Communication doesn’t scale
December 9, 2008
It’s a straightforward calculation. We have only so many hours in the day, and our attention is a finite resource.
The busier we get - and we have to get busier to compete - the more insulting it is when someone ‘presumes’ to ‘interrupt’ for their own good, instead of ours.
Multi-tasking and shared attention is a myth, and so……we spend our lives being interrupted by people who don’t deserve our increasingly valuable attention. No wonder it makes us grumpy.
Seth Godin could have predicted our universally increasing grumpiness, so why the hell didn’t he. I could have got away without having to write this blog post….I’ll forgive him though, he writes great books.
For this reason, Instant Messaging and ‘Presence’ is only ever good for people who aren’t busy - those people who don’t mind being interrupted all the time. Or, perhaps looking at it another, more human, way,
Instant Messaging is only good between people who care enough about each other to put off their other priorities….
Whichever, it explains why twitter is a faster growing method of communication - it doesn’t have the presumption of availability, and thus it has less power to interrupt. But I have a feeling that even twitter won’t scale that well - is there a limit to how many relationships can be maintained?
You never know, though, perhaps communities will coalesce and provide huge value….let’s see http://twitter.com/mattlambert
The future is not real time, it’s written down
September 25, 2008
This blog site was a way for me to research, discover, record and share my findings on what was a very new subject, way back when. Unified Communications.
But what I discovered earlier this year was:
- There is no real business case for real time Unified Communications, even the best of it, - although there certainly is for Communication Enabled Business Processes.
- The (blog) medium turned out more interesting than the message.
Of course, I wasn’t to understand this until recently, but I had started off in the wrong direction.
The problem with real time communication, is that time is getting more scarce. Tools that promote more and easier ‘real time’ communication have this innate problem that more often than not, the call is not as productive as what you can achieve by writing stuff down instead. Interruption is not scalable.
I should have realised the lessons of the printing press much earlier.
The ability to research, (re - search), discover, record and share - is vastly better when things are ‘written down’ (even video has tags and descriptions these days).Non real time is just fantastically efficient. A one to many technology.
I didn’t waste the effort, as website blogging and software based communications has opened up a hugely rewarding and productive environment for me, my friends and colleagues. I’ll still be writing here about these things, but it will be focussed on the web.
Stuff and nonsense in Unified Communications
February 19, 2008
There’s far too much of it about and I’ve just read some more here. Sorry Art, I have to call it like I see it
The clue is in the first paragraph, where it says;
“What was most interesting about this piece was that it quoted several different definitions of UC promoted by leading industry technology developers and analysts”
We can’t let people off with describing the technology just how they would like to see it at some far off distant point can we? Those leading developers and the pet analysts, with their own interests at heart, are currently spinning off each other into a dustcloud that nobody can see into.
I really don’t have a problem with people who disagree about a definition -if they would only come up with a definition that people can understand. Yes it can be complex, which is why a clear explanation is required….apply more rigor. If people can’t understand what you’re saying, stop talking.
Personally, I don’t think the following should be mixed up.
- Unified Messaging
- Real Time Communications (The real Unified Communications can stand up)
- Fixed Mobile Convergence
- Communications enabled business processes.
That’s because Unified Communications is about the person, the user - people communicate, companies don’t.
So, what exactly is being unified for the user? - Answer: GUI client software.
The whole point is that instead of installing ten types of client software and teaching the user to work each one, for the telephone, instant messaging, conferencing, video conferencing, web conferencing, for example - a user just has one interface and a single address book for the lot. Multimodal. By combining client software, we make it easier for the user to use - and therefore to understand.
You wouldn’t/couldn’t have a single interface for messaging and real time communications because they would have different buttons. I also can’t see people using GUI software on a mobile device, pie in the sky…but perhaps that’s just personal opinion.
UC will generate sales - but only when they show it fully working to the end users.
/end rant.
If anyone else wants to agree or disagree, feel free to join in.
We need to talk about Presence
February 6, 2008
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.
Unified Communications Mindmap
January 10, 2008
I’ve been having fun.
I got the idea of a diagram from David Armano - his blogging story is here, worth a quick read. He always seems to have a diagram or two to communicate his ideas and I’ve been impressed. I thought I’d have a go at that…only I can’t draw very well.
So, the mindmap below was created at http://bubbl.us - a free hosted service for mindmaps. A very simple to use and quite exquisite user interface. It took only a few minutes to work out how to use.
I love mindmap interfaces anyway, being the most gratifying way to communicate difficult concepts visually without any visual design talent (believe me).
The MOST special part of this map though is that it is ‘embedded’ on the page. It is read only, but, you can click, drag and zoom in and out on the page. Give it a go…I’ve been messing with it all evening.
No matter that I haven’t finished the map, I can update the web application, and it will update on the page, and anywhere else I’ve shared it, with no further effort.
One snag, the solution is being re-written right now, and we’ll have to wait for the problem free embedding version for you Firefox viewers. I’ve added the diagram (exported naturally) below for a full view.
If you can’t see it properly, click this image
The next step is for me to see what it looks like in a Reader. 
The idea behind this mindmap is to group technologies together to see what patterns emerge and to remind how things might fit together.
Companies are going to find it harder than ever to prioritise where they spend their communications budget.
Unified Messaging groups together message types now merging into one client (although not a single application). Unified Communications are merging into another - if that’s your definition too - it’s not everyone’s.
The more established technologies have more facets, it seems to indicate there’s more to come from the asynchronous and newer techs. I also think that asynchronous technologies will merge into a single interface….stands to reason.
I suppose in the end, you have to decide what you want to communicate, who to, and how. This diagram merely shows the how.
I know I have to add micro-blogging, but feel free to chip in, or let me know where I’ve got it wrong.
