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home > unit 8: convergence, collaboration, and "presence"

The sweet spot for CJ communications technology is where you can seamlessly combine data and communication from a variety of sources, combined with real-time, location-based information so that you can plan your approach on a real-time basis and constantly adjust to changing circumstances.

Presence

Last week's issue of Network World featured an article by analyst Melanie Turek of Nemertes Research, based on a study she wrote last year on the emerging concept of "presence."

As the lead said:

"By themselves, today's collaboration technologies, such as instant messaging and audio, video and Web conferencing, help make workers more productive. But when combined with presence -- information about where users are, what applications or devices they're using and how to best reach them -- those collaboration tools can become part of a virtual workplace in which employees can quickly get information they need and ad hoc groups can set up meetings on the fly."

Several applications, including ones that provide corporate IM, already provide some of the features of presence as part of their collaboration tools:

More important are the new real-time "communication dashboards," which allow you to visualize all these components -- such as names of team members, actions such as "meet now," or " send file" -- on a single screen. You can see instantly whether a team member was available, and how best to contact him or her.

In a crisis, the ability to visualize this kind of information and factor in real-time, location-based information could be invaluable. Among those applications that merge VoIP, conferencing, data, and presence are:

For more information on presence and collaboration, subscribe to Stuart Henshall's "Unbound Spiral" blog for leading-edge thinking on the subject.

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