I think that’s a lot easier than maintaining a presence engine via some small mobile screen that you forget to check every ten minutes, don’t you?

So couldn’t the communications industry just define Presence to mean Whether I’m at my desktop, or not?

It’s not perfect, so perhaps we should think more about how conversations are initiated, a more formal process that simulates that so repetitive IM, “can we talk?” 

That permission element is going to be all important

A useful article here, which has gartner predicting that enterprise IM will go from 25 to 100% penetration in enterprises by the end of the decade, and it has some market figures.

There are some other predictions, like “by 2012, presence technology will be offered independently of IM and email products”

I thought this sort of thing was called a busy lamp field in days gone by, but I could be wrong.

There is more to being effective than just being efficient.

It’s been at the back of my mind that we ‘communication technology people’ are still only part way through making life easier, helping us all contact people more quickly and efficiently, and reducing the cost of doing so.

But once that job is finished, how are users helped to be more EFFECTIVE once the conversation is in progress.

A far more elegant description of the difference between efficient and effective can be found in this article from the boss of Parlano

Nick muses that we lack an ROI model for this collaboration technology, but it seems obvious that getting a purchasing decision should be easier once the tools to measure effectiveness are in place.

But, perhaps instead of tools we just need a new breed of business analysts who enjoy a challenge, whilst being given a full remit to change by those in charge.

Lots of people are working on this aspect of micro and macro productivity and Parlano have an interesting proposition which blurs the line between real time and messaging with group productivity around topics.

When I chose the name for this blog, it was partly because the word conversation does allow for extended communications around a subject over a sustained period via multiple modes and channels.

To sum up then, Unified Communications is just where we start, to enhance and speed connectivity…and as I comment, we can lead the horse to water more quickly, but effectiveness will need yet further ‘tools’. 

I admit to being interested in such toolkits, before I get any comments from colleagues, many thanks.

This post is incomplete, but then so is the industry

I’ve mentioned before that the key to understanding Unified Communications (all of it) is the software interfaces presented to the user. (You may notice I don’t mention voip at all in the following, it’s about users).

Unless the user is going to adopt functionality, there is almost no point deploying it…..and by definition the more interfaces there are, the more difficult adoption will be (how many training course will users go on).

Once the required interfaces are defined, it’s so much easier to put the technologies in the right place, or in the right box, so to speak, and so I have been framing business requirements around the GUI.

The reason I’m bothering here is that I have met with customers who have in front of them very interesting new products - but they overlap so much, and so how does one decide?

It can be as tricky as hell, as current comms software technology on offer includes

Messaging

• Email
• Voicemail
• Fax
• Text Messaging

Real Time Conversation interface,

• Instant Messaging - are you at your desktop
• Telephony - are you on the phone
• Conferencing, Audio dial in, dial out, desktop sharing, webinars
• Video conferencing, are you at your desktop

You can see overlaps wherever you look with UC - but there will be ‘at least’ two interfaces for users - as the ‘button’ requirements are different for messaging, to that of real time.

Messaging buttons; - Address, Send, receive, store, mark as urgent, copy, forward, and so forth

Real Time buttons; - Receive contact, Make Contact, whether IM, call, or video, include someone else in the conversation, transfer, desktop share, present, record, and so forth

• Messaging interfaces are reasonably well defined
• Real Time Conversation interfaces are in their infancy
• Personal Contact Handling isn’t well defined

However, for framing Unified Communication discussions and decisions, each user will probably have at least the first two initial interfaces for personal productivity.

A third interface should exist, but doesn’t yet (?)

Personal contact handling

• This doesn’t yet exist as a recognised ‘desktop based user interface’ category - although network based Grand Central is a good start in showing what will be possible
• Call routing and handling, where should calls go, onto which device, at what time
• Planning - willingness to engage, calendar integration, - Iotum is interesting
• Call processing, what happens to the caller if you can’t take the call
• More loosely defined is a meta directory, routing and capture application such as that delivered by Corebridge - because contact information pervades around all communications solutions, (and existing applications).

It isn’t clear where functionality to control personal contact handling will be interfaced by the user, - most of the above is handled at premises based system admin level currently - but it makes sense if all features to determine the inbound call routing for today, all end up in one interface, (if not provided by a single backend system) to be controlled by the user instead of Admin.

