Thanks for returning. You're a very smart person.
I recently started reading the blog of Carl Weinschenk over at ITBusinessEdge after working with him on a story about Mobile VoIP. One post that caught my attention had to do with Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC), Unified Communications (UC) and whether supporters of the technology should be optimistic or pessimistic about the prospects of both technology.
It’s a valid question, but I would say that optimistic and pessimistic are both incorrect stances - proponents need to be realistic.
User habits take time to change - regardless of how advance or fast a technology is coming to market. Users don’t care a lick about half the crap that comes out in these spaces - because it asks them to radically change their habits.
Ever try to break a habit? It’s pretty tough, right?
Same thing applies to users and technologies. Eventually they start using it - but it happens slowly. The more “we” push - the more they resist.
UC and FMC companies should be focused on smaller scope, more watered down offerings (yes, I just said that) and gradually add functionality - but only after the user has adopted the first “changes” to their usage habits.
Otherwise, we will be having these debates until the end of time.
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Garrett, my company has built a Unified Comunication solution. For us the most important feature is the user’s ability to communicate it’s intentional status to a central presence server. We made this as easy as possible (via a PC client, via an XML service on the phone, via a Symbian client, …) However what we notice (at least currently) is that users are more interested in the unified directory we offer them (having all their internal, CRM and outlook contacts together in the same directory powered by a extremely rapid search engine) and the fact their phone plays the music theme of their favorite football team … So I guess you’re right by stating that we have to feed them these UC features using a very small spoon.
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