What will truly unified communication be like?

I originally wrote this for Network World Fusion back in July 2008, but thought it would be timely for presentation again:

There’s a lot of talk about unified communications – the integration of email, voice, fax, video, presence-enabled applications like instant messaging, collaboration tools and other capabilities into a unified system that can be accessed through a single interface. But what if we look 10 years down the road and examine the characteristics of a truly unified communications system? Here are my thoughts on what that might look like:

Instead of having multiple email addresses, instant messaging handles, phone numbers, etc., each of us would have just a single address – either an email address as we have today or a phone number. To support this, we would have a powerful directory system that would be populated with information on all of our various modes of communication – published and unlisted phone numbers, email addresses, instant messaging handles, etc. – as well as detailed information on our preferred methods of communication based on time of day, day of the week, presence status, travel status and, perhaps, even our current mood based on biometric sensors at our desk or on our mobile device. For example, based on my presence information, when I’m out of the office on business travel I may prefer to receive a communication from a business associate as a text message on my mobile device. However, if that communication were urgent, it would then be converted to a voice call for both the sender and recipient so that a real-time conversation could take place. If that communication took place on a weekend, a normal message might be sent to my email client, but an emergency message might go to my home number. The bottom line is that the sender does not know how to reach us – he or she simply sends a message to our only address and we, using a sophisticated directory system, decide how and when to receive these communications.

The interface for such a system, I believe, will look more like social networking tools we know today than traditional email clients. For example, in Facebook I can receive emails, view the presence status of others in my network and obtain other relevant information all from a single interface.

Further, such a system would learn from my behavior and would be tightly integrated with a variety of Web services. For example, instead of having to set up an autoresponder in email when I’m gone to a conference, the system would know my travel plans and automatically enable and disable the autoresponder.

I’d like to get your take on this: what do you think unified communications will look like 10 years from now. Please send me an email with your thoughts.

A comment on Michael Sampson’s book on SharePoint

Michael Sampson is an industry analyst who for many years has focused on collaboration practices and technologies with an emphasis on how distributed teams can work together more effectively. He is on my short list of most respected analysts in the collaboration space. Recently, he graciously sent me his new book, SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration. I would highly recommend it for anyone that is using SharePoint, considering it, or just needs to get up to speed on how collaboration technologies from any vendor can be used more effectively.

In the book, he discusses his “7 Pillars Model for Team Collaboration”, a framework that he developed in 2005 for evaluating collaboration technologies without the vendor-bias that can sometimes be present using other methods to evaluate them. Michael offers a frank assessment of SharePoint in the context of these seven pillars, giving it a pass or fail grade for each.

I won’t give away his ratings for SharePoint on each of the pillars, since I really think you should invest in this book, but Pillar 5: Social Engagement is of particular interest to me because of its impact on corporate culture and the way that distributed teams work. Michael’s assertion, with which I agree, is that collaborative technologies that are made available to teams of distributed co-workers should have a) presence and availability information for each team member made available to all other team members, b) the ability to interact in real time, and c) personal blogging capabilities. The goal is to recreate, as closely as possible, the typical office environment in which people can interact by walking down the hall, schmooze at the water cooler, overhear others’ conversations, and so forth. The goal of recreating this environment is that information of a less formal nature can be shared by all team members, allowing them to use this information for the advantage of the team and allowing them to interact on an ad hoc basis whenever they are available to do so. Michael points out that SharePoint by itself does not offer all of these capabilities, but in conjunction with OCS 2007 these capabilities are available.

While SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration is focused on SharePoint and users of that offering will derive the greatest value from it, it also offers some valuable insights for organizations that are focused on other collaboration offerings. Given that collaboration is a major thrust at IBM with its growing set of excellent offerings focused on real-time communications, Web conferencing and social interaction; and that Novell is also pursuing this focus with its innovative Pulse offering, as are other vendors, Michael’s book is definitely worth a read even if SharePoint is not your immediate interest.

Michael can be contacted at michael@michaelsampson.net.

Where does the iPad fit for business travelers?

Without doubt, the Apple iPad is an extremely cool device. Watching the video on their Web site, I would definitely like to have one.

But where does the iPad fit for business travelers? Here's my two cents:

• If I was going on a day trip and had no plans to do any writing of more than a few paragraphs, a Wi-Fi-enabled, 3G-enabled iPad would be a great device for checking emails, watching a video or reading a book on the plane, writing a short blog post, etc.
• If I was visiting a client and wanted to make a presentation, the iPad would also be a great device.
• However, if I was traveling overnight or longer, would the iPad be my device of choice? Maybe, but answering 50 emails would likely be more difficult than on a laptop or netbook. Writing multi-page reports would be even more difficult.