VOIP is just plumbing
December 17, 2007
More and more it has seemed to me that VOIP doesn’t matter. I don’t see this discussed on mainstream communications news sites, presumably it’s a question of who pays their bills through advertising.
I was contemplating on ways to express this properly, when I read this seasonal post by Ken Camp, looking back at the technological year . He did the job already, - see the extract below.
Voice over IP - VoIP as Plumbing
If there was a shaking revelation in 2007, I don’t think it shook enough people. Having written books and papers about VoIP from a number of different perspectives, my view is focused in a different way that the enterprise customer view. My history in VoIP goes back ten years or more. But the stark reality is in 2007 VoIP became plumbing.For many years, VoIP was viewed as a major disruptive technology. People expected it would completely change the face of telecommunications. I know I believed that. But I don’t believe that today. I’ve often, in the past, referred to circuit switching, for either voice or data, as nothing more than plumbing. It’s base infrastructure. It’s a foundation.
VoIP has proven that it’s really just another foundation element. The hot technology area is voice as a service. It’s how and where we can use voice services. How we deliver them is irrelevant to customers and users. VoIP truly is just another delivery mechanism. It’s a great delivery mechanism. It lets us maximize the value of IP networks. Cost savings and operational efficiencies can be huge, but at the root of things, VoIP is simply a service delivery mechanism for a service.
There is another element, in as much as voice calls are going to be less frequent, and therefore doesn’t matter as much as it used to. A trend I think will continue over 2008.
Incidentally, I should be careful with plumbing analogies, I am still very high up on uk google search for k.i.t.c.h.e.n.s after a rather overworked analogy back in April on how if you wanted to buy one (unified communications was the k.i.t.c.h.e.n), you shouldn’t be held to ransom by your plumbing provider (voip).
Anyhow, thanks Ken, I enjoyed the rest of your post.
Presence is very shiny, are we panning for fools gold?
December 15, 2007
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.
Who is going to invent conversation software?
December 5, 2007
So many fads, so little time
There used to be this thing called facebook, back in the day.
It was useful, in as much as it showed what was possible, but it left people clamouring for more.
More control, more interaction, more privacy.
I often think about the development of technology -for example where wizards stay up late was an enjoyable read for me (the birth of the internet).
So, when Chris of Particls - an interesting product by the way - asks people to think about what they’re in favour of, rather than what they’re against, then that’s just like I heard a starter’s pistol.
Ok, so here’s my go at the next way of interacting with my Network - I think this application should be called Conversationware (why not).
It should include;
A. Contact management - CRM but something that lives and breathes
B. Conversation management
b1. Invite function - ie. “I would like a conversation ‘about’ ” - this would be in some sort blend of wiki/blog mechanism,
b2. The invitee can accept, or not
b3. Priority can be set by the inviter, and invitee….separately
b4. Presence should be conditional upon acceptance, priority and current condition/mode
b5. If accepted, Priority should include, important and urgent, important not urgent, not important urgent, not important not urgent.
C. Condition/Mode setting - automatically updating the resulting ‘availability’, according to priorities in my network contacts client software - via machine based RSS or some such. Let me explain. If another conversation participant is available at high priority, I should have that conversation before ‘becoming available’ for a low priority conversation. Ideal worlds I know…but hey, this is my dream, and I dream of productivity.
D. Feed management and attention settings
E. Tagging
F. A remarkable interface for continuing and extending the conversation (for conversation read ‘task, project, etc etc’) - this should be very very open for additions or change, like mind manager software, but updated in each participants client. Click, type, press enter, update every participants client as soon as online……not client server, machine RSS….it has to cross boundaries and firewalls.
G. Conversations will be contextual and relative. Six people will be contributing to a customer generated conversation, but only the lead will be interacting directly with the customer on the issue.
G. Conversation exposure settings - internal and or external, public or partner, - who can search in other words, and what search engines are given access. What conversations are listed for public access/contribution - you saw Parlano before Microsoft bought them?
H. Unified Communications. That way, the agenda comes first, and then the conversation, spoken or electronic follows. All potential conversations are therefore listed as you interact, and thus, all audit trails, including call recordings, are automatically indexed.
There’s loads more, but I’ve run out of steam.
The future is more electronic, not less and we need more tools. Tools to speed up the contact are not enough on their own. We need this stuff to get things done.
Make it viral people. Microsoft DOS software was effectively free until they sorted the licencing later on, by which time they had a user base.
I’ll await my free trial….thanks.
Unified Communications, told as it is, at last!
November 13, 2007
We’ve had communications Vendors telling us for months that;
- Voip is Unified Communications
- Unified Messaging is Unified Communications
- Sending an SMS from a database event is Unified Communications
All very irritating for everyone (ok, that would be me), but probably even more so from an analyst point of view.
The good news that someone sensible from the analyst community got involved, and Melanie Turek, tells it like it is. Bravo
The CURRENT guestimated market size is very interesting indeed, less than $10M.
I’m sure that’s about right given the (correct) definition
However, Vendors have all promised their investors that there is gold at the end of this rainbow. The land of Unified Communications will deliver prosperous and wonderous times.
So, how long will it take to get there?
VOIP (red) vs ‘Unified Communications’ Search trends (blue)
Having figuratively left Reading Town a few months ago, my guess is that we’re only up the road in Newbury, the natives look pretty similar, and the emperors new clothes are still only just getting worn in.
There is a broader point
Until we define things properly and without fluff and nonsense, then the interest in unified communications won’t hit the heights that vendors want to see.
(More diagrams after the jump for RSS readers)
Comprehensive linked review of OCS positioning
October 22, 2007
An excellent post, as usual, linked here from mike Gotta, on the his view of the likely progress of Microsoft OCS and the status of key components.
A balanced view which adds value to whatever else we’ve seen in the last week.