One of my first employers in the telecommunications industry was a complete Luddite. Although our company was one of the first to offer the new "digital" cell phones to our clients (this was the 90's folks), he held on to his 80's-era "brick phone" until the cellular carrier we represented would no longer support it. It was his position that all that cell phones, email, chat and the like were good for was to add an expectation of even MORE work and 24/7 responsibility to an already crowded life. An opinion that I have to say I find myself agreeing with quite often these days.
Fifteen years later I find I cannot leave my house without my cell phone and that I am ALWAYS connected whether by one of the (several) email addresses or (more than three) chat clients or via one of the social networking sites that I frequent. In fact, my own personal nightmare at this point is to be stuck on a desert island with only dial up Internet service!
Well, admittedly, it has tried. But there has always been a piece missing; the “Where.” With the advent of Location Based Services and always available GPS connections, mobility and hyperconnectivity might truly be able to meet the challenge of keeping us connected with those we wish, where we wish, when we wish.
Now those who know me would tell you that I am not the camping type. As I often joke, my idea of roughing it is staying at a hotel with a number in its name. So, other than helping me find my way to the nearest Apple Store with turn-by-turn directions, what can my phones GPS functions really do for me? Imagine if the GPS in my cell phone could talk with a centralized application server that could "drive" my mobility and presence solution(s)?
Hyperconnectivity? Try super-hyper-connectivity (OK I made that word up but hopefully you'll see what I mean in a second or two...)! The current Global Positioning Satellite system is pretty darned accurate. In general a GPS signal can pinpoint your location to within about 10 meters (30 feet). That's pretty spot-on given that the satellites doing to tracking are about 20,000km above us (that's about 12,500 miles for my mathematically or Google challenged readers)! Granted, it's not "smart-bomb-down-a-chimney" accurate (for that we're building GPSIII), but it's good enough for "gummint" work. And, I carry a cell phone with built-in GPS functions. So, let's take my GPS enabled celly out for a spin around the city and see how it might be able to help me meet the "location issue".
After rousing myself for the day and strapping on the cell phone I grab a lukewarm cuppa and jump into the hybrid for the 40 minute trip to the office. Knowing I am going to be "trapped" for a while and not wanting to be out of pocket, I launch my Unified Communications client. It syncs with the GPS service on the cell phone and I watch as it magically logs itself in to the web-based Unified Communications application server in my office.
Based on the LAT/LONG of my cell the app server knows I am neither in my office nor my house (two locations that I have previously recorded in my UC profile). Since that's the case, the app server "logs me in" on my cell phone and should any calls hit my office phone they will auto-magically be twinned out to my cell phone allowing me to catch them in the field. Oh, and if I don't answer UC will pull the caller back and drop them into my WORK voice mail (one less mailbox to check!).
Having braved the dangers of road rage and cold java, I arrive in my office ready as always to take on the world (right, mornings and I are like "chalk and cheese" as the Brits say). Again, without missing a beat the UC server and my celly do their little binary two-step and, as I reach my office, my desk phone "logs in", the cell "logs out", and I am taking calls and taking names.
Later that day I have meetings and again I will be away from my desk. But, I will be in a conference room down the hall, why should I use cell minutes when there's a phone in that room I can use? Remember that accuracy I was talking about? Ten meters is certainly within shoutin' distance. So, as I leave my office UC logs me onto my cell (for my walk down the hall) and then onto the Conference room phone. Or, if I would prefer I could have had the UC server read my calendar for that day and log me out of all devices and send my calls to voice mail (or my operator or secretary or...) instead. After all, who wants to interrupt a meeting with telephone calls anyway (unless the meeting is boring, or lasts more than 2 hours, or does not come with coffee and rolls...)?
When lunch rolls around I leave the office to skip over to my local "Lenny's" for a quick bite to eat, mostly because they have free Wi-Fi and strong coffee. Again I am out of my office and not in my house but there's that whole "burnin' minutes" issue to deal with now!
Thankfully my phone also supports Wi-Fi and I have a SIP softphone installed and connected to my business phone system! So, I simply record this location and the UC server log's in to my SIP softphone and sends calls there instead of over my cellular carrier. Viola, I am over-the-Moons-Over-My-Hammy with hyperconnected happiness.
Hopefully you're beginning to see how a combination of mobility applications, calendar aware Unified Communications services and location aware devices, might begin to ease the burden of staying always-on. And we haven't even talked about scripting tools to tie in my IM clients, Twitter feed, etc. or about screening calls based on Caller ID to ensure that they’re calls I really WANT to take (easy-peasy; with the right tools you need never take another call from the annoying telemarketer folks).
Rich Tehrani of TMC Media, publisher of the trade publications Internet Telephony and Unified Communications, calls this Just-In-Time-Communications (JiTC). I like that term. Take the right call, on the right device, at the right time. It just makes sense!
This is NOT pie-in-the-sky. All of these technologies exist, independently, in the here and now! It just takes some forward thinking to mesh them together with a great user interface and my dream becomes a reality.
Fortunately, I work for a company whose vision I share and Mitel has solved the problem for me. These location-based, business user oriented services are already a reality. Our MiCollab Mobile client does all of this! And, with an available API it can do even more with a little development by a businesses IT team. If you ask me, Just in Time did not come soon enough.
Rich Tehrani of TMC Media, publisher of the trade publications Internet Telephony and Unified Communications, calls this Just-In-Time-Communications (JiTC). I like that term. Take the right call, on the right device, at the right time. It just makes sense!
This is NOT pie-in-the-sky. All of these technologies exist, independently, in the here and now! It just takes some forward thinking to mesh them together with a great user interface and my dream becomes a reality.
Fortunately, I work for a company whose vision I share and Mitel has solved the problem for me. These location-based, business user oriented services are already a reality. Our MiCollab Mobile client does all of this! And, with an available API it can do even more with a little development by a businesses IT team. If you ask me, Just in Time did not come soon enough.