Admittedly, I have not held an iPad and can't evaluate its virtual keyboard more thoroughly. However, I'm not sure I would want to lug around both an iPad and my MacBook Air on a trip. (That said, I will probably end up getting one at some point.)

So, where do you think the iPad will fit for your business travel?

What is your "office"?

Why do we have an office? For must of us, it's so that we can have a physical location in which to receive and send emails, make calls, access files, visit Web sites, write documents, build spreadsheets and tweet.

We're all familiar with the ubiquitous "out of office" messages that are the automatic response to emails received when we're physically out of the office - we create them when we're physically removed from our office. But, in an era in which our notebooks and mobile devices can receive and send emails, allow us to make calls, access files, visit Web sites, write documents, build spreadsheets and tweet, what does an "office" really mean? Not much. With unified communications systems that build on all of these capabilities, an office means even less.

So why do we still use "out of office" messages?

FINRA's guidance on social networking

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has issued a regulatory notice that provides its guidance on how registered representatives should use, and how their firms should manage, postings on social networking sites and blogs. Here are some highlights:

• Firms must preserve the communications sent through social networking sites relevant to broker-dealers' business dealings. SEC Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 and NASD Rule 3110 apply to these communications.
• A securities recommendation made through social networking tools must be "suitable for every investor to whom it is made". NASD Rule 2310 applies here.
• Firms must supervise relevant employees' electronic communications, including those posted to blogs and social networking sites. NASD Rules 2711(b)(3)(A), 3110(j) and 3070(c), and NYSE Rules 472(b)(3), 410 and 401A may apply here, depending on the type of communication involved.
• "Firms must adopt policies and procedures reasonably designed to ensure that their associated persons who participate in social media sites for business purposes are appropriately supervised, have the necessary training and background to engage in such activities, and do not present undue risks to investors."

The bottom line in this notice is that social networking tools - Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. - are fundamentally no different than the other types of electronic communication tools on which FINRA and the SEC have previously imposed requirements. Communication using newer tools must be supervised, managed and archived just like email and instant messages have been for years.

You can read the notice here.

Is the cloud the way to future-proof backups and archives?

At GWAVAcon yesterday in Las Vegas, I had an interesting discussion with three gentlemen from SEP Software.

We were talking about long-term archiving and the problems associated with accessing old data for which systems are no longer available. For example, if you have a regulatory compliance obligation to preserve data for 10 years or more (a likely possibility in the healthcare, chemicals and other industries) how will you access data that old? If you have archived the content to tape, machines capable of reading those tapes might no longer be available, or services that can extract the data might be extraordinarily expensive. You can archive them to optical media, but you could have the same problem. You could print your records on paper, but that's is very onerous and expensive.

I suggested that perhaps the best way to manage long term archival is simply to dump the problem on someone else, namely SaaS archiving providers. They will still need to upgrade their storage media over time as on-premise deployments will need to do, but it becomes their problem instead of their customers'. Plus, given that they are specialist providers, they could likely accomplish the migration at a lower cost per bit than you could.

For those opposed to SaaS archiving, a hybrid approach that combines near- and mid-term archival using on-premise systems with long-term archival in the cloud could provide that future-proofing that companies will eventually need.

How is your mobile compliance?

Mobility in its greater context – namely, enabling employees to work from any location – is becoming more common as a means of increasing organizational flexibility, reducing operating expenses, reducing taxes and improving customer service. Mobile messaging is a key component of this trend by enabling properly equipped workers to send and receive email, access the Web and Web 2.0 applications, use corporate applications and communicate in a variety of ways regardless of where they work.

Although mobile messaging carries with it the promise of significantly enhanced employee productivity, faster decision making and greater overall efficiency for organizations of all sizes, it also carries with it a number of quite serious risks. Among these risks are:

• Loss of sensitive or confidential data - In a survey of mid-sized and large organizations conducted by Osterman Research in 2009, the most serious problem faced by organizations in the context of their mobile messaging use is the loss of corporate data in the event a device is physically lost.
• An inability to archive mobile content - Another survey conducted by Osterman Research during 2009 found that 20% of corporate data in mid-sized and large organizations is contained on mobile devices of various types. However, few organizations have a way of archiving this content.
• An inability to monitor communications sent via mobile devices - Organizations must be able to monitor communications to detect policy or legal obligations.
• Violation of compliance obligations - There are a growing number of obligations with which virtually every organization must comply. These obligations, which are focused primarily on the archiving, encryption and monitoring of certain types of communications, are increasing in number worldwide.

In short, organizations face a variety of risks from their inability to properly manage, secure and archive the use of mobile devices in their organizations.

The answer, then, is to deploy a capability that will permit mobile devices to be used as freely as possible by as many people in an organization as necessary, while at the same time allowing IT to manage these devices and the content that users send and receive with them.

We have just published an executive brief on this topic that you can download at http://www.ostermanresearch.com/whitepapers/download102.htm.