#CollabChat Wrap-up Part Two

Last week I wrote about my “tweet chat” on collaboration. I promised a second part and since I always try and keep my promises, here you go.

Please make sure you also read #CollabChat Wrap-up Part One.

Allow me to continue on with the remaining questions and my thoughts regarding them.

What if you could see the entire communication history with 1 person when you place a call?

With a traditional telephone, you are limited in what you know about a ringing call prior to answering it. You certainly know the date and time and most telephones will also tell you the calling name and number, but that is about it.

Do you know why you are being called? Probably not. Is this a problem that requires immediate attention or is it simply a social call? Your guess is as good as mine.

Additionally, do you know where the caller is calling from? You do if it is a fixed line, but IP and cellular telephones changed all that. The same number could call you from anywhere in the world and you wouldn’t know New York from Hong Kong.

This is where context comes in. Context consists of the known parameters of the current request along with the caller’s previous requests regardless of media type. It could be location, buying history, outstanding issues, subject, mood, or a host of other relevant data items.

Imagine a world where you can tell the difference between a coworker calling you about lunch or a major problem that needs your attention ASAP. Context brings priority and relevance to your communications.

I wrote extensively about this in a previous blog article, so it might just be easier to refer you to Contextual Communications for a much richer discussion.

Top specialists tele-diagnose patients unable to travel or living in remote places. How can telemedicine make our life easier?

This is real and I predict that at some point in everyone’s life, he or she will experience it. Coming from someone who hates going to see a doctor, if I could accomplish the same thing over a secure video link, I would jump at it.

For an example of what they are doing in Minnesota, click HERE

Delivering a “master’s course” on the fly: what is the future for micro-lessons on your mobile device?

Mobile devices will continue to evolve into integration hubs. Gone are the days when a phone was just a phone. These days, the cheapest smart phone on the market does more than the computers that took us to the moon and back. Heck, my smart phone is more powerful than most of the PCs my company has given me over the past several years.

Please don’t tell my IT director I said that.

I see several big trends in the world of smart phones.

Devices will become more secure and easier to integrate into an enterprise’s existing security infrastructure.
Voice calls will become (if they aren’t already) the least used aspect of a smart phone. Just ask any teenager about how many phone calls he or she makes.
Smart phones will continue to adopt open protocols such as SIP. When you do use your phone for voice, it may not be through the phone’s built-in voice cellular interface, but a SIP soft-client you downloaded from an app store.

What other collaboration tools would impact how you can better serve your customers & partners?

People need to stop thinking about collaboration in terms of the traditional vendors and their traditional offerings. In my mind, social media applications such as Facebook, Instagram, and even YouTube are as important as Microsoft Outlook and your desk telephone for communication and collaboration. The lines have clearly blurred as to what are valid business applications and what are games and toys.

The success stories will be the vendors and enterprises that realize that we don’t communicate like we used to. These folks will create and/or deploy products that meet the expectations of the modern worker. No more of the same old, same old.

For some more thought on this, please see my article, Will the Real Unified Communications Please Stand Up.

That’s it. Again, thanks to all that attended #CollabChat. It was fun and informative and I hope that these two blog articles helped you clarify some of your thoughts on collaboration. Feel free to share your contributions with me here or on twitter.