This interface could yet still be provided by a hosted system provider, overlaying and complementing existing site number and mobile number implementations - instead of replacing them completely.

The final interface, enabling existing applications with (the same) communications

As well as providing the primary interface for specific channel technology (show me all my received faxes, calls, emails) All the technology channels above ‘may be’ suitable to ‘enable’ an existing user interface, by line of business - Email a Contact, Fax a contact, Call a contact, record a contact, Text a contact

By way of a small example, although fax is a single technology channel above and sounds simple enough - fax integration can get interesting when requirements appear on the horizon to integrate into Exchange Outlook, or Lotus Notes, then to the telephone system (TDM or IP), then to unified messaging (forward the fax to a local machine) then SAP or Oracle line of business applications, then back end integration to hard copy Multi Function Devices and onwards archiving to the industry flavour EDM.

Nobody said it was simple.

At this point, Microsoft Sharepoint usually comes up in the conversation as a replacement interface to all the existing applications, so UC takes on another interface….and so it goes on, much to the user’s consternation.

There’s a play on words about ‘users’ being addicted to existing interfaces, but that would be cheap.

How to choose

Enabling lots of interfaces with a technology flavour tends to point towards best of breed technologies instead of an all-in-one UC solution.

Generalising: wide ranging applications just don’t go very deep in my experience, and ultimately they don’t generate enough ROI, and therefore sales, to justify the development resource to integrate into every interface (converge) that may be required in every industry.

All in one solutions, may be fine in small organisations where the user requirements are very focussed and not wide ranging.

In larger organisations with wider ranges of activites, each messaging ,or real time conversation, ‘technology’ should support the most possible interfaces you can think of, (and multiple interfaces concurrently).

This almost defines a best of breed requirement for each technology - particularly when in a sector that is in acquistion mode - and if you are adopting UC, it won’t be long before you’re in a sector likely to be acquisition minded according to some sources -technology adopting sectors see most acqusition.

So when you acquire a major competitor next month and have to incorporate whatever they are doing into what you’re already doing, you want multi-interface communication products.

It’s plain that in these unforseen circumstances, functionality needs to be priced in a modular fashion, according to the interfaces required and the inherent value of doing so (each interface is it’s own individual case for each technology).

So, am I proposing that in order to have fewer user interfaces, there is a need for more technology boxes and management?

It’s debatable I suppose, but probably.

I’ve seen non specialist technology suppliers integrating essentially as ‘lip service’ to get the original deal, and then support evaporates over the period, especially when the next app needs enabling, and you have to start looking to replace again.

I’m lucky enough to see the best of breed technology I supply stick over a very much longer period.

If I’ve missed anything then it’s likely to be mobile - but that’s a longer conversation.

It’s been a long day, but is there anything else I haven’t thought about?

Click to Dial allows you to locate a number in some contact database and call it, but if the user is then handling the ongoing conversation on their telephone device - this precludes all other potential channels of communication - and it misses the point.

By Contrast, UC is about delivering a single user interface for Real Time Conversations - and these conversations need handling tools. See the picture below.

We’re all getting used to conversations being started in any of multiple modes, including IM, Telephone, Audio, Web, Video and Desktop conferences. The challenge is a consistent and single interface to handle the conversation

We might want to

• put people on hold
• mute them
• invite someone else either by IM phone or email (or by clicking their name)
• Consult with another colleague separately on a different channel 
• drop a specific person
• start a desktop share or make a presentation
• Record the whole thing

The tool also needs to do two things - show whether someone is at their desk, or not, and show when they’re on the phone (that defines presence for me). The first one is simple, the second can be approached in any number of different ways.

The ultimate goal is to share this information with people that you choose, in any organisation and whatever phone device you happen to be using. 

Have you seen a single interface to handle all of those conversations? Not many people have as yet, but it doesn’t stop them claiming to have a UC solution

My Teamwork from Alcatel Lucent has the best conversation GUI that I have seen and it also solves a lot of the problems that desktop installed solutions would have by being completely browser based, meaning that anyone can join in with any channel of communication.

It also covers a little of the other two aspects of UC, by which I mean incoming call handling and application integration.