IM Roadmap

A small thing, and someone may have already thought of this, but you know when you get all the Accept/Decline/Tentative responses from people after sending out a calendar invite in Microsoft Outlook?  If it’s a large meeting, you could get back dozens of responses.  It’s tempting to sort them conveniently in your inbox and delete them all in one fell swoop.  But…  then .. there is often that one person (or two or three…) that put some comment in their response.  IE, their response is “Decline”, but in the message they’ve put “Can’t make this, but let’s catch up 1:1 next week.”.  Or, “Tentative” but in the message they’ve said “I’ll be late, can you move this?”

So, a small way to have your efficiency-cake and eat it too?  Add another icon type – one that shows the Accept/Decline/Tentative response status, plus something to show that there is text in the message too.  A little pencil in the corner of the icon, or something like that.

Cheers,
Eric

Technorati Tags: Email Microsoft Outlook Calendar

I found an article today on the use of functional MRIs (fMRI) to determine if patients in a persistent vegetative state were actually conscious or not.  The experiments show that a small, but meaningful number were.  Aside from the profound medical and ethical questions it raises, it also highlights the amazing power of fMRI technology.

Which reminded me of any idea I had a few years ago for a psychology experiment I’d like to figure out how to conduct, perhaps using fMRI.  Previous research has shown the drivers are more distracted when holding a conversation on a cell phone.  I’ll have to dig up the articles, but I believe it’s been scientifically proven in simulators several times.  Cell phones have been shown to be more distracting than silence, than the car radio, and even more distracting than holding a conversation with a passenger.   In some cases it’s proven to cause impairment equal to or worse than drunkenness.  Well-intentioned but misguided legislation has been put on the books in many states and municipalities to require the use of hands-free devices, etc.  But more recent research shows it’s not having any effect.

So, why?  Why are hands-free devices not working?  And why are drivers more distracted when talking on the cell phone, especially compared to conversations with a passenger.  My hypothesis:  While in the conversation, the driver’s mind is subconsciously or unconsciously trying to simulate the non-verbal communications signals of the other person. Various estimates suggest that nonverbal communications (ie, body language) comprise 55%-85% of total person-to-person communications (alternatively, “…non-verbal cues had 4.3 times the effect of verbal cues.”).  So, if the brain is expecting to see the other person shrug or not, but not seeing it, it tries to recreate it on the fly.  Basically, your brain is trying to guess the other person’s body language.  It does this to help you hold up your end of the conversation.

Simulation isn’t happening (or isn’t happening as much) in conversations with passengers because you can glance over to them, or see them out of the corner of your eye.  Simulation isn’t happening (or not as much) when listening to the radio because you don’t need to say anything back – there’s no social consequence to you if you mis-guess their body language.

I’ve wanted to write this down for a while, so glad I finally did.  This is actually relevant to collaboration technologies, as you can imagine technologies which can infer, transmit or perhaps even enhance non-verbal and par- lingual language cues in a collaboration context.  After all – why do so many people prefer video conferencing over telephone, email or real-time chat?  Because they think they are having a richer conversation.   They are getting the 55+% of the message that isn’t expressed in words.

Cheers,
Eric

Technorati Tags: driving distracted, fMRI, nonverbal communications, Video Conferencing

This thread makes explicit a growing thread on IM Roadmap.  The Collaboration Business Model holds that collaboration-supporting technology is selected by understanding three areas:  knowledge exchange, division of duties, and trust relationships.   Modern society is highly mobile – physically, temporally, and generationally.  The first two are the most relevant for corporations, entrepreneurs and knowledge workers everywhere.  So – why do smartphones (BlackBerry, Palm webOS, iPhone) and tablets (iPad, others TBD) matter specifically for collaboration?  Because they give us ever greater ability to transfer knowledge and coordinate activities while, well, mobile.  While untethered from our offices and desks and instead at the moment of collaboration.  Sitting next to a client, opening a bank account.  At the construction site.  In the examination room, checking medical records with a patient.  Brainstorming product designs around the table with coworkers – in the company cafeteria.

New tools enable ever more sophisticated places and forms of collaboration.  They also change the nature of collaboration itself.  Collaboration both stretches and shrinks in time.  Long-duration collaboration relationships spanning weeks or months with sparse, infrequent interactions amongst participants (as in some open source projects).  Or intense, short-lived (nee disposable) collaboration relationships – such as reported recently where volcano-stranded passengers/strangers leveraged social media to help each other find their way home.

Long-anticipated and predicted changes are now finally come to pass.  Looking forward to continued exploration of these themes.

Cheers,
Eric