Tag Archives: Twitter

Videoconferencing Is A Friend At Work

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In their study of casual work interactions, Whittaker et al. (1994) concluded that coordination works best among people who are physically located in the same place because they have more opportunities to find others who are available to talk.  Let’s face it, as much as we love Facebook and Twitter, talking to someone face-to-face still offers the most bang for your buck (Fish et al., 1992).

Face-to-face gives you immediate, continuous, personalized feedback to meet your specific needs with minimal ambiguity, and there’s something about eye contact, facial expressions, and seeing the words come out of someone’s mouth that makes the response more “true” and motivational.  Personally speaking, I’m more likely to trust a direct “yes” from someone’s mouth and do something about it than from an email or memo with the same information.  The special quality of face-to-face is such that at Stanford Hospital, telephone and email are used to set up meetings, but decisions are only made face-to-face.

This makes videoconferencing a natural candidate for getting that face-to-face feedback when physical face-to-face is not possible.  In fact, Fish et al. (1992) found that  when they created a prototype videoconference system that was easy and convenient to use,  people always preferred to use the videophone over the audio-only phone.  (I’d like to add, by the way, that VSee is incredibly convenient to install and use—I mean incredibly convenient.)  Keep in mind that while it’s encouraging to find that easy accessibility encourages videophone Continue reading →

Facebook helps Productivity?

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I’m a few weeks late on this one, but this was an interesting headline:  ”Twitter, Facebook Can Improve Work Productivity“  (PC World, citing a study from the University of Melbourne.)

I’ve believed this for quite a while…with qualifications.  The reason stated is that taking quick breaks to scan Facebook and Twitter rests the mind, raising the total net focus time while working.

Two qualifiers here:  First, this isn’t true just for social media, but nearly any break activity.  Second, this isn’t true for those with internet addiction.  The study only looked at people who browsed the web for 20% or less of their work hours.  Put the two together and we can assume break activities collectively should probably fall under that 20%.

I’ve mentioned this two-edged sword before for remote workers.  In an increasingly boxed-off world, it’s easy to neglect “sharpening the saw”–that is, giving the mind breaks so that it can accomplish more.  Even co-located workers can be “boxed off” because our digital communication tools allow us to work even when taking a coffee break.  Often we need to have taking breaks enforced!  And if web-browsing, game playing, etc., is the most convenient way to get that brain reset, then so be it.

Just don’t forget to keep it below 20% of your time.  No, seriously.  Stop reading this now and get back to work!  ;)

Twitter Chief: “It’s really complex to make something simple.”

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Bless you, Jack Dorsey.

I certainly hope that designers of tech products, whether coders, GUI designers, network architects, whatever, absorb that statement:

It’s really complex to make something simple.

This isn’t a new statement.  Others have said it.  But perhaps when the founder of Twitter says it on Charlie Rose…then has it repeated on a slew of sites (including this one)…maybe, just maybe, the really big companies will get it.  (Hello Cisco.)

Here are links to his interview on Charlie Rose:  charlierose.com, techcrunch Pay specific attention to his description of why no one else had made card processing as easy as Square has.  (Spoiler:  Because it was so complicated to do.  Especially to make it easy for the end user.)

Taking on complexity so your users won’t have to is the challenge.  I hope everyone is up to the task.

Phone’s still great for business…socially, it’s dying

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That headline really means audio-only phone calls.  The (“smart”)phone as the swiss army knife of communications tools will never die.  LONG LIVE THE PHONE!

May I present the evidence?  I call to the stand this blog post by Larry Lisser, titled All I wanted for my birthday was a lousy phone call.

Despite having three phone numbers plus Skype (what? no mention of VSee, Larry?), as well as phones themselves, and lots of friends and family, he received only one, 1, phone call…from his 73 year-old father on a cell phone.  Here’s what he got instead:

14 Skype IM’s

2 BlackBerry Messengers pings

1 BlackBerry Pinning ping

8 Facebook Wall writings and messages Continue reading →

Today was About the Buzz…

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If you read any tech news at all today, you read about Google Buzz.  ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch, you name it (CNN), they wrote about it.  (Figures CNN’s headline mentions taking on Facebook…right when I start a full court Facebook blitz.  Dang.)

Well, the reason I bring it up here isn’t to rehash news that’s already been well hashed.  It’s because my theme of discussing society’s move to embrace behavior that I bring it up here.

Google Buzz is all about taking a giant user base (Gmail users) and getting them to constantly stream information, updates, photos, video, etc.  This is a tipping point.  Facebook and Twitter are huge, and not as many people have Gmail.  However, Buzz will happily update Facebook and Twitter for you, and Google has the kind of mainstream pull to be a game changer.  Not for Facebook or Twitter.  For you.

“This is VSee’s blog,” you might be saying.”What does this have to do with remote collaboration, video streaming, etc.?

1)  Google’s mainstream pull, as well as it’s penetration into the workplace as a leading provider of corporate email accounts, creates a breeding ground for new users to be dragged into the social networking fray by their early adopter friends.  I won’t swear to this, but I’ll be shocked if corporate Gmail users aren’t among the first converts.  Social information, really only immediate for the early adopters and the early majority, is now immediately available to anyone with a Gmail account.  No new account needed.

2)  When critical mass is reached, the expectation for immediate information combined with the human need to actually interact with another human becomes a perfect pipeline for our industry.  As the late majority (for you non-business readers, the later mainstream audience) embraces reading status updates, video status, IM, etc., both personal and business communication should increasingly become more personal and intimate in nature.  It will also become a business necessity because…

3)  Personalization is the new market.  There are so many studies out there describing this that I won’t cite any.  (Fine, it’s 10:30 p.m. and I just don’t feel like it.)  It’s accepted that, at least in the US, a large part of tech is based off creating products that can be tailored to the individual user’s needs.  There are refrigerators with microchips.  You can watch TV on them and tell them how hot you want the water from the water dispenser…the flow and filtration of which may also be controlled by microchips.  Speaking of TVs, how do you like the color settings on your TV?  What software is on your computer?  Do you use all the features?  If a feature isn’t available, has some developer somewhere made a plugin that creates that feature?  I started with a basic physical item (a fridge) and moved to individual functions within software to illustrate the point.  Now back out to services such as Facebook and Google, which are immensely customizeable.  Now, what is more custom than an actual person presented to you to serve your needs?

4)  The last phase of this acceptance comes from competition.  As people become more accustomed to dealing remotely with others, the businesses that are able to get customers and clients, vendors and capitalists in face-to-face meetings are going to have an edge.  This not only has to do with trust building, but also with gauging reactions during negotiations.  During any presentation or negotiation, the teams that are able to mutually see each other are more likely to find accord because they can steer their courses based off visual cues.  A three day back-and-forth may be cut down to two hours in an afternoon.  Where is the window of opportunity for a competitor to sneak in and derail this process?  Well, since business already concluded, there won’t be one.

I’m excited by the Buzz.  I’ve got no fewer than three different Gmail accounts for different purposes.  And I’m maintaining three different Facebook accounts and two Twitter accounts.  Once again, though, and just like in my piece on Hillary’s speech, this news is much more exciting for what it means rather than what it is.