UC For Shared Work Spaces?
Person-to-person business communications have always been dependent on several factors, including:
- The location and work environment of the people
- The modalities of making contact and communicating that people choose to use (Text, Voice, Real-time, Asynchronous messaging).
- The endpoint devices and user interfaces that people can use (Wired, wireless).
- The time availability for a person to communicate.
- The costs to communicate.
UC technology, which exploits IP-networking infrastructure, can make contact with people easier, more efficient, and less costly for end users regardless of any constraints presented by items 1-4.
One of the more interesting User Keynotes at VoiceCon Spring was a presentation by Tom Behnke of Kraft Foods who described his innovative move towards a more collaborative “shared workspace” environment that included exploiting UC and mobility. A follow up interview with Behnke by Shamus McGillicuddy (SearchUnifiedCommunications.com) highlighted Kraft’s shift from the use of private offices to more “open” and “mobile” shared on-premise workspaces to maximize collaborative “team” activities.
While UC enables greater “virtualization” of work environments (teleworking, mobility), the Kraft Foods trial proved UC’s usefulness for premise-based collaborative work as well. One obvious impact of the “open” workspace approach, however, was that phone calls have to be treated differently and more selectively than in private offices. Although not discussed in detail, this suggests increased use of less disruptive, more private, visual text messaging communications. With UC, however, IM, email, and SMS can all facilitate voice connections as contact “gateways” rather than traditional “blind” voice calls, using presence information and “click-to-call.